Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1101150
team rules, putting a damper on an otherwise superb junior season in which he amassed 11 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks. If he's back in the staff's good graces, that's very posi- tive news for the Nittany Lions as they look to rebuild the interior of their defensive line. At the other DT spot, where Kevin Givens caught a lot of people off-guard in January by announcing that he was leaving early to enter the NFL Draft, Antonio Shelton looked to be getting first- team reps in practice this spring, with P.J. Mustipher backing him up. One other piece of good news: Fred Hansard was in uniform, although he did not practice during the portion of the March 20 scrimmage that was open to the media. Hansard missed the last seven games of the 2018 sea- son with a leg injury. At defensive end, Penn State must replace another NFL-bound former starter, as Shareef Miller is also for- going his final season. Miller's exit was no surprise to anyone, and the Lions appear well-equipped to re- place him. Redshirt juniors Shaka Toney, Daniel Joseph and Shane Simmons (who was not dressed for the March 20 practice) are experi- enced upperclassmen, and behind them are a few potentially high-im- pact freshman-eligible players in Jayson Oweh, Nick Tarburton and Adisa Isaac. An early enrollee, Isaac was listed at 6-4, 220 pounds when he signed with Penn State in Decem- ber, but he was up to 232 pounds on the team's spring roster. FRANKLIN SAYS "Obviously, we've got to find a two-deep that we can win with at D-tackle. We had some early departures [throughout the team] – some that we knew about and some where we weren't com- pletely sure how it was going to play out. When we say two-deep at D- tackle, typically the way we look at that is five guys. We really need to feel like we've got five guys who we can play with at that position. Maybe those fourth and fifth guys [are] guys P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >>