Blue White Illustrated

O n July 1, Penn State's Sports Infor- mation office released an official roster for the football program. It is a remarkable document. Including walk-ons, the roster num- bers 121 players, 75 of whom will count as scholarship players during the 2014 season. Of those 121 players, the break- down of eligibility is noteworthy for what it reveals about Penn State's col- lective experience on this level of college football. Including walk-ons, that breakdown is as follows: Seniors: 11 Juniors: 22 Sophomores: 30 Freshmen: 57 The big number at the bottom should give pause to Nittany Lion fans, coaches, media and anybody else who happens to be paying attention at this point. For that matter, so should the small number at the top. Let's start with the seniors. For a ma- jor-college football team to have only 11 players in their final season of eligibility is almost unbelievable. Leaving aside the walk-ons for a moment, of the 19 schol- arship players who arrived in University Park in 2010, only six will use up all of their eligibility with the Nittany Lions. (DaQuan Jones wrapped up his career last year, while Brad Bars, Miles Dieffen- bach, Mike Hull, C.J. Olaniyan and Zach Zwinak are playing their final season this fall.) Meanwhile, true and redshirt fresh- men make up almost 50 percent of Penn State's roster. That's an extraordinary ratio. Of course, Penn State was under se- vere scholarship limitations in 2013 and brought in only 17 players. Of those players, only 13 are still on the team, and only seven played last year. Com- bined with their most recent recruiting class, which included 24 freshmen (juco transfer defensive tackle Tarow Barney arrived with junior eligibility), the Nittany Lions have a remarkable 57 play out. All I do right now is focus on the things that I know, and so far, reports that I'm getting from the guys are that the freshmen are doing extremely well and some of them have been impressive – guys who we thought would be. And, come the first two weeks of camp, we'll know. Guys can look great running around in their shorts or in the weight room, but playing football is dif- ferent when the pads go on and you get hit in the mouth. So we'll just let them keep working hard and try to get them as prepared as we possibly can for camp and then get out there the first two weeks and see who legitimately is going to be able to help us early. We break it up into three categories. Who is going to be able to help us right away? Who probably is going to end up helping us before the year is out? And then, who just needs another year for maturity, whether it's physically, emo- tionally, mentally, whatever it is? So, the guys who you think are going to end up playing for you at some point, you might as well start getting them as many reps as you can early on, and the guys who you know can help you from day one, you better have them involved. We figure that out usually within the first two weeks. How important is the evaluation process in making those snap-judg- ment decisions during that two-week span? I wouldn't necessarily say it's a snap judgment because a lot of things go into it. It's the recruiting process. It was get- ting to know him and his family, his high school coach and how mature he was and how he handled his business and how hard he works. We've been getting to know these kids, a lot of them, for more than a year and in some cases two years, and now you actually get to work with them in person and they're either building on that or not. So it's not like it's just the two-week picture. It's more of a complete picture just based on all the time you spent with them. And then the two weeks, it's usu- ally a little bit more than that when you break into scout teams to start getting ready for your opponent, and that's usu- ally when the decision has to be made. And again, you have to remember that those two weeks are really like a month because you're basically with them from 7 in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. It's football basically 24 hours a day. So you get a pretty good picture of where you're at. You're a perfectionist, so do you have to remind yourself sometimes of the challenges you're facing? No, because I'm a pretty positive, ex- citable guy. I get excited about things and I see good things for us in the pres- ent. I see good things for us in the fu- ture. I understand our challenges. I do think that getting everybody excited about the direction of Penn State foot- ball without setting up false expecta- tions is my biggest challenge. But I think we've got a pretty educated fan base and a pretty educated media. People understand. I think when you're dealing with fans and things like that, people are going to get excited and they're going to get caught up in the emotion, and I want them to do that. But I read a lot and I kind of take the pulse of Roster offers sobering glimpse at hurdles PSU will face

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