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O F F - S E A S O N R E P O R T started breaking it out," Franklin said. "What's it going to look like from a football perspective? I talked to the staff about it. We usually get vacation time in the summer. I told the staff: I've had a conversation with my wife, you'll probably need to have conversations with your wives and start to prepare your families. There's a chance we won't get any vacation time this sum- mer because everything is just going to get bumped back." From this vantage point, bumped back is probably the best-case scenario. The other scenarios involve either a partial or full cancellation of the 2020 season. But let's assume for a moment that football will be played in some form dur- ing the 2020-21 academic year. How will the cancellation of spring practice affect the Lions' off-season preparations? Let's take a position-by-position look: QUARTERBACK Throughout his search for a new offensive coordinator/quarter- backs coach last December, Franklin in- sisted that one of his main criteria was whether the candidates would be able to adapt to what Penn State was already doing, rather than asking players to learn an entirely new system. Upon hir- ing Kirk Ciarrocca from Minnesota, Franklin emphasized that the choice would allow for the kind of continuity he was seeking. That decision is looking better by the day. While we don't know what form preseason practice will take, we can be pretty sure of this: It won't allow for the terbacks," Ciarrocca said. "That's one of the things that they do really well. One of their strengths is their athleti- cism, so we're going to continue to do that. "I just think that you have to be pru- dent with it. How many times are you asking him to run between the tackles in a game, that type of stu;. It'll be from game to game, depending on who we're playing and what we need to do to give us the best chance to win the game. It's really that simple. I do un- derstand that every time I ask him to run the ball, I've increased his risk of an injury, that's for sure. But hey, it is part of the game. "One thing about these quarterbacks here – besides the fact that they're athletic – that I've really been im- pressed with is their work in the weight room, and the way their bodies are built, how they look. That's a tribute to our strength sta; and what they've done with these guys. They look di;er- ent than Tanner did. They're built a lit- tle bit di;erently to be able to take a little bit more of a pounding than maybe he could have. But their skill sets are di;erent." Ciarrocca came to Penn State with a gaudy resume, having served as P.J. Fleck's o;ensive coordinator at West- ern Michigan and Minnesota. A year ago, the Gophers :nished fourth in the Big Ten in both scoring o;ense (34.1 ppg) and total o;ense (432.0 ypg). Re- ceivers Rashod Bateman and Tyler Johnson both topped 1,200 yards, while Morgan led the conference with an av- erage of 250.2 passing yards per game. That kind of success will buy a coach a lot of credibility at a new school, and that indeed has been the case for Ciar- rocca at Penn State. Tight ends coach Tyler Bowen, who served as interim of- fensive coordinator in the Cotton Bowl, said the key for the Nittany Lions going forward will be to fully commit to Ciar- rocca's plan for the o;ense. "I'm going to have blind faith in him," Bowen said. "That's the only way that we're going to get anything done. There are obviously going to be discus- sions that happen, but ultimately, it's my job as an assistant to help him and help our team. So I'm blind faith bought in. When we decide something, that's our decision. It's not just him, it's all of us. And the same thing with the players. It's all of us. It's our of- fense. We all touch it. So I think that's the biggest thing: approach it with an open mind and blind faith buy in. He's had so much experience doing it at a high level, I think everyone will be very pleased." ■ INSTANT OFFENSE Before leaving for Penn State in De- cember, Ciarrocca helped Minnesota average 432 yards and 34.1 points per game during the 2019 season. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athlet- ics

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