Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1420595
N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1 31 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M formation, and having the element of surprise working in their favor, coupled with the sheer number of repetitions they had invested in the play through- out the offseason, filled Warren with confidence that it would work. "It's a fancy-looking thing," he said, "but at the end of the day, I've got my job and the 10 other guys on the field with me have their jobs. I trust them, they trust me." That trust proved to be well-founded. Warren took the shotgun snap, plunged into the middle of the Auburn defense and came away with a touchdown. Penn State went on to win the game, 28-20, in large part because of the productivity of its tight ends. In addition to Warren's score, the Lions got six catches for 130 yards and a touchdown from their top three players at the position. Warren's touchdown, the first of his college career, might have come on a gadget play, but it offered a look at the versatility of Penn State's tight end corps. At the start of preseason camp, head coach James Franklin had labeled it "the best tight end group I've been around in 25 years in college football." Since then, the team's top three tight ends — redshirt sophomore starter Brenton Strange, sophomore backup Theo Johnson and Warren — have all had opportunities to shine, in part be- cause first-year offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich has designed a scheme that makes the most of a wide-ranging collective skill set. "It's a great offense, because you're able to display everything," Johnson said. "You're flexed out wide, you're in the slot, you're in the backfield in the fullback position. So that's what I like most about the offense: We get to do everything. "But along with that, you need to know everything. So there's a lot on our plate in the tight end room because we're expected to know pretty much every position on the offense. It's some- thing we want, though, and we're show- ing that we're capable of [handling] it." Through six games, the three tight ends had accounted for 248 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns. The group's versatility — Johnson re- fers to PSU's tight ends as the "utility knives of the offense" — stems from the players' diverse backgrounds. Johnson was a wide receiver at Park- ersburg (W.Va.) High before signing with the Nittany Lions as a part of their 2019 recruiting class, fully aware that they in- tended to turn him into a tight end once they got him in their strength and condi- tioning program and began putting weight on his 6-foot-3, 214-pound frame. That effort went about as smoothly as anyone could have hoped. In his first year on campus, he put on about 35 pounds. He's listed at 250 this season, and, as Warren noted, Strange is "prob- ably one of the best blockers on the en- Redshirt freshman Tyler Warren scored his first college touchdown on a two-yard run in the Nittany Lions' 28-20 victory over Auburn, and he scored again a week later against Villanova. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL