Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1276571
KNOWN UNKNOWNS W I D E R E C E I V E R S An inexperienced Nittany Lion wideout corps is eager to silence its doubters and show what it can do this coming season veryone knows the big question surrounding Penn State's on-field football outlook in 2020. The coaching staff knows it. The fans know it. The players who are at the center of all the speculation know it, too. The question is this: How are the wide receivers going to fare with a dearth of proven pass-catchers returning and a new assistant coach having taken charge? The unknowns vastly outnumber the knowns heading into the season, with Jahan Dotson ranking as the position group's lone experienced starter and the only wideout on campus with more than a dozen career receptions to his credit. And adding to the urgency of the matter, the questions concerning this year's receiver corps could have been copy-pasted from last year's batch of Penn State season previews, or even from the previous year's previews. The Nittany Lions were relying on inexperienced players and new position coaches in 2018 and '19, too, and the subsequent on-field results were decidedly mixed. Given the frequency with which alarm bells have been raised this off-season, Dotson wasn't surprised or disheartened when he found himself discussing those very concerns recently with a friend. His friend's view was that every position group on the team was looking solid except for the wideouts. The wideouts, his friend said, had something to prove. Dotson didn't try to argue. Instead, he contended that having something to prove was not necessarily a bad thing. "I was trying to tell him that I like that," Dotson said. "We don't have high [external] expectations. We get to go out and just ball. It's going to be so great when we go out and basically shock everyone. I feel like we can be one of the better groups in the country. We get to shock the world." For the Lions to do that, they will first need to adapt to a new coach, Taylor Stubblefield, the program's fourth receivers coach in as many seasons. They will also need some of their veterans to step forward, a list that begins (and nearly ends) with Dotson and redshirt sophomore Daniel George. The 5-foot-11, 183-pound Dotson started 17 games in his first two seasons, | E >>