Blue White Illustrated

LAST WORD N A T E B A U E R | N B A U E R @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M ames Franklin isn't trying to deny Penn State's new reality this spring. His Nittany Lions are very much in a period of transition – as big a transi- tion as any they've made during his five-year tenure with the program. And the two changes to Franklin's assistant coaching staff are dwarfed by the turnover in personnel. Between the graduation losses, the five early entrants in the NFL Draft, and a bushel of players seeking out graduate transfers, the attrition that is an in- evitable part of any off-season in col- lege football has been amplified at Penn State this year. In total, 34 players from the Nittany Lions' 2018 roster are no longer with the program. And, it should be noted, those losses include a number of reliable multiyear contributors, such as Amani Oruwariye, Shareef Miller, Kevin Givens, Ryan Bates, Connor McGovern, Miles Sanders and record-setting quarterback Trace McSorley. With those players gone, the Lions will look very different in some ways this coming season. And yet, this is not a program in search of a new identity. Rather, it's a program that is hoping to fit new players into an identity that has already been established. Franklin said in late March that he thought he Lions were having a produc- tive spring. "We lack some veterans, ob- viously. But in terms of competition and in terms of the talent, I think those things are good," he said. "We need some more depth at some positions, so we'll be looking to maybe bring in some transfers, and then we have the rest of the freshmen coming in. "By the time we get to camp, I think we'll be in a good place. But we're just a little thin, not in terms of our first two teams, but some of the threes, and we're just a little bit younger across the board." How that youth manifests itself this year is the primary question Franklin and the Nittany Lions will try to resolve through the course of the next five months leading into a season-opening date with Idaho. The hope within the program is that Penn State's inexperi- ence can be largely concealed as the young players mature into their roles. The balancing act will be a delicate one for Franklin and his staff to navi- gate. Not only must they determine which of their young players are pre- pared to make an early impact, they must also put those players into the roles that make the best use of their in- dividual skill sets. What's more, the coaches must base those evaluations on a relatively small number of practices. This spring, 35 of the 101 players on the roster are either true or redshirt freshmen. Another 12 scholarship freshmen will arrive in the coming months, and they'll be joined by a handful of preferred walk-ons. Penn State also has 36 true or redshirt sopho- mores, so a significant portion of the roster this fall will have, at most, one season of game action and, at most, two years of practices. That inexperience has been impossi- ble to miss this spring, even though many of the recent arrivals held four- star designations from Rivals.com com- ing out of high school. "There are some guys getting a bunch of reps right now who are clueless and still figuring it out, which is fine," Franklin said. "That's what spring ball is for, especially for those midsemester guys. "All those true freshmen, they're just so raw. They're talented, but they're raw. They're raw mentally in terms of experience. They're raw physically in terms of fundamentals. Things that they were able to get away with… they just can't get away with now. I think all those midsemester freshmen have all had that welcome-to-college-football moment by now. That's a humbling ex- perience. They're not used to that." The luxury of winter workouts, spring practice and an entire summer's worth of preparation is that those players then have the ability to battle through it. In some cases, Franklin said, they already have done that. Penn State's goal is to have as many young players ready to contribute as possible. The summer workouts and preseason camp are "going to be important," Franklin said. "And there will be a handful of those guys, those freshmen, who come in this sum- mer who will be ready. But we'll see." The "we'll see" part of the equation is what Franklin and his staff will be gird- ing for in the meantime. To do so, they'll rely on the experience that re- mains in the program. With so many graduate transfers leav- ing this off-season, only 12 players will embark on their final seasons of eligibility in 2019. Eighteen more will have junior eligibility, and Franklin has made it clear that he will be looking to add graduate transfers at wide receiver and possibly on the offensive line, too, this off-season. On both sides of the ball, those estab- lished players are on track to carry an outsized burden of responsibility, espe- cially early in the season. "Sometimes you've got a young foot- ball team, and while you're waiting for some guys to take the next step, you need to feed your playmakers and lean on them a little bit more than normal," Franklin said. "But you hope that bal- ances out as the year goes on." If Penn State hopes to continue its as- cent this season – an ascent that has produced the seventh-best winning per- centage among all Power Five programs the past three years – it will have to. ■ Transition game J

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