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S hortly after returning starter Miles Dieffenbach suffered a knee injury in spring practice, further clouding Penn State's outlook on the offensive line, head coach James Franklin bluntly acknowl- edged something that you don't often hear a Division I head coach say. No, he didn't elaborate (and still hasn't) on the severity of Dieffenbach's injury, but he did offer this: "We're going to need to play a lot of freshmen. We would prefer not to do that, but I've already been direct messaging these guys and telling them that they need to come in with the mentality that they're going to play." Count Brendan Brosnan, a 6-foot-6, 275-pound offensive tackle, as one of those guys. A three-star prospect from Park Ridge, Ill., Brosnan knows all about Penn State's depth limitations and understands that the lack of scholarship linemen will force the Nittany Lions' new coaching staff to get creative with its personnel combinations. Therefore, Brosnan said, "I'm treating it like I'm going to go play right away. [Franklin] texted me saying, 'We just lost another offensive lineman. Train like you're coming in and playing right away.' And that's how I've been approaching it all along. I want to get there and make an im- mediate impact, and I hope I can do that." It's likely that one or two of Penn State's true freshman tackles – Chance Sorrell, Noah Beh and Chasz Wright are joining Brosnan on the roster – will see playing time in 2014. It may be rare for newcomers to see significant reps on the offensive line, but there are exceptions, and Brosnan has been exceptional in the past, especially when it comes to the football field. Take, for instance, the summer before his junior season, his first on the varsity team at Maine South, a powerhouse pro- gram that competes in Illinois' largest di- vision. As a sophomore, he weighed around 215 pounds, but he added 20 pounds before his junior year and earned a starting spot at right tackle – all despite missing a large portion of preseason camp. Brosnan, a straight-A student, was one of 100 students selected to participate in a four-week program at the Illinois In- stitute of Technology that focused on sci- ence, engineering and math. As a result, his head coach, David Inserra, excused him from summer camp. He returned weighing 236 pounds. It was an increase in weight, but he was still undersized. Nonetheless, he played a key role in Maine South's Class 8A playoff run. "He's very bright, picks things up easily," Inserra told the Chicago Sun-Times. "You don't have to tell him twice, and his work habits in the off-season transfer right to his work habits during the season. He's easy to coach, a great teammate, and if he makes a mistake he's going to correct it on the next play." After that standout season, he began to accumulate scholarship offers. He seriously considered Illinois, Syracuse and Boston College and also received interest from Maryland, North Carolina State and Vir- ginia Tech. He held offers from all those schools, but he committed to Vanderbilt in July due to its academic reputation and because, he said, he "believed in the coach- es at Vanderbilt." All the while, Brosnan continued to bulk up for a monster senior season. He weighed (and still does weigh) nearly 275 pounds and earned first-team All-State honors from the Chicago Tribune. "He was a total what-if guy last year," Inserra later told the Chicago Sun-Times, "but he made himself into a big-time re- cruit." How big? Enough to attract Franklin's attention when he was at Van- derbilt, and enough that the coach kept up his pursuit after taking the Penn State job in January. When Franklin arrived in University Park, he discovered there were only two offensive tackles on scholarship, so that position became one of the first he targeted. Having already built a rela- tionship with Brosnan, it was only natural that Franklin extend an offer. "When they made the move to Penn State, I was kinda confused at first," Brosnan said. "I kinda expected it to happen even- tually because I just figured they'd be look- ing for a bigger school. A couple days later, Coach Franklin called me and said that they needed offensive linemen at Penn State and that they really wanted to have me at Penn State. That showed that the coaches really believed in me, if they were going to offer me at Penn State, too, and I really believed in them as well." ■ READY FOR ANYTHING Brendan Brosnan prepares to vie for a spot on Penn State's offensive line THE BROSNAN FILE S T A T I S T I C S Helped Main South High go 9-3 last season, including a trip to the quarterfinals of the Illi- nois Class 8A playoffs. H O N O R S Rated a three-star prospect by Rivals.com, as well as the No. 42 player in Illinois. |

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