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happen," he added, "so I did a real good job this spring just anticipating plays." That's just one area of growth for Miller. There are other areas in which he's been focused on improvement, such as his hand placement against offensive line- men. He described it as "hand accuracy in the pass rush, when to use my hands, when to attack the offensive lineman. During the season I was just throwing my hands, but I was missing. … That's what I'm working on." He made that a priority this past winter and throughout the off-season when he was back home in Philadelphia. Working with former Penn State defensive end and fellow Philadelphian Deion Barnes, Miller strived to become more effective with his initial punch and arm extension. Miller has known Barnes since before enrolling at Penn State as a three-star de- fensive end. "We've just stayed connected and I still talk to him," Miller said. "I still talk to him almost every day and I show him clips of my one-on-ones. Then he helps me on them and then I go home and I work out with him to get better." As a sophomore, Miller finished with 37 total tackles, including five sacks and 11 tackles for loss. Barnes, who played for Penn State from 2012-14 and was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2012, watched Miller's play closely. Barnes now trains high school and col- lege defensive linemen in the southeast region of Pennsylvania. When he watched Miller, he saw an effective athlete. But he also saw someone who, at 6-foot-5, 259 pounds, had the ability to become a more physical presence along the edge. One critical tool was missing. "He said I wasn't real deliberate with my hands," Miller said. "He had me doing all these different types of drills and he actu- ally had an offensive lineman moving in his stance and he wanted my hands to hit him and have my eyes coordinate with my hands. That was something that he no- ticed when he watched film on me: My eyes and my hands aren't on the same level. That's why I keep throwing my hands and I don't see my target and keep missing, so he has some drills for me where I look at my target and [work on being] ac- curate and deliberate with my hands. That's a lot of stuff I got from working at home with him. I brought it this spring." Often accompanying Miller at those workouts with Barnes was Shaka Toney, another Philadelphia native. Miller said he has seen his redshirt sophomore team- mate develop more precise technique under the tutelage of Barnes. Toney already had natural ability with his hand placement, but combined with added size – he's now listed at 241 pounds – he's developing into a more well- rounded defensive end. At times during spring practice, he was running with the first team, opposite Miller. "Shaka is going to be real good," Miller said. "He gained a lot more weight. He's stronger than he was during the season and he's just real good with his hands. He's stronger and he's gotten more pow- erful and he uses his hands real well. He's been working out with me and Deion, too, so we've been working on that stuff since the winter." James Franklin also confirmed in the spring that early enrollee Nick Tarburton was working with the defensive ends. Tarburton started the spring as a line- backer, the position at which he received a four-star rating from Rivals.com coming out of high school. But Franklin had told him during his recruitment that Penn State considered him "a big athlete [who] could end up being a defensive lineman for us." Franklin said that Tarburton weighed 263 pounds when he enrolled in January, so he appeared to be developing into a de- fensive lineman even before starting his first spring practice. He dropped about 20 pounds in his first couple of months on campus, but the coaches decided that they would be fighting genetics by trying to keep him at linebacker for the duration of his career. Said Franklin, "His greatest potential here at Penn State and down the road is at defensive end." Since he's made the switch, Tarburton has been impressing his new position- mates. "We call him little T.J. Watt," Miller said. "He's going to be real good. He plays real fast and he's real aggressive. He just doesn't have the technique yet. He's still learning, but once he gets the technique he's going to be real good. "I think it was a real good change for him. He's real raw. He just needs tech- nique and stuff like that. He needs to keep working, and guys like me and [Ryan] Buchholz are going to help him. He's going to be real good. He plays fast and he's ag- gressive, so once he gets his technique down he's going to be real good." ■ P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> Bolds announces plans to transfer from PSU Defensive tackle Corey Bolds has transferred from Penn State, ending his Nittany Lion career before he ever got on the field. A three-star recruit in the Class of 2017, Bolds announced via Twitter on June 3 that he would be "exploring other options for the best decision for myself & my family." A native of Paterson, N.J., Bolds was one of three defensive tackles in last year's freshman class. The others were Damion Barber, who signed as a defensive end before moving inside, and Fred Hansard. Like his classmates at the position, Bolds spent his first season on cam- pus redshirting. As Penn State works to replace three senior defensive tack- les from last season, the competition to fill their vacancies started this spring and is ongoing. Head coach James Franklin said some of the red- shirt freshmen had shown "flashes" but added that he was "not ready to crown anybody at this point." A third-team All-State selection by NJ.com as a senior at Paramus Catholic, Bolds was ranked No. 21 overall in the state by Rivals.com. He is planning to resume his career at the juco level at Arizona Western College. ■

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