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it's an asset to have all the guys we have, because they know they may have had only two catches this game, but it's going to come back around and they're going to have 12 sometime. "The guys all know they just have to do their job and the ball is going to come to them when it's supposed to come to them. Trace is not going to force the ball to a guy. The ball is going to come to me when it's supposed to come to me, and then it's my job to make the play – I think as a whole team, it's that mental- ity. But having a quarterback like Trace who's going to really, really believe in that – that's the key to it." In its 3rst season with Rahne in charge of the o4ense, Penn State will almost certainly adhere to the three basic princi- ples of the scheme that Moorhead estab- lished in his two seasons with the team. PRINCIPLE NO. 1 Keep the defense guessing Last year, the Nittany Lions relied on a handful of players for most of their yardage. Barkley and McSorley com- bined for 1,762 of Penn State's 2,212 yards rushing, while McSorley threw for 3,570 of its 3,772 passing yards. Gesicki, Barkley, Hamilton, Thompkins and Johnson totaled 246 of Penn State's 301 pass receptions and 3,196 of its 3,772 re- ceiving yards. One might have expected the team's re- liance on Barkley and a handful of other playmakers to increase the o4ense's pre- dictability. But in fact, the opposite was true. Moorhead was consistently able to keep defenses o4-balance. Under Rahne, as was the case under Moorhead, Penn State's o4ense consists of a limited number of plays, but each play includes a variety of options. The defensive look determines which option the o4ense uses. It was an o4ensive con- cept that players completely bought into the past two seasons. Now, with Barkley, Gesicki and Hamil- ton o4 to the NFL, will Penn State's new skill position players buy into the o4ense the way their predecessors did? Rahne doesn't appear to be at all con- cerned about whether that will happen. "I probably think it's a little rough at 3rst, especially when maybe they feel like they're open and the ball goes some- where else," he said. "But I think overall it's the culture that our team has built, and it's the culture that our o4ense has built. They buy in pretty fast. "There are times when all of us, we want the ball, but the guys on our team, they want the ball not because they're sel3sh but because they feel like they give our team the best chance to win. So I think that's a great mentality to have." One example of the way that younger players have embraced the o4ensive sys- tem is Hamler. This past spring, Franklin called the 5-foot-9, 176-pound receiver LT Ryan Bates Alex Gellerstedt Will Fries LG Steven Gonzalez Zach Simpson Mike Miranda C Michal Menet Mike Miranda Zach Simpson RG Connor McGovern C.J. Thorpe Charlie Shuman RT Chasz Wright Des Holmes Will Fries QB Trace McSorley Tommy Stevens Sean Cli3ord RB Miles Sanders Mark Allen Johnathan Thomas Journey Brown Ricky Slade WR-slot DeAndre Thompkins K.J. Hamler Brandon Polk Jahan Dotson WR-X Juwan Johnson Cam Sullivan-Brown Justin Shorter WR-Z Brandon Polk Mac Hippenhammer K.J. Hamler TE Jonathan Holland Nick Bowers Danny Dalton Pat Freiermuth Zack Kuntz DEFENSE DE Shareef Miller Yetur Gross-Matos Shane Simmons DT Kevin Givens Damion Barber Ellison Jordan DT Robert Windsor Antonio Shelton P.J. Mustipher Fred Hansard DE Shaka Toney Shane Simmons MLB Jan Johnson Ellis Brooks Jesse Luketa Jake Cooper Sam OLB Cam Brown Micah Parsons Jesse Luketa Jake Cooper Will OLB Koa Farmer Jarvis Miller Dae'Lun Darien CB John Reid Donovan Johnson Zech McPhearson FS Nick Scott Lamont Wade Jonathan Sutherland SS Garrett Taylor Lamont Wade Ayron Monroe CB Amani Oruwariye Tariq Castro-Fields Zech McPhearson PR DeAndre Thompkins K.J. Hamler KR Journey Brown Brandon Polk Ricky Slade * As of mid-August P R O J E C T E D P E N N S T A T E D E P T H C H A R T * O F F E N S E D E F E N S E S P E C I A L T E A M S OR OR OR OR OR OR OR OR OR OR OR OR

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