Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> LOSS LEADER D E F E N S I V E L I N E M E N Apke. Troy was one and done as a starter, but we were excited about Troy going into his senior year. He just played behind some good guys. Nick Scott has been chomping at the bit to have an expanded role on de- fense. Ayron Monroe is a very talented safety with a skill set that probably fits the corner position. Lamont Wade, we know a lot about Lamont, obviously. He's a guy who's going to compete at that spot. Jonathan Sutherland, we're super excited about him and the spring he had. We kind of feel about him like we do about Dono- van Johnson. Garrett Taylor – smart, polished, works himself into the right position. He's a guy who's going to compete to be in the lineup there. It's kind of like how I feel at line- backer – there's a good pool of guys that gets you excited. Yeah, we lost four guys, but Amani was basically a starter in all of our third-down stuff. John Reid has played a gazillion snaps. So it's not like you're putting four newbies out there. You've got two vets, and then Nick has played a fair amount of ball. So I feel good that way. BWI Will you be looking for more turnover opportunities from that group this year? PRY Last year we started off really strong. Through the midpoint, we were well ahead of where we were the year before, and then we hit a dry spell. And to be honest, we needed another turnover or two in those two losses. We train it, we coach it, we teach it, we reward guys for takeaways. We make a big deal out of it, and I think some- times they just come in waves. What we did in preparation to go into the season, well, you would have said it worked for the first half. But then what the heck happened in the second half? It went and dried up. So it's something we'll just keep empha- sizing. Obviously, it's very valuable when you have an offense like ours. The more opportunities you give them with the football, the more that scoreboard is going to light up. ■

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