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portant thing to me is that we get him to graduation here in December." Franklin said that he, too, was focused on Bowen's progress toward a degree. While the Nittany Lions have some needs at linebacker with two of last year's starters, Jason Cabinda and Bran- don Smith, having graduated, Franklin said he wasn't worried about how peo- ple would interpret his decision to wel- come Bowen back. "I don't want any decisions that we make be need-based," he said. "I also don't want decisions that we make to be influenced [by] the perception of it. I want to do things because they are the right things to do. "We created some stipulations for Manny to achieve from the time he left the program. If he lived up to his end, then he would have an opportunity to earn his way back on the roster. … We felt like this plan was going to give him the best opportunity to graduate in De- cember and leave with his degree, but we didn't make it easy on him. I was sur- prised when he said, 'I'm going to try to grind this thing out.' Because the easiest thing to do would have been just to transfer. We put a bunch of stipulations out, and he met those stipulations." Bowen is one of the Nittany Lions' most experienced defensive players, having started 21 games over the past two seasons. He was Penn State's fifth- leading tackler last season despite miss- ing the team's final four games. During the first full week of preseason practice, Bowen apparently picked up right where he left off. Said Franklin, "Manny has looked really, really good. He's obviously one of our most experi- enced, older veteran guys." However, there are still questions as to when he will have a chance to get back on the field. Franklin said there was no guarantee of playing time when Bowen opted to remain at Penn State. "I can't tell you what his role on the team is going to be like, to be honest with you," Franklin said at media day. Pry indicated that Bowen's role could be limited, at least initially. "In my mind, I'm not planning on Manny Bowen right now," he said. "With what we know, the information we have, that's the way this thing is playing out right now. If things change, we'll take another look at it." In other personnel news, the Nittany Lions recently lost two players, as line- backer Brailyn Franklin is no longer with the team, and quarterback Jake Zembiec has been forced to give up football. Franklin was a member of Penn State's 2017 recruiting class. He had been a first-team All-State linebacker at Bat- tlefield High in Haymarket, Va., and that's the position he played while red- shirting last season. He was listed at 204 pounds on the Nittany Lions' 2017 ros- ter, but this past spring, he was at 247 and had moved to defensive end. As of mid-August, it was not known whether he intends to continue his foot- ball career at another school. Zembiec had joined the Lions in 2016 after leading Aquinas Institute to two New York Class AA championships. The former four-star prospect redshirted as a true freshman at Penn State and did not get on the field last fall. Zembiec did see action in the Blue- White Game this past April, completing 6 of 12 passes for 39 yards and a touch- down, but he has been bothered by a lin- gering shoulder injury and will take a medical scholarship. "I want to thank my family as well as my Penn State brothers and coaches for supporting my decision," he said via Twitter. His exit leaves Penn State with four scholarship quarterbacks this fall: Trace McSorley, Tommy Stevens, Sean Clifford and Will Levis. McSorley is in his final season, and Stevens will wrap up his ca- reer following the 2019 season, but the Lions have received verbal commit- ments from two four-star quarterback prospects in the Class of 2019: Taquan Roberson and Michael Johnson Jr. ■

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