Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/541265
So I'm pleased with him and I think he's got a chance to be pretty good this year. I'm excited. Johnathan Thomas is the guy, when he was practicing for us, who everyone hat- ed to tackle. I mean everybody. He'll just wear you down. It's not as though he goes looking for contact. You look at him physically and he looks 230 pounds. He is put together physically, and you talk to the guys on our team and he has everybody's respect. There's an excite- ment in our program about him. I think Mark Allen's a nice comple- ment because he gives us something we don't have, which is that real quick, real elusive guy. [Coming back from] his high school knee injury, he's getting faster, he's getting quicker again. The guy who I was told that he was – we've started to see more and more flashes of that. He may be our best pass protector. And then Nick Scott's kind of an inter- esting guy. He may have the best combi- nation of all those things, but he hasn't translated it yet consistently to the field. Then you've got the two young guys [Saquan Barkley and Andre Robinson] who are coming in. Would you consider that an open competition behind Akeel, or do you have planned roles for them in the back of your head already? I think it's an open competition across the board. Akeel obviously has a leg up on everyone just based on experience and maturity and skills. After that, it's really unknown because you don't know how guys are going to react in the games. But, definitely, for the rest of those guys it's a true open competition. You see flashes in practice, but nothing that you can really depend upon at this point. At wideout, the guys you have there now, have they made that step through the spring where you feel they'll be more dependable in the passing game? I think so. And in some ways I don't know if that's a fair characterization. I mean, it's accurate. But my point is, we're also evaluating them based on what we need, not based on where they really are. The fact that three out of the four guys were freshmen, you're going to have that. All those things are magnified because of the layers of challenges that we had. So when you do have a miscom- munication or when you have a guy run- ning the wrong route or dropping a pass, everything is magnified. The biggest transition for wideouts from high school to college and then to the NFL is being able to read coverages [so that] the quarterback and the wide receivers are exactly on the same page. That is so important. If you confuse [the coverage], that de- fensive back has no concern about being beat deep because that's not his respon- sibility. So now he jumps the route, and you're in big trouble. So it's those little things, making sure that the receiver and the quarterback are on the same page. You've got to under- stand the strengths and weaknesses of [different] coverages. Making sure that those two guys are seeing things exactly the same way [is vital], and the only way to get there is through time and experi- ence. And that's the age-old problem, getting the receivers to read the coverage like the quarterback because they're not typically trained to do that in high school. To compound the matter, defensive coordinators can take advantage of that. They know there's no risk in throwing different things at you guys. Well, there's risk associated with it. There's always risk – give and take – with that. But when you've got an inex- perienced offensive line, inexperienced wide receivers and no running game, you're probably going to see more stuff than ever because for the defense, the risk is worth the reward. They're going to get more reward when they're going against an inexperienced offensive line and wide receivers. If you're going against an experienced offensive line with experienced wide receivers and an experienced quarterback, you're con- cerned about that. It's funny, because you would think the Tom Bradys of the world or the Pey- ton Mannings of the world would see more blitzes. But they actually see less of it because people know they're going to control the protection, they're going to slide the protection, they're going to pick it up, they're going to attack your weaknesses. And now instead of giving up a 5-yard play, you've got a chance of giving up a 50-yard play. People are scared to do it against them. DaeSean Hamilton and Chris God- win are the two who stood out in the spring at wide receiver, along with Geno Lewis, Saeed Blacknall and De- Andre Thompkins. I look at it as a group. I would say Hamilton is a little bit like Akeel. He separated himself a little bit last year in games and practices and things like that. And then you have a group. You have a group of Godwin, Geno and Blacknall. And then you really have a group in Thompkins. So it's probably Hamilton, those three guys, and then Thompkins kind of trying to join that group of three. Do you have any expectations for the freshman receivers who are com- ing in, because they've got some size? To me, that is the ideal situation. You've got three guys coming in who le- gitimately have the talent and ability to threaten those guys. And that's kind of what you want. You'd love to have a group of guys you feel comfortable that you can win with, with another group coming in that can challenge those guys. It's very similar to what we have at run- ning back. We're starting to get the type of depth that other people are accus- tomed to. What's your take on the tight end position? I think the guys kind of understand their role and their responsibility more and what they're going to have to do to P R E V I E W