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in preseason camp. Last season, center Ty Howle, guards John Urschel and Miles Die;enbach and tackles Garry Gilliam and Adam Gress combined to make 49 of a possible 60 stars. This year, Howle, Urschel, Gilliam and Gress are gone, and Die;enbach is recovering from a knee in- jury that will keep him out of action until the :nal month of the season – and that's the best-case scenario. So there's a fair bit of urgency as Penn State pieces together its new o;ensive front, one that will very likely feature Gaia and Dowrey in starting roles. But there's not a lot of panic. O;ensive line coach Herb Hand has been down this road before. Hand was co-o;ensive coordinator at Tulsa in 2007 (along with future Auburn coach Gus Malzahn) and was responsible for rebuilding a line that returned only one proven starter. Despite having to use a number of inexperienced players, in- cluding a converted defensive lineman and two others with no game experience at their positions, the Golden Hurricane went on to average a nation-leading 544 yards and 41 points per game. Those might not be realistic numbers for a major-college team, but Penn State can aspire to make a smoother transition than its skeptics are anticipating. To do so, however, it will need a number of un- proven players to respond well to their expanded roles. Gaia is one of those players, and the good news for the Nittany Lions is that he's no stranger to his new position. Most of the college programs that recruited Gaia out of The Gilman School in Baltimore wanted him to play o;ense; he was rated one of the nation's top 25 guard prospects by Ri- vals.com. Penn State was one of only two schools that pursued him as a defensive tackle – Texas A&M was the other – and that was mostly because of how well he had hit it o; with his lead re- cruiter, longtime defensive line coach Larry Johnson. A

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