Blue White Illustrated

I t seems to be the consensus of the me- dia members who cover Penn State football on a daily basis that the Nit- tany Lions will =nish somewhere around .500 this fall. Their reasoning is easy to explain. Penn State still has only 75 scholarship players on its roster. Only eight scholarship of- fensive linemen were practicing at the start of spring drills, and injuries have already cut into the unit's minimal depth. Gone are nearly all of last year's leaders: Allen Robinson, DaQuan Jones, John Urschel and Glenn Carson. The Li- ons will be inexperienced at both defen- sive tackle positions and will go into the season with only four scholarship line- backers on their roster who have amassed any game experience. Given all those questions, it's unlikely that many members of the media will agree with me when I say it's realistic for Penn State to hope for an 8-4 record this fall. I'll admit that's an optimistic view on my part, but it's rooted in a realistic appraisal of the team's talent. The caveat is that the Lions need to make strides in four critical areas. 1. Penn State must come out of spring practice with the makings of a much more balanced oensive attack. The Nittany Lions really had only one consistent go-to o?ensive performer last season. That player was Robinson, who totaled 97 catches for 1,432 yards. As a team, Penn State =nished third in the Big Ten in pass o?ense with an aver- age of 259.2 yards per game, and seventh in the in rushing, averaging 174 yards. At =rst glance, the Lions' passing and rushing numbers might seem reasonably well balanced, but when you break them down on an individual basis, you start to get a little concerned. Robinson was the only Nittany Lion to rank among the conference's top 25 pass catchers, while Zack Zwinak was the only Penn State running back listed among the top 10 rushers. Zwinak averaged 82.4 yards per game and 4.7 per carry. Meanwhile, Penn State's tight ends to- taled only 60 catches for 758 yards and seven TDs last fall a@er =nishing with 82 catches for 1,090 yards and 10 TDs the year before. In essence, Robinson ended up being the Lions' only big-play specialist on of- fense last season. They can't a?ord to have that happen again. Penn State's of- fense will have to be balanced and mul- ti-dimensional in 2014. For that to happen, the tight ends need to become more involved. The Nittany Lions certainly have the personnel they need to make this position a major factor in their o?ense. Redshirt sophomore Brent Wilkerson is set to return a@er re- covering from a back injury that forced him to miss the 2013 season, Kyle Carter is healthy, Jesse James may be the most physically gi@ed tight end in the Big Ten, Adam Breneman came on strong at the end of last season, and those players will be joined this fall by one of the team's most prized recruits: Mike Gesicki. It's one of the top tight end groups in the country, and it will need to recapture some of the magic of the 2012 season in order for Christian Hackenberg to pro- duce the type of numbers he did last year. The Nittany Lions also have the poten- tial to improve their running game. Zwinak provides the power, Bill Belton provides the versatility, and there are hopes that Akeel Lynch will be able to provide the home run potential that Zwinak and Belton don't possess. Zwinak, Belton and an improved Lynch have the potential to give Penn State the best three-man rotation at running back in the Big Ten. I'm convinced that if the Lions are able to =eld a truly balanced o?ense that is capable of making big plays in both the running and passing games, Hackenberg can exceed his freshman totals of 2,955 yards passing and 20 touchdown passes. At 6-foot-4, 234 pounds, he has All-Big Ten written all over him and is a poten- tial All-American. But in order for him to gain those accolades, Penn State has to produce a truly balanced o?ensive at- tack. 2. The oensive line must start to mature. Gone from last season's starting unit are Urschel at right guard, Ty Howle at center and Adam Gress and Garry Gilliam at right tackle. Gone, too, is backup tackle Eric Shrive. And it looks as though returning starter Miles Dief- fenbach may be forced to miss the sea- son with a torn ACL. There is an old axiom in football: Your o?ense only goes as far as your line takes you. That's why so much attention has been given to the battles taking place this spring. At the beginning of practice, attention was focused on whether redshirt fresh- man Andrew Nelson would be able to re- place the Gress/Gilliam tandem at tack- le, and whether redshirt sophomores Derek Dowrey and Brian Gaia or redshirt freshman Brendan Mahon would be able to take over Urschel's right guard spot. Die?enbach's apparent injury added an- other element of uncertainty to the per- sonnel situation, throwing the le@ guard spot into >ux. But throughout the spring, I've been concentrating on what happens with redshirt junior Angelo These four areas will determine how the Lions fare in 2014 P H I L 'S C O R N E R

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