Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1187122
P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> T H E 2 0 1 9 S E A S O N set with our tight ends, and they're a threat." Freiermuth said going into his sopho- more season that he had to be prepared for more defensive attention after catch- ing 26 passes for 368 yards as a true freshman. "It's definitely different knowing that teams will be game plan- ning for me," he said at the start of the season. "Working with Coach [Tyler] Bowen and talking to him, I just had to know more coverages and where people were going to go and definitely just kind of figure out how to win against man [coverage]." His response to that added attention: 34 catches through 10 games for 424 yards and seven touchdowns. "He's been really good," Franklin said. "He's bigger, he's stronger, he's leaner, he's more athletic, he's quicker, he's faster, all of those types of things. And he's confident. Part of playing faster is not just that his body fat has dropped, but also because he's confident in what to do and how to do it." He's now become part of a lineage of great tight ends, many of whom have gone on to become high NFL Draft picks. One of Joe Paterno's first great players, Ted Kwalick, was a first-round draftee of San Francisco in 1969. Six years later, the Lions had two tight ends drafted in the same year, with Dan Natale going to the 49ers in the ninth round and Joe Jackson to the Dolphins in the 10th. The most successful of those early tight end draftees was Mickey Shuler, who went in the third round to the Jets in 1978 and went on to catch 462 passes for 5,100 yards over the course of a 12-year NFL ca- reer. He twice appeared in the Pro Bowl and was named to the Jets' all-time team earlier this year. In the decades that followed, Penn State sent Troy Drayton, Kyle Brady, Tony Stewart, Andrew Quarless and Shuler's son, Mickey Shuler Jr., to the league. Freiermuth could potentially leave for the NFL long before exhausting his eligi- bility. He hasn't talked publicly about his professional future, and it's likely that any conversations along those lines won't take place for a while. But even if Freiermuth were to leave early, the Lions have a pair of former four-star prospects waiting to take on bigger roles in redshirt freshman Zack Kuntz and true freshman Brenton Strange. Another four-star prospect, Theo Johnson of Windsor, Ontario, had the Lions high on his list as of this writing and was expected to announce his college choice soon. For now, though, Freiermuth is focused on making the most of his college career. And his coaches are eager to help him do just that. "I'm very pleased with him," Franklin said. "We obviously feel like we've got one of the best tight ends in college foot- ball, if not the best, and I think that will continue to grow. And really, that unit, that group, we think is fantastic." ■