Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1294210
lot of work to do to bolster their re- sumes. Thanks to the Big Ten's postponement, that "relatively brief practice window" has turned out to be significantly longer than expected. That's probably a good thing as far as the Nittany Lion wideouts are concerned, even with the 12-hour limit in place throughout early Septem- ber. The longer run-up to the season has given summer arrivals Norval Black, Malick Meiga and Parker Washington more time to acclimate to the college environment, and it's given everyone a better chance to get to know Stubblefield. If there's a bright side to the Big Ten's uncertain ap- proach to the 2020 sea- son, it might just be that it gave Penn State's most inexperienced position group an opportunity to hit the ground running. Ciarrocca said during a recent appearance on the Penn State Coaches Show that the re- ceiver group "has probably improved more than any other position" on the of- fense since his arrival in December. But he also cautioned that the young re- ceivers still need to show that they can transfer those improvements from the practice field to the playing field. "It's critical that we have wide re- ceivers who, when they're in a one-on- one situation, can win and we can make the defense pay," Ciarrocca said. "It helps open everything else up for us. So I'm excited about these guys and their growth. KeAndre [Lambert-Smith] has shown some great potential to be an ex- plosive player for us. Parker is showing great potential. They could possibly have an immediate impact. I'm excited about the whole group of them overall, [and] I'm really excited about those two young guys. But they've all really im- proved. I think Jahan [Dotson], some of the older guys – [Daniel George], Cam Sullivan-Brown – have done a great job in leading the group, too. They're always the first group on the field when we're doing these skill developments, and they're the last group to leave the field, so that's exciting to me." TIGHT END WHAT WE SAID IN AUGUST "There's not a whole lot of uncertainty at the top of the depth chart. [Pat] Freiermuth is set for his third starting season and has de- veloped into one of the top tight ends in the country, a guy who should have been on the Mackey Award's short list last year and will almost certainly be there this year." – Matt Herb WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE A lot has happened, but not a lot has changed. In September, it was reported that Freiermuth was planning to skip the season in order to prep for the draft. It made sense. Hailed as a young Rob Gronkowski, he has a chance to be se- lected somewhere in the mid- to late first round, so his apparent decision to leave Penn State after just two seasons seemed entirely logical. >> NEXT IN LINE After Freiermuth, the Nittany Lions' most ex- perienced tight end is Kuntz. The former four-star prospect is get- ting ready for his redshirt sopho- more season. Photo by Steve Manuel