Blue White Illustrated

tainly be the favorite to start. But no matter how they partition the carries between their top three returnees, their backfield combo figures to be a major asset. The one way in which the cancellation of spring practice might have thrown a wrench into Penn State's plans here was by foreclosing any chance to audition true freshman Caziah Holmes. The 5- foot-11, 208-pound Floridian arrived in January, one of 11 early enrollees in the Class of 2020. The staff will still be eager to get a look at him whenever practice begins, but he won't be the only freshman running back at that point, as Keyvone Lee will also be on hand when the team reconvenes. Still, with or without spring practice, the RBs appear poised to hit the ground running. RECEIVER And here we see just the op- posite. The Nittany Lions really could have used spring practice to start sorting out their many questions at this position group. Not only do they have a new re- ceivers coach in Taylor Stubblefield, but they have an entirely unsettled depth chart that includes only one player with more than a dozen catches on his colle- giate resume. When he was hired in January, Stub- blefield acknowledged the inexperience of the group that he had inherited and emphasized the need to make as much progress as possible in March and April. "It's going to be important coming out of spring ball that we make sure that we know the offense, that we can leave spring ball saying, you know what, I know it and I'm going to make sure that I know it and I'm going to make sure that I know what to do, so now I can really perfect how to do it," he said. Well... so much for that plan. The hope now is that Penn State will be able to cram a whole lot of off-season learning into whatever amount of pre- season practice the team gets. Four of the receivers on the spring ros- ter have freshman eligibility: redshirt frosh T.J. Jones and John Dunmore and January enrollees Jared Dottin and Ke- Andre Lambert-Smith. If spring prac- tice had gone on as scheduled, they would have battled returnees Daniel George and Cam Sullivan-Brown. An- other contender, Mac Hippenhammer, announced in April that he was transfer- ring to Miami (Ohio). How little proven depth does Penn State possess? Consider this: On the depth chart that PSU unveiled on April 18, one of the three wide receiver spots was manned entirely by freshmen (Jones, Dunmore, Dottin) and walk-ons (Alec Berger, Cameron Pica). Something else to note: During the summer months, it's common for the receivers and quarterbacks to get to- gether to work on their timing and com- munication. There's a good chance that isn't going to happen now. Those infor- mal drills might have mattered less if the Lions were returning an experienced receiver corps, but they've got just the opposite this season. Bottom line: Penn State has a lot of de- cisions to make here, and time won't be on its side when football resumes. OFFENSIVE LINE Unlike the receiver corps, PSU's offensive front doesn't lack experience. But this is another position group that really could have used a full spring practice. The line is under the di- rection of a new coach in Phil Trautwein. The former Boston College assistant ar- rived in early January and was still get- ting to know his new players when everything got shut down. Now he's not going to have the luxury of a month- long audition process. It might seem as though that wouldn't matter given the experience that Penn State returns up front. Although they lost a three-year starter in graduated left guard Steven Gonzalez, they essentially return five starters, since C.J. Thorpe and Mike Miranda shared the right guard spot last season, with Miranda starting eight games and Thorpe starting five, including the Cotton Bowl. But the situation might be a bit messier than it appears. Menet was held out during a workout in March that was open to the media, and it appears he may be recovering from an injury. If he's out of action for any length of time, the likely move would be to shift Miranda to center and allow Anthony Whigan and Sal Wormley to compete for the left guard spot. Juice Scruggs was listed as the backup center on the April 18 depth chart, but it's unknown how far along he is in his recovery from the back injury he received in a car accident in the spring of 2019. There's no position group on the field where teamwork matters more than on the offensive line. In the coming months, the linemen won't be able to do the kind of informal practicing that they would typically do in the early summer leading up to preseason camp. But every program in the country is going to be facing that same problem, and the Lions may not have it so bad considering that theirs should be one of the more experienced lines in the Big Ten this year. DEFENSIVE LINE The Lions have some questions to answer here, and as is the case at quarterback, wide receiver and on the offensive line, there's a new posi- tion coach making those decisions. John Scott Jr. was the last of Franklin's four new hires, joining the staff in February. The former South Carolina assistant would no doubt have appreciated the opportunity to evaluate his players in live drills rather than having to settle for video of last season. A month of spring practice, followed by the Blue-White Game, would have gone a long way to- ward enhancing his decision-making process. But that's not how it's going to play out. When preseason camp begins, Scott will be using it to fill two starting spots: three-technique defensive tackle and the defensive end spot opposite Shaka Toney. He appears to have at least three primary candidates for the former: P.J. Mustipher, Judge Culpepper and Damion Barber. And he's got as many as four candidates for the latter: Shane Simmons, Jayson Oweh, Smith Vilbert and possibly Adisa Isaac. Mustipher is down to 305 pounds after playing at 311 last season, an indication that Penn State wants him at the three- technique spot. P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >>

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