Blue White Illustrated

protect Hackenberg this coming fall while also improving on the performance of a rushing attack that 6nished seventh in the Big Ten last season at 174 yards per game. To that end, the Nittany Lions began making moves before spring practice even started, sending defensive tackles Derek Dowrey and Brian Gaia from o7ense to defense. The rationale was simple: The defensive line was three- or four-deep in some spots, while the o7ensive line wasn't even two-deep. Of particular con- cern were those tackle spots, where Garry Gilliam, Adam Gress and Eric Shrive de- parted in the o7-season, leaving only Smith and redshirt freshman Andrew Nelson at the position heading into the start of winter workouts. While the 6-3, 323-pound Dowrey and the 6-3, 291- pound Gaia might not be well-suited physically for the o7ensive tackle spots – Franklin wants his tackles to stand at least 6-4 because lankier players are better able to extend their arms and engage with defensive linemen – their presence at guard gives the coaching sta7 some options. The other guys up front this spring in- clude redshirt junior guard Anthony Alosi, redshirt freshman guard Brendan Mahon, true freshman tackle Chasz Wright, red- shirt sophomore center Wendy Laurent and redshirt junior center Angelo Mangiro. The initial round of speculation had Man- giro as the most likely starter at center, with Die7enbach and Dowrey at guard and Smith and Nelson at tackle. That was the best-case scenario, at any rate. But as of this writing, it looked as though Di- e7enbach, who has started 23 games in his career, might miss the entire season. What's more, Nelson, Mangiro and Alosi were absent during Penn State's March 29 practice, a portion of which was open to the media. Franklin doesn't comment on injuries, so the reasons for those ab- sences were unclear. But is was a worri- some sign for Penn State to be practicing with all but two of its projected starters MIA. Even if those players are back in action in time for the Blue-White Game, the line that fans see on Saturday will not be a 6nished product. It certainly won't have as much experience as last year, when three of its 6ve mainstays (Urschel, Gress and center Ty Howle) were 68h-year sen- iors. This year's team will likely have at least one freshman starter (Nelson) and two freshman backups (Mahon and Wright) playing key roles. This surely is not the kind of situation that Hand had hoped to inherit upon his arrival at Penn State. Of the nine new as- sistants that the school hired, he's got the expectations are high for the Owings Mills, Md., native, and he's entirely comfortable with that fact. A8er all, those expectations didn't just materialize spontaneously. "I'm pretty sure the coaches set them for me," he said recently. "But I set them for myself, too." The problem for Penn State is that aside from Smith, the offensive line is largely unsettled. The Nittany Lions thought they were going to need to find three new starters, a major challenge in its own right. But it turns out they will need four, with fifth-year senior guard Miles Dief- fenbach having suffered a torn ACL in spring drills. They also need a lot more depth, and they need to start filling all those vacancies ASAP, because they will have a very difficult time capitalizing on all the skill position talent they've amassed if they can't get their opponents blocked. "Every time I meet somebody, all they want to talk about is Christian Hacken- berg. And don't get me wrong, I'm excited about him as well," coach James Franklin said at the start of Penn State's spring practice sessions. "But it takes a lot more than a quarterback to be successful on offense. The game of football is not just played from the ground up from a fun- damental standpoint; it's also played up front, on the offensive line and on the defensive line. You had better be good at those two positions." Just how good are the Nittany Lions on the o7ensive line? They've been addressing that question diligently ever since spring practice opened on March 17, and they will continue to address it in the Blue- White Game on April 12. But because they are so desperately shorthanded, it's going to be hard to get a 6x in the spring game on just where things stand. Penn State may have to rely on several freshmen this fall, and most of those players aren't even on campus yet. Franklin was alarmed to discover upon his arrival at Penn State that there were only two scholarship offensive tackles on campus – "That's not a position you want to be in," he said dryly – and he has been looking at ways of making up for the personnel shortages up front. In the spring game, one of those ways might