uba Hall are what you would call lavish,
and the $14 million that Intercollegiate
Athletics is getting set to spend on a
range of improvements to the Lions'
football headquarters won't entirely
close the gap with cutting-edge pro-
grams such as Oregon, whose Football
Performance Center cost $68 million
and looks like the Death Star's :tness
room. Unless the Nittany Lions plan to
hire Frank Gehry to design their new nu-
trition bar, they're still going to be play-
ing catch-up with the programs they as-
pire to face in the College Football Play-
o;.
But game day atmosphere is one area
in which Penn State
can set itself apart
from even the elites. Beaver Stadium is
the :> J A M E S F R A N K L I N D I S C U S S E S P S U ' S
Adam Breneman is coming back.
Will he be able to do anything this
spring? How important is it to get him
back?
Getting Adam back – you're talking
about a guy who had a bunch of success
early on in his career. He's had some in-
juries, some setbacks. In some ways you
probably would have liked to have red-
shirted him his :rst year. Now the fact
that we were able to redshirt him last
year and still have some success is good.
He's got a year to get healthy, get bigger
and stronger, get more con:dent.
He's a guy who I think has the size and
the mentality to be a complete tight end,
a guy who can put his hand in the dirt
and come o; and block at the line of
scrimmage. He also has the ability to be
a threat in the passing game, has the size
and ball skills.
Probably most important, even
through this whole year, as trying as it
was on him, he is one of the most posi-
tive, optimistic, completely 100 percent
bought-in leaders that we have. He's
been great. He's been great for us as
coaches. He's been great with our team
and players. He's always got a smile on
his face. He's so appreciative of Penn
State. He's so appreciative of the oppor-
tunities he has here. That alone [is
something] we're really, really excited
about.
Can you talk a little bit about your
o ensive line situation in contrast
from a year ago, even going into
spring last year, where it was hard to
have a practice with the numbers you
had?
The fact that we're going to have a
two-deep [depth chart made up] of
scholarship players is exciting. We had a
bunch of guys who have had some expe-
rience. Last year I think at this point we
had two returning starters in the begin-
ning of spring ball. As we all know, we
lost [Miles] Die;enbach. We had one re-
turning player on the o;ensive line for
spring ball. We had a bunch of new faces
in there with a new system. It's com-
pletely di;erent.
We have :ve or six guys now who start-
ed a game. I remember a high school
coach coming up to me last year during
spring ball, talking about how he had
been to other regional colleges, watched
their practices, then watched ours. He
had an interesting expression on his face.
There's nobody who is happier about
this group returning and the strides
they've made than Mr. and Mrs. Hack-
enberg. I'm excited about them. I know
Herb [Hand] is excited about working
with him. I know they're so much more
con:dent mentally and physically, all
those things.
As you guys have heard me say before,
not only does it affect and help with
Hack's continued development, our of-
fense's development, [but also with]
your second-team quarterback, your
second-team receivers, second-team
tight end and running backs. It helps
with the defense's development be-
cause now the second-team defense
has a chance to legitimately be threat-
ened.
We're real pleased. Those guys have
been awesome. I could go on and on
about a number of these guys, the im-
provement they've made, how dramatic
it has been, almost to a man, to every
single guy there who has really made
some really good strides in so many dif-
ferent areas.
I'm excited to see them go out and
compete. They have a great challenge,
which again goes back to the fact that
