Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1462941
2 0 A P R I L 2 0 2 2 GROWING SEASON GROWING SEASON James Franklin will evaluate a contingent of young impact players this spring. They could help Penn State address the weaknesses that caused it to fade last year. B y a lot of the metrics people use to judge football seasons, Penn State did not have a lousy year in 2021. The Nittany Lions finished with a win- ning record. They beat a couple of teams that were nationally ranked at the time. They were invited to a New Year's Day bowl against an SEC opponent. They showcased a potential first-round NFL Draft pick. They enjoyed so much early-season success that their leader was included in every last one of those speculation-based roundups of supposed candidates for va- cant or soon-to-be-vacant Power Five head coaching jobs. Except maybe for that last item, these are good things. But when you're ranked No. 4 in the As- sociated Press poll approaching the half- way point of the regular season and end up not even receiving votes by the time the bowl games have wrapped up, no one is going to be in a glass-half-full kind of mood going into the offseason. There's going to be some skepticism. There are going to be questions. That is where Penn State finds itself with spring practice un- derway. To his credit, James Franklin didn't try to gloss over anything when he met with reporters on March 21, just ahead of the first of Penn State's 15 practice sessions. The Lions' recent on-field results — they are 11-11 over the past two seasons, in- cluding a 7-6 finish last year — call for some real talk. Since the end of the season, Franklin has been engaging in it. At his spring practice preview, he con- ceded that the Nittany Lions didn't live up to their high hopes on offense last season, noting that coordinator Mike Yurcich is intent on "cleaning up some things that we wish we would have done better" as he heads into his second season on staff. "I think Mike would be the first one to tell you that he had greater and higher expectations than the way things played out," Franklin said. "Obviously, there were a lot of factors that went into that." M A T T H E R B | M A T T @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M