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I have better pad level coming out of a three-point stance." Penn State spent its off-season tinker- ing with more than just the technical as- pects of offensive line play. The Nittany Lions also tried some different combina- tions in preseason practice, giving veteran right tackle Will Fries an audition at guard, where the team was looking to fill its only vacancy from the 2019 season. That experiment gave the staff a chance to look at highly touted redshirt freshman Caedan Wallace at tackle. During a recent appearance on the Penn State Coaches Show, Trautwein described the 6-foot-5, 313-pound Wallace as a "great talent" who responds well to coaching. "You can coach him hard. You can tell him exactly what he needs to do to get better and he will listen, and he'll go out there and do everything he can to do it," Trautwein said. "He's learning the game. He's learning how to be a technician. He's starting to understand that his talent got him here to Penn State, but now it's those little things, the little details, the funda- mentals, that are going to make him a great football player. "You can just see his development over the past two, three months since we've been back and how every day he's just grown. He has his ups and downs because he's young, but he has some really, really good days and now he just has to be more consistent. ... I was the same way [as a player]. With a lot of young guys, the one [question] is, how consistent can they be? It's about locking in every day. And he's growing every single day, which is great." Despite the steady development of in- experienced players such as Wallace, Sal Wormley and Des Holmes, the starting five looked mostly familiar against Indi- ana. Walker was at left tackle, Fries at right tackle, C.J. Thorpe at right guard, Mike Miranda at left guard and Michal Menet at center. That's how the Lions' veteran line had been ex- pected to look at the begin- ning of the season. Trautwein said heading into the 2020 campaign that he felt good about how the unit was shap- ing up. "I feel we're ready to go," he said. "We still have to keep developing, keep getting better, keep working on our tech- nique. But we're getting closer and closer every day." Players have said that Trautwein, who won two national titles at Florida as a player and played four seasons in the NFL, excels at demonstrating the techni- cal aspects of offensive line play. The first thing Menet noticed about his new posi- tion coach was how well Trautwein broke down the mechanics of effective block- ing. "When it comes down to it, playing O- line revolves around the same type of technique things," he said. "Each coach has their own twist to it. I think Coach Trautwein, playing off of his experience, he knows what works and what doesn't. "I think the biggest thing for him is fir- ing off the ball, getting off the ball really quick in the run game. All the way around, playing with your legs and having RISING STAR Wallace impressed coaches and team- mates throughout the off-season and is expected to see substantial action at offensive tackle this season. Photo by Ryan Snyder >>

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