Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/541265
I s it realistic to think that Penn State can produce a 9-3 regular-season record this fall? Many Nittany Lion fans would probably say that it isn't. A lot of media members would de=nitely say that it isn't. But I believe a nine-win season is an entirely obtainable goal. It's an ambitious goal, to be sure. Penn State will have 55 players on its 2015 ros- ter with either sophomore or freshman eligibility, more than any other team in the Big Ten. As head coach James Franklin explains in an exclusive inter- view with Blue White Illustrated (see Page 34), the NCAA sanctions have had the intended e?ect. "People would say that we overcame the sanctions," Franklin said. "And in a lot of ways we did. But to say they didn't have a dramatic impact on our program? I don't think people have really spent the time studying the challenges that we had. And you think about what [Tom Bradley] did. You think about what Billy [O'Brien] did. You think about what Larry [Johnson] did. In a lot of ways, it's miraculous." Franklin is trying to thread a needle here, acknowledging the impact of the sanctions while fostering a sense of op- timism among players, recruits and fans. I admire what he and his sta? are doing. With all that this program has gone through the past three and a half years, it would be easy to step back and lower one's expectations. But that hasn't hap- pened. While Penn State certainly won't be favored to win a Big Ten title in the next couple of years, that realization hasn't stopped the team from entertain- ing championship aspirations. Which is exactly what it should be doing. If a team doesn't challenge itself, it will nev- er come close to reaching its full poten- tial. That innate ambition is why I'm con- vinced a 9-3 record is a realistic goal. As Franklin said, "It's exciting now that we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and work our way out of it. We're not out of it yet. But we are work- ing our way out of it." Keeping all of that in mind, I've come up with eight points of emphasis that need to be addressed before the 2015 season begins on Sept. 5 against Temple. If Penn State hopes to surpass the ex- pectations of most college football ana- lysts and produce a nine-win season that would most likely earn it a spot in a New Year's Day bowl game, this is what will have to happen: 1 The o"ensive line has to play the way it did in the Pinstripe Bowl. Aside from the two games that book- ended the season – an opening-day vic- tory over UCF and the =nale against Boston College at Yankee Stadium – Penn State's o?ense struggled to put to- gether a consistent and credible per- formance. The Nittany Lions ranked 111th in the country in total o?ense, av- eraging only 335.3 yards per game. Their running attack was last in the Big Ten, averaging just 101.9 yards. Christian Hackenberg was sacked 44 times, and the o?ense averaged just 13.6 points per game in Big Ten play. Penn State fans hadn't seen a performance like that since 2004, when the Lions went 3-9. But the line took a step forward in the Pinstripe Bowl. It allowed Penn State to amass 453 yards of o?ense against an opponent that =nished the season ranked 11th in the country in total de- fense (324.2 ypg) and second in the country in rushing defense (94.5 ypg). Hackenberg passed for 371 yards with four TD passes and no interceptions and was sacked only twice. It was the line's best performance since the season opener, in which Penn State had 511 yards of total o?ense and 24 =rst downs and surrendered only two sacks. And one noteworthy aspect of that performance against Boston Col- lege is that senior leA guard Miles Dief- fenbach missed most of the game with an ankle injury. PSU can win nine games in 2015. Here's what it needs to do PHIL'S CORNER