Blue White Illustrated

The hope, of course, is that Chapter 4 will read a lot like Chapter 3, only longer. Dotson compiled his impressive numbers in just nine games, four fewer than the Nittany Lions are accustomed to playing. If the pandemic abates over the spring and summer as vaccines are rolled out, there's a good chance that the 2021 season will look a lot more nor- mal than the jerry-rigged mess we wit- nessed this past fall. If that's the case, then Dotson will have a chance to make an even bigger impact than he did in 2020. The Lions will almost certainly need him to do that. Because even though they finally appear to be trending in the right direction at the wide receiver posi- tions, they've made an unexpected, game-changing move on their coaching staff that will surely have ripple effects throughout the offense. After several seasons of upheaval within the receiver corps, a period that saw two of its position coaches exit after just one season apiece, the wideouts seemed to find their rhythm in 2020 under first- year assistant Taylor Stubblefield. In ad- dition to Dotson's emergence, Parker Washington and KeAndre Lambert- Smith developed into starters as true freshmen, with Washington ranking sec- ond on the team with 36 catches for 489 yards. In addition, Stubblefield has been working behind the scenes with several classmates of Washington and Lambert- Smith, and when they make their debuts next year, they figure to give the Lions the kind of playmaking depth they've lacked the past few years. Those gains should prove important in 2021, because the Lions will be adapting to their third offensive coordinator in as many seasons. Even more eye-opening than the news that Dotson would be coming back was the announcement 24 hours later that offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca would not. Ciarrocca had been the Lions' OC for a little more than a year when Penn State announced that he was being replaced by Mike Yurcich, a veteran offensive guru with roots in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and a history of developing quarterbacks at places like Texas, Ohio State and Oklahoma State. Under Yurcich's tutelage, Sam Ehlinger completed 60.1 percent of his passing attempts for 2,566 yards and a Big 12- best 26 touchdowns for the Longhorns last season. At Ohio State, where he spent just one season, Yurchic helped Justin Fields compile an incredible 41-3 touchdown-interception ratio, and at Oklahoma State he developed Mason Rudolph into a 4,000-yard passer and winner of the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award in 2017. Yurcich's hiring clearly means that the Nittany Lions will be looking to priori- tize their passing game, which was in- consistent in 2020 despite the steady progress of the receiver corps. The Lions finished fourth in the Big Ten in passing yards per game but also saw their hopes of vying for a Big Ten championship, or even just a winning record, torpedoed by a succession of turnovers, mostly from the quarterback position. Penn State finished 112th in the Football Bowl Sub- division in turnover margin, with its 17 giveaways ranking 12th in the Big Ten. Until that problem gets solved, they're not going to catch up to Ohio State. Catching up to Ohio State is job No. 1 for all those Big Ten programs that as- pire to compete at a championship level, and that starts with quarterback devel- opment. The Buckeyes seem to go into every season with the Big Ten's best QB situation. They're so deep that they won a national championship game after having to turn to backup Cardale Jones, so deep that they lost Joe Burrow and didn't really miss him. They turned Dwayne Haskins into a first-round draft pick and are about to do the same with Fields. That's what Penn State is up against, and in Yurcich, they have a co- ordinator with the credentials to recruit and develop elite talent. If things play out the way they did at his previous coaching stops, the biggest beneficiaries of this hire will be guys like incoming freshman Christian Veilleux and four- star Class of 2022 prospect Beau Pribula. As for the immediate future, Penn State's passing game is in the hands of quarterback Sean Clifford and his re- ceivers. Can they can adapt to Yurcich's scheme and make the kind of strides in 2021 that will be necessary to contend with the four-time defending confer- ence champions? That's an open ques- tion. This much, however, is certain: If you're looking for a good pair of hands to put something in, you could do a whole lot worse than Jahan Dotson. ■ FLYING CIRCUS Dotson's penchant for acrobatics was on full display during the Nittany Lions' 2020 season. The junior wideout finished the year with a team-high 52 catches for 884 yards and eight touchdowns. Photo by Steve Manuel

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