Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/450893
ore than access to scholar- ships, healthy bodies and sen- ior leadership, Penn State needed something that head coach James Franklin knew the 2014 football season couldn't pro- vide. Time. Sophomore quarterback Christian Hack- enberg needed time in the pocket. If the Nittany Lions could give him that, Franklin thought, they would have a chance to cap- italize on his talent for analyzing defenses, weighing options and /ring o1 rocket passes. But those precious, 0eeting seconds were fully dependent on the weeks, months and years of practice need- ed to /eld a competent o1ensive line. Franklin and his sta1 in- herited a group with only 20 career starts to its credit, all belonging to hobbled le2 tackle Donovan Smith. There was no way to cover up this de/ciency. The Lions were able to cobble together a starting unit out of redshirt freshmen and converted de- fensive tackles. But those young players needed more than a crash course in o1en- sive line studies. They needed extensive prep, and although Franklin, o1ensive co- ordinator John Donovan and line assistant Herb Hand did their best to bring everyone up to speed, they simply did not have enough time. As a result, neither did Hackenberg. Battling some of the biggest, best de- fensive linemen in the country from week to week was tough enough. But opposing defensive coordinators were fully aware of Penn State's inexperience, and they were quite happy to exploit it by throwing something exotic or unexpected into their game plans. "Every week we had a team do a little wrinkle that they hadn't shown on /lm," redshirt junior Angelo Mangiro said. "I think it's because we were a younger o1en- sive line. They were trying to trick us and deceive us, get us out of rhythm o1en- sively." Any opponent that knew the Nittany Lions' circumstances – injuries to starting tackles Smith and Andrew Nelson, the extended absence of senior guard Miles Die1enbach due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, the conversion of defensive tackles Brian Gaia and Derek Dowrey in M |