Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> F ollowing the Blue-White Game in April, Penn State offensive coordina- tor Ricky Rahne was asked to address a new wrinkle that had been on display in the portions of spring practice that were open to the media. During the 2016 and '17 seasons, Saquon Barkley was almost always aligned to Trace McSorley's left or right in the shotgun, but in practice, and again in the spring game, the fifth-year senior quarterback had Miles Sanders and Mark Allen flanked to his left and right at times. Could the two-back set be Rahne's own distinct twist on the offen- sive system he inherited from Joe Moor- head? Not exactly, he said. "It's expanded. Some of it was neces- sity. There are 75,000 people there, and they didn't want us to be out there with only 10 guys on the field, so we had to make sure that we had all 11 out there," Rahne explained. "We had a few less tight ends, we had a few more running backs, so it's just something that we thought we could do to get some of our good play- ers on the field." Noting that the wrinkle to the offense is something that he believed would provide some "good looks" in the future, Rahne also acknowledged that the package would likely expand through preseason camp. Still, it would not be used to di- minish the role of the tight end in Penn State's offense, he suggested. The spring game took place less than a week before the NFL Draft, and the prox- imity of those two events underscored just how much Penn State's circum- stances have changed at the tight end po- sition. Three-year starter Mike Gesicki was selected No. 42 overall by the Miami LEADING QUESTIONS T I G H T E N D S Lions still seeking answers as they try to replace workhorse TE Mike Gesicki | ROUTE 80 Dalton looks to throw a block during the Blue- White Game. Photo by Bill Anderson

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