be for the offensive linemen to stick to- gether as a unit and play for both teams. "It might be a situation where we put the O-line in a different color and they run from sideline to sideline," Franklin said. "That will get them in shape and get them a lot of reps." All of which should work just 6ne for the Blue-White Game. But the Blue-White Game doesn't count. The real challenge lies in building a line that will be able to S P R I N G F O O T B A L L R E P O R T H e was 700 miles away, working at another school in a conference based in a di9erent part of the country. But Herb Hand couldn't help but pay attention to the scandal at Penn State as it unfolded in 2011 and '12. "In the football coaching commu- nity, it was obviously a hot topic," he said. "There were a lot of questions, a lot of misinformation. With some information, it was like you weren't getting the whole story. [But] any- body who has ever put a whistle around their neck was impacted by the story." Hand was at Vanderbilt at the time. He had arrived there in 2010 a:er a long professional climb that includ- ed stops at Clemson, West Virginia and Tulsa, and when James Franklin took over in 2011, he kept the veteran assistant coach on sta9 to oversee the Commodores' o9ensive line. But it wasn't just the football con- nection that caused the story to hit so close to home. Hand has a long history of community engagement, and among the groups to which he contributed his time and effort in Nashville was one called Our Kids, HELPING HAND O!ensive line coach Herb Hand strives to make an impact in the community | HERB HAND OFFENSIVE LINE COACH "I take the word coach very seriously. You're called into coaching. This is not work. Work is if you're on a construction crew or if you're in a coal mine." which deals with child sexual abuse. Hand didn't work directly with abused children, but he was able to use his connections in the national sports media to build awareness and raise funds for the nonprofit group. Hand's work with Our Kids re8ect- ed his view of coaching as more than just a job. "I take the word coach very seriously," he said. "You're called into coaching. This is not work. Work is if you're on a construction crew or if you're in a coal mine. Those guys work, and I've got unbe- lievable respect for them. This isn't just a job. My wife worked in phar- maceutical sales for 17 years. That was a job. That didn't de7ne her. When you have the word coach in front of your name, or if you have the word teacher or pastor, anything that really deals with people, and you have an opportunity to impact peo- ple in communities, I take that very seriously." Hand was under consideration for the Vanderbilt head coaching posi- tion following Franklin's departure for Penn State, but the job went to Stanford defensive coordinator Derek Mason, and Hand later joined Franklin with the Nittany Li- ons. He has since become perhaps the most visible member of the staff other than Franklin himself, primarily through his enthusiastic embrace of Twitter. He had 5,104 tweets as of this writing, from per- sonal empowerment messages, to shout-outs aimed at promoting worthy causes, to pizza pub en- dorsements, to a highly entertain- ing exchange with a student who requested his daughter's number. (His response to the latter: "Sure: 46, 6'2, 250 / my age, height & weight, cuz that's what you'd be dealing with.") A native of Westmoreland, N.Y., and a graduate of Hamilton College in upstate New York, Hand coached two-time All-Southeastern Confer- ence tackle Wesley Johnson at Van- derbilt, as well as Ryan Seymour, a seventh-round dra:ee of the Seattle Seahawks last year. When Franklin o9ered him the opportunity to be- come Penn State's o9ensive line coach and run game coordinator, Hand was quick to accept, calling the decision "a no-brainer" even though he'd been o9ered a chance to remain in Nashville as a member of Mason's sta9. "This is one of the 7nest institu- tions in the country. It's one of the top traditional football programs since the 7rst time they laced up a football," he said. "And from a per- sonal standpoint, the opportunity to come into the community and make an impact was part of my decision process. When James o9ered me the job here, I just sat back and [told my- self that] I'm prepared for this job, not just from a professional stand- point but on a personal level also. I want to impact this community. I want to help this community in any way I can. What does that look like? I don't know. I'm not here to be a sav- ior or anything, but I want to be able to help." Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics

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