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"It's about giving people different looks and having a disguise package and having your players unset," Butler explained. "We're trying to teach our players how to understand the concepts of our defense – where the strengths are, what the weaknesses are and how a different picture can still be aggressive, but [the plays can] still be very basic. It's not always about blitzing more. It's really just about having multiple complementary parts that can confuse and disrupt the other team's offense, which is what we want to do." As Lucas pointed out, the players are responding well to the transition from Roof to Butler, including the in- SPREADING THE WORD Butler is a vocal presence, both in practice and on the sideline. creased vocal intensity. In fact, most of them don't perceive it as much of a transition, which is Butler's goal. "When nothing's new," he said, "they're going to play better and faster." Butler worked closely with Lucas last year, but even the athletes on the front seven have embraced the new – or old – style. "[Butler] is a familiar face, and we're not going to change things up a ton," senior linebacker Glenn Carson said. "We're light years ahead of where we were last spring. I think everyone's excited. Coach Butler is a guy who everybody loves, and a lot of guys want to play for him." Coaches pushing Johnson to become a consistent force Tim Owen He and Roof tried to implement those formations last season, but the Lions didn't have the necessary personnel. Butler and Roof had previously crossed paths at Minnesota. In 2008 Butler was the Gophers' special teams coordinator, while Roof was their defensive coordinator. It was the only time they worked together before joining O'Brien's staff last fall. "Ted and I were very similar," Butler said. "That's why I came here, to work with Billy and to be at Penn State. But I also knew Ted, and we shared a lot of the same philosophical things." Butler pledged that the defense will be just as aggressive as it was a year ago, which doesn't necessarily mean the Lions will blitz more or play an inyour -face, man-to-man coverage scheme the entire game. Rather, the defense will be based around deceptive formations – "pictures" in the Nittany Lions' parlance – that aim to distort the pre-snap reads for opposing quarterbacks. Yet they'll mostly play a fundamental base defense, tweaking it with respect to the next opponent. | Identifying talent is not the hardest part of John Butler's job. The hardest part is to develop players so that they are able to use their talent consistently. After watching defensive tackle Austin Johnson in practice last season, Butler and his fellow Nittany Lion coaches were in agreement: Johnson had the talent to be an impact player on Penn State's defensive line. But now that he's approaching his first season of action, can the redshirt freshman become a consistent force? It's a big question for the Lions, because Johnson is the likely successor to graduated AllBig Ten lineman Jordan Hill. "Nobody is a sure thing," Butler said. "He is a talented young player who just needs to keep practicing, but we would recruit a guy like him over and over and over again and be really good. He just needs time. "Guys are much better the older they get and more experienced they get, and he's a good, hardworking young player who is probably going to play a lot of football for us next year. Larry [Johnson] is going to do a great job with him and get him ready." Ty Howle has seen Johnson's potential up close. The senior center lined up against him in practice last season and said the Galloway, N.J., native held his own as a true freshman. "He's a young kid who is big, strong, and physically looks good," Howle said. "He was with the defense [last season]; he wasn't with the Dirty Show, so we would go nine-on-seven on Tuesdays when we would go against the defense. He's an explosive, smart player and he's gotten better. "That's what you expect from all those D-linemen who are being coached by Coach J. They say this place is LBU, but this could also be D-Line U. He's always coaching SEE JOHNSON PAGE 60

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