Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> C O A C H S P E A K R I C K Y R A H N E No longer, said Sanders, now confident that he's completely comfortable with the concepts that shape both the run and pass game. "It allows me to play faster," he said. "This game is fast. It gets faster once you get to the next level, too, so just knowing where the defenses are going to be allows you to play faster and helps me get to places better." All of these elements have Sanders' teammates excited for the coming weeks and months. With Barkley, Mike Gesicki, DaeSean Hamilton and a number of other talented veterans now playing in the NFL, the Nit- tany Lions are taking an underdog men- tality into the coming season, intent on dispelling any suggestion that their suc- cess in 2016 and '17 was due to the pres- ence of a handful of irreplaceable players. The notion is especially evident in the way the Lions have rallied around Sanders, consistently citing him as being poised for a breakout season. "He's going to be electric this year," of- fensive lineman Connor McGovern said. "You saw the glimpses the past two years. This is going to be his year. It's definitely the speed and the power. He sees the hole, he's going to run through it. He's not al- ways going to try to give you the shake. He's going to go right through you sometimes. "We came in together and he was a little bit smaller then. Now you see him and he's just a completely different person. A lot bigger, a lot stronger, a lot faster, and it's going to be his year." Maybe just as important as the physical attributes Sanders brings to the field are the developments he's made off it. Noting that Sanders was fortunate to have had the opportunity to practice and train alongside Barkley, head coach James Franklin said he has taken pride in the maturation process that has taken hold. Since his arrival in 2016, Sanders has shown continual physical, academic and mental growth, the coach explained. "I know he's hungry. I know he's ex- cited," Franklin said. "He's doing all the right things off the field, [and] we're big believers [that] discipline off the field translates on the field. We talk about it all the time with our guys. "Miles has really matured from high school to now, and I think he has really taken advantage of what this opportunity presents for him. I think he's going to have a big year. I think we're going to have a lot of production out of our running back position." The influence of that mentality extends beyond just Sanders, of course. Having developed himself through each of the past two seasons, Sanders is also taking to heart his role as a leader in a running backs room with a pair of excit- ing young backs in redshirt freshman Journey Brown and true freshman Ricky Slade. Suddenly one of the team's veter- ans, Sanders is embracing the new role. "The one thing I've seen from Miles that's changed is that he's assumed a leadership role, and that's been really, re- ally good," Rahne said. "He's a guy who has always been a little bit in the back- ground for obvious reasons, but I think he's stepped out and really gone into a leadership role. That's critical for our football team. We want as many leaders as we can possibly get." With that mentality pushing him for- ward, Sanders looks ready to step out of Barkley's shadow and into his own mo- ment in the spotlight. "I feel like I'm much faster, stronger. Mentally, I feel better. I feel like I know the offense way more. I know the defenses way more," he said. "I feel like I'm a leader on this team now, and I have a bigger role. So I'm just ready to help this team win and get far in the season." ■ ON THE OFFENSIVE LINE We've had pretty good o:enses over the last two years. There were 9ve guys out there who were blocking, so I think that the perception of our o:ensive line is prob- ably not accurate. When you 9nish in the top 10 in the country in scoring, we understand that we have talented foot- ball players carrying the football and throwing it and things like that, but there are guys who are opening up those holes and doing those sorts of things. That being said, I think Coach [Matt] Limegrover has done a terri9c job build- ing a culture in that room. And those guys, they come to work. They are very driven and they help each other. They are talking ball all the time while still being able to have fun. I'm really just looking forward to the consistency that those guys are going to bring, but also the competition within that room that is going to allow us to be better day in and day out. ON THE RECEIVER CORPS I saw a major step up from even spring practice with the receivers [on the 9rst day of presea- son drills]. I was extremely pleased with some of the things that K.J. Hamler did and Mac Hippenhammer and Cam Sul- livan-Brown. Those guys did some great things at practice. I was very, very, very happy about that. ON THE BACKUP QUARTERBACKS I was really extremely pleased with Sean Clif- ford. He approached the summer the way he should. He was very busi- nesslike. He got bigger, faster, stronger. … He also took a very [diligent] mental approach to the summer and made some major strides there, too, which I was very pleased about. Will Levis, he's a very talented kid. Obviously, once you make the jump from high school to col- lege, that's a jump up in speed and things like that. But I told him yester- day, my 9rst day playing college foot- ball, I was given the kicker balls to throw because me and my other fellow freshman quarterbacks could not throw a spiral, and our quarterback coach did not want me scu;ng the balls. So he's already way, way ahead of me there. We're on a positive trajectory. ■

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