Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/497887
Did you play Christian Hackenberg longer than you wanted to? Obviously, we had a plan for Trace McSorley to play a good portion of the game. We were going to play Christian for a series or two, but we weren't able to use Trace today, so that's why Chris- tian got a lot more reps than we in- tended. Where would you say the offensive line is overall and what did you see from them today? I think we are way ahead of where we were at this point last year. As a group, we still have a situation now where we still have guys trying to learn leB tackle, which I think showed up at times today. But as a group, four out of the five in to- tality of it, we still have a lot of work to do. Like I told you guys last year, it was- n't going to be like we were going to be able to flip a switch and it's going to change overnight. I am confident that between now and the start of camp we can take another step and then continue to grow during camp and be ready to go. We also have an influx of more talent coming in. It will add more competition throughout our program, and you will be able to see a bunch of those guys at the game today. They looked great and we are excited about them as well. Can you talk about specifically about the defensive ends? I thought all spring, our defensive ends played really well. I made a com- ment a couple of weeks ago that I didn't think that would be a question mark anymore. I think that it is a little differ- ent on the defense than it is on the of- fensive line, especially on the defensive line. Most of the guys we are talking about, Tarow Barney at defensive tackle, Parker Cothren at defensive tackle, [Garrett] Sickels at defensive end, [Evan] Schwan – all those guys played a decent amount. We are talking 30 reps a game. They are going from a number two or a number three who still played a lot and then we have a Torrence Brown, who I am really excited about as a redshirt guy. Carl Nassib, I am so proud of. We had the endowment ban- quet last night, and Carl got up and spoke at it. We are talking about a guy who showed up here as a 6-foot-5, 218- pound walk-on and now he is a 6-foot- 7, 273-pound scholarship starting defensive end who I think is going to have a breakout year for us. I am so proud of him, and I think [defensive line] Coach [Sean] Spencer has done a great job with that unit. We felt that way last year. We felt like we had depth and talent. We lost some guys, but that depth is still showing up for us at that position. How would you evaluate the play of the running backs this spring? I know today Nick Scott made a cou- ple of big runs, and that's a positive. I am really happy to see that, but I think overall, Mark Allen had a really strong spring. We did have Jonathon Thomas, a guy we are really excited about. I am hoping he will be ready to go by camp. We've got some guys coming in as well who I think are going to be able to com- pete and create some competitive envi- ronments in practice with Saquon [Barkley] and Andre [Robinson], so we are excited about those guys, too. With Christian playing longer, does that change the evaluation of his per- formance today? I think a little bit. Part of it was that we pulled [Andrew Nelson] out of the game, and then we put some guys in be- hind him and now we are starting to get more pressures and things like that, so I don't think it's going to change our evaluation. We are going to evaluate all of our guys and the amount of plays they played. We are going to play each play and make a determination of how we feel it went. I told you guys before, grading our quarterbacks, grading our running backs in a lot of ways is difficult to do at this point until we get our of- fensive line playing a little more consis- tently and a little more aggressively and with a little more cohesiveness as a group. Where is Tommy Stevens at this point in his career after coming in here this spring? Considering that he should still be in high school, I think the 15 practices that he had were really good. He shows that he doesn't get rattled. I thought he learned the playbook pretty well, he has a natural vision for seeing the field and understanding concepts and he showed some mobility as well, which is exciting. He still needs to get in the weight room. He's gained 12-14 pounds. He could gain another 35. I've been pleased with him overall. I thought all three quarterbacks, as well as [Billy] Fessler, all four quarterbacks, had a nice spring. I thought Trace up until the last week, really had a strong spring. A P R I L 1 8 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 10 MEET AND GREET Franklin watched much of the Blue- White Game from the field. He said he thought Penn State had a "really effec- tive spring." Photo by Bill Anderson C O A C H S P E A K >> E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S P O S T G A M E P R E S S E R