Blue White Illustrated

D erek Dowrey made a big change this past spring, switching from defensive tackle to guard to shore up Penn State's graduation-depleted o:ensive line. These types of swaps happen all the time in college football, and o;en they turn out to be lateral career moves. Not this time. By moving over, Dowrey was also moving up. "I was going from a guy who was running with the twos and threes and scout teams to a guy who was repping with the ones," he said. "It put a lot of pressure on me, but I think it was good, because it forced me to have higher expectations for myself, higher standards. I think that helped me out throughout the whole spring." A 6-foot-3, 323-pound redshirt soph- omore, Dowrey is certain to have a much higher pro9le this fall than he did during his 9rst two years on campus. In fact, he heads into preseason practice with a good shot at earning one of the two open guard positions. There had been some talk last season of moving Dowrey to o:ense, but nothing came of it until the Nittany Lions' new coaching sta: arrived in January. A few weeks a;er he was hired, James Franklin called Dowrey into his o:ense to talk about switching positions. "He asked me what I thought about it. I said, 'Yeah, it's been on my mind,'" Dowrey recalled. "I think it's a good move for me and a good move for the team." Dowrey isn't entirely devoid of experi- ence on o:ense. He played both ways during his four varsity seasons at Handley High in Winchester, Va. The only time he didn't play on the o:ensive line was during the second half of his senior season, when he was called on to 9ll in at running back. But he was recruited by most schools as a defensive lineman, primarily because he had made it known to college coaches that that was where he wanted to play. "I always wanted the glamour of being a de- fensive lineman," he said. There was nothing glamorous about his 9rst two seasons at Penn State. He redshirted as a true freshman and then saw lit- tle action as a third-team de- fensive tackle last year, playing in eight games and 9nishing the season with one unassisted stop. Along the way, Dowrey dis- covered that the defensive tackle position wasn't neces- sarily where he belonged at the college level. "I'm a big, wide guy," he said. "A lot of these defensive tackles are quick and shifty, and I was always fighting that. That was always my weakness when I was a defensive lineman." Which is one reason why moving to of- fense made a lot of sense. There were other reasons, too. The Lions were rela- tively deep at defensive tackle and pre- cariously thin on o:ense – so thin that they needed Dowrey's roommate, Brian Gaia, to make the switch along with him. While Dowrey had some advance warning that he was going to be moved, Gaia found out on the day he returned from spring break, which happened to be the day before spring practice began. He got his playbook that night, and Dowrey helped him cram. "It's good to have somebody who is going through the same things with you," Dowrey said. "Me and Brian are pretty close. Staying at the same position and moving at the same time has helped that." Dowrey is also appre- ciative of the help he's gotten from Herb Hand. The Nittany Lions' new o:ensive line coach in- herited a major rebuild- ing project, with three of last season's starters lost to graduation, and another one – senior guard Miles Di- e:enbach – out inde9nitely with a knee injury he su:ered during spring practice. Hand is counting on newcomers such as Dowrey and Gaia to help Penn State's of- fense regain some of the momentum it had built up by the end of the 2013 sea- son. "Coach Hand talks about this all the time: It's the only position [group] where you're mandated to have 9ve players on the 9eld at one time," Dowrey said. "You can play without anybody else, but you have to have 9ve o:ensive linemen. So I don't think it's ever just a one-person plug in. It's everybody stepping up. One guy plays that position, but everybody steps up. We're all communicating, we're all 9lling in." ■ MOVIN' ON UP Derek Dowrey sets o1 on a new career path MAKING HIS MOVE Dowrey is vying for a start- ing position on the offensive line af- ter playing as a backup defensive lineman during his redshirt freshman season. He was moved to offense prior to spring practice. | Steve Manuel

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