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F A S T F O R W A R D >> A N E A R L Y L O O K NEWCOMERS Lance Dixon, Brandon Smith OUTLOOK The linebacker corps is look- ing strong heading into the off-season. The Nittany Lions return two starters, and the one starter they lose – Farmer – will be replaced by Parsons, who led the team in tackles as a true freshman backup in 2018. The Lions look to be especially deep in the middle. They've got Johnson back after a junior season in which he finished second on the team with 72 tackles. They've also got Brooks and Luketa, who should be even more confident operating the defense than they were as freshman- eligible players this past season. Blessed with an abundance of depth, Penn State has a lot of options here. On the outside, Brown will be back for his senior season after making 13 starts and totaling 63 tackles this past year. The 6-5, 223-pounder was one of the team's most improved defensive players, finishing with 6.5 tackles for loss (five more than in 2017) and forcing three fumbles. His finale was a disappointment, as he was ejected from the Citrus Bowl for targeting, but the coaches will be eager to see him back in ac- tion when he returns to the field in the sec- ond half of the opener against Idaho. "He always could run," Franklin said. "He was always aggressive. He's an intel- ligent guy, as well, so we thought he could do a lot of different things for us. I think part of it was [a matter of ] finding the right position for him. I think that was part of the journey for him. "The other thing is that because he's so long, getting the right type of mass on him was challenging. He put on 20 pounds and it still didn't really look like a whole lot. I t didn't take long for Penn State de- fensive coordinator Brent Pry to iden- tify the quality that would lift Micah Parsons to immediate success. Parsons' freakish athleticism wasn't it. Nor was his size a differentiating factor, even though he stood 6-foot-3, 240 pounds at age 19. What Pry really liked was Parsons' in- satiable thirst for football, not just as a competitor on the field, but in the weight room and as a student of the game. The true freshman linebacker made that clear when he arrived on campus in January 2018. "He's a great worker. He's so hungry," Pry said last August. "He's very eager and he loves to compete. He's a smart guy." So smart, Pry continued, that he didn't feel as though he was entitled to immedi- ate playing time, even though he had ar- rived at Penn State as Rivals.com's No. 1-ranked outside linebacker in the Class of 2018, No. 1-ranked prospect in Penn- sylvania, and sixth-ranked overall recruit. "He knows where he is, and he knows this isn't going to be just handed to him. He knows he's got a lot to learn to have a chance to get on the field and for us to win with him," Pry said. "He takes coach- ing very well… and I think that if he con- tinues to trend the way he's trending, he's got a chance to help us this year." By the end of the 2018 season, Parsons proved Pry's prognostication to be an understatement. Playing in each of the Nittany Lions' 13 games, Parsons led the team in tackles with 82. His 47 solo stops were also the most among all Penn State defenders, and his statistical tally included four tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks. That Parsons compiled those numbers as a backup, playing in only 494 of Penn State's 965 defensive snaps, was not lost on Pry. "The fact that Micah led our de- fense in tackles and started only one game tells the tale," he said. "He has some growing and maturing to do still, but my hat's off to him for the year he did put in. He's a young man who had never played linebacker, but he worked hard to learn it, played hard and didn't allow things to slow him down." Pry described Parsons' rush ability as "the best of any freshman I've ever been around," adding that "he's able to play fast despite not knowing what the heck he's doing. He hasn't let his mind slow him down. He can be wrong and make himself right." Of course, for Parsons to take the next step in his development, the Nittany Lions are counting on the rising sopho- more to be in the right places at the right times more often than not. The encouraging news for Penn State is that by the midpoint of his debut season, he had already started to make those strides alongside his fellow true fresh- man linebacker Jesse Luketa and redshirt freshman Ellis Brooks, all of whom earned backup reps. Their progression, along with that of the starters, turned out to be a key component in the rapid improvement of the defense as a whole. Coming off a 2017 campaign in which they allowed just 16.5 points per game, the Nittany Lions started the season slowly and had some hiccups through- out the year, most notably at Michigan, where the defense gave up five touch- downs in a 42-7 loss. But even with those performances factored into PSU's final numbers, opponents averaged only 20.5 points per game, and only twice did the defense allow more than 28 points. The Lions were especially tough against the pass, allowing only 181.5 yards per game to rank 15th nationally. The linebackers' evolution mirrored that of the defensive line. Both got bet- | STUDENT OF THE GAME On the heels of an impressive debut, Micah Parsons is driven to improve

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