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P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> who you feel, come the fourth game of the year, they need to be really ready to play and continue to develop." ANALYSIS That fourth game of the year happens to be at Maryland, and the non- conference games preceding it are against Idaho, Buffalo and Pitt, all at home. The early-season schedule would seemingly afford Sean Spencer an op- portunity to restock his depth chart. But once October arrives, the Lions had bet- ter have built up some depth here, be- cause the games that follow their trip to College Park on Sept. 27 are against Pur- due, Iowa, Michigan and Michigan State. Windsor's return is a huge boost, and if Hansard is back, too, the Lions may just be able to develop that five-man ro- tation they want to see. That said, it wouldn't be surprising to see them wel- come a graduate transfer at this position group sometime in the months to come. As for the defensive end spots, the Lions have recruited well here the past few years, so even with Miller leaving early, there's ample reason to believe that they will continue to be one of the Big Ten's best teams at pressuring op- posing quarterbacks. Oweh flashed some real potential in limited action as a freshman last fall. LINEBACKER NEWS The Nittany Lions know what they've got in ex- perienced senior starters Cam Brown and Jan Johnson, as well as backup Ellis Brooks. So a big part of the objective this spring has been to get the younger LBs up to speed. Four-star freshmen Lance Dixon and Brandon Smith are taking part in their first spring camp, having both enrolled in January. Also, while he might seem like a veteran after leading the team in tackles last year, Micah Par- sons has only been playing linebacker for about a year. He's a quick study, as evidenced by his 83 tackles as a true freshman, but there's still a lot to learn. FRANKLIN SAYS "Early on, we knew Micah was extremely talented, but when you're asking a guy to play a different position than he played in high school, naturally, that was going to take some time to do that. Obvi- ously, he's extremely tal- ented. But from a fundamental standpoint, he had some things to catch up on and all of the stuff away from the field, and he's been phe- nomenal. He's really been phenomenal. Last semester, I think he got a 3.56. I think that's the last two semesters, so he's done extremely well. He's very coachable. He's got a very strong rela- tionship with the coaches. He's in my office all the time. He's in [Brent] Pry's office all the time. We do workouts, and he's mad when he's not chosen to com- pete." ANALYSIS The Lions look to have a very solid two-deep, with Brooks, Jesse Luketa and redshirt freshman Charlie Katshir backing up Johnson, Brown and Parsons. And with any luck, by the time the Big Ten season begins this coming fall, they'll have a pretty solid three- deep. Smith and Dixon appear to have the same kind of upside as Parsons, but they need some time to acclimate. As Franklin noted, "They're raw. They're raw mentally in terms of experience, they're raw physically in terms of funda- mentals. Things that they were able to get away with – tackling high, things like that – they can't get away with now. I think all of those midsemester fresh- LEADING MAN Parsons started only one game for the Nittany Lions as a true freshman last fall, but he still led the team in tackles with 83. He is expected to start at outside line- backer this coming fall. Photo by Ryan Snyder

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