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P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> strength. He'll ask players, do you bench more or squat more? "Hopefully they say they squat more," he said, "so that's how we want to play. We want to play on our legs, because if you're playing on your upper body, then you're not using the most powerful part of your body – your legs and your core. "Now, when you're talking about the pass game, you want to sit on your legs, you want to play on your legs, but you also want to be violent with your hands – punching, keeping that separation. You see the best tackles on Sunday, they punch and they keep that sep- aration. I've been able to learn that through my NFL offensive line coaches and my coaches in college. But it always comes down to being violent with your hands." As he works to sharpen their technique, Trautwein has also been trying to develop a good rapport with his new players. At a recent "family dinner," documented by GoPSUSports.com, he took the linemen to a down- town eatery for a night of off-the-field bonding. Trautwein warned at the start of the evening that he and his players were ready to "eat a lot of calories, a lot of food," and he wasn't kidding. At the end of the short clip, a pair of waitresses recounted the damage: 300 wings, four plates of nachos, five plates of buffalo shrimp, an assortment of burgers, sand- wiches, pierogies and pasta dishes. It looked like a fun time, the kind that future offensive line prospects might want to be a part of someday. Which was surely the point of packaging it into a two-minute video and tweet- ing it out to the masses. In addition to helping sell the pro- gram, the clip offered a window into the relationship between Trautwein and a group of players who aren't all that much younger than he is. At one point, he dips a sprig of broccoli into a plate of hummus while the players behind him devour nachos and chicken wings. He explains that he's trying to eat healthy because his playing days are behind him; those calories don't burn up quite so readily when you aren't spending your afternoons hitting a blocking sled. Still, if you didn't know better, you might mistake Trautwein for a Nittany Lion offensive lineman himself. At one point in his life, that's exactly what he wanted to be. But in the years since, that dream has been superseded by another. "I kind of have the mindset that I want to be the best O-line coach in the country," he said. "I want to have the best O-line in the country." In other words, Trautwein is driven to excel in what- ever he puts his mind to. Sounds like he's been a Penn State guy all along. ■ LUCKY SEVEN Franklin is preparing for his seventh season at Penn State. He's gone 56-23 overall with the Nittany Lions, in- cluding a 42-11 mark since the start of the 2016 sea- son. His teams have won 11 games in three of the past four years. Photo by Steve Manuel

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