Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/541265
like anything else: You watch the tape and you could do things better, but at the same time, you have just about everybody back, so that's exciting. I think hopefully the experience that they had last year should help a lot as we go forward. There's some relatively new blood at running back this season, so what do you see for that position? I thought that position had a very good spring. I think Akeel [Lynch] is ready to really carry the torch and be the guy back there. But at the same time, I thought the two freshman backs that we had in the spring [Nick Scott and Mark Allen] probably had as good a spring as anybody. Not really knowing what you're going to get, I thought those guys did a great job, so that gives you some hope going into the year. How transformative can it be for an offense to have a consistent, reliable running back in the game? That's a tough position. I've coached it. You want to have as many good guys at every position as you possibly can. It is nice at times to know you have one guy who you know you're going to lean on, but at the same time, it's tough to just play one guy at that spot. You need guys behind him, so I think the two guys we had in the spring and the two guys coming up, they're going to provide the competition and the depth. We'll see how it all works out, but if you do have a guy who is the guy and everybody knows he is and he's going to get his reps and be in there a lot, it sometimes can help in- stead of trying to find the guy who's hot out of three guys. So we'll see how it works out, but that's where we're at. Are the wideouts closer to being on the same page as the quarterback this season? We've got guys who are athletic and they can catch, and when you're just running a route on air and there's no de- fense there, you see how good they are athletically. When all of a sudden you have to see the coverage and maybe ad- just your route based off the coverage or maybe you get jammed by your defend- er, you're not just running the route on air anymore. You've got to be able to think and process information on how to run the route or how to change the route. So when you're experienced enough to go through a lot of those situ- ations and that becomes just as natural as running a route on air, now you're just as good as you are in practice. True freshmen, redshirt freshmen and soph- omores are learning on the fly. It takes reps to be able to go against all your dif- ferent routes and all different situations. So I think this year they'll play a lot faster because of all the experiences they went through last year. Has the tight end group developed enough to become more involved in the passing game this season? We have good talent and ability in that room, and it's up to them. I thought at times they had too many drops last year. If we caught all the balls we dropped, maybe that wouldn't be the question you're asking, to be honest. But at the same time, I love those guys and I think they know when they should be making a play or not and I think they know they have the ability to make it. They know they have a lot of room for improve- ment. I tell them all the time, if you're going to make those plays and we trust you to make those plays in certain spots, then you're going to play, and when you're in that spot, then you need to make the play. They have the capability of doing it, and we'll see what happens, but I'm looking forward to [seeing] them this year. Kyle Carter is a senior, Mike Gesicki has a year of experience, Adam 2 0 1 5 P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> LETTERMEN RETURNING 18 C Wendy Laurent, Angelo Mangiro G Derek Dowrey, Brian Gaia, Brendan Mahon T Albert Hall, Andrew Nelson TE Adam Breneman (2013), Kyle Carter, Mike Gesicki, Brent Wilkerson QB Christian Hackenberg RB Brandon Johnson, Akeel Lynch WR Saeed Blacknall, Chris Godwin, DaeSean Hamilton, Geno Lewis LETTERMEN LOST 7 G Miles Dieffenbach T Donovan Smith TE Jesse James RB Bill Belton, Cole Chiappialle, Deron Thompson, Zach Zwinak STARTERS RETURNING 7 >> Christian Hackenberg (13 starts in 2014), DaeSean Hamilton (13), Angelo Mangiro (13), Andrew Nelson (13), Brian Gaia (12), Geno Lewis (11), Kyle Carter (10) OTHERS WITH STARTING EXPERIENCE 8 >> Brendan Mahon (9 career starts), Adam Breneman (5), Chris Godwin (3), Wendy Laurent (3), Akeel Lynch (2), Saeed Blacknall (1), Derek Dowrey (1), Mike Gesicki (1) STARTERS LOST 4 >> Jesse James (13), Bill Belton (11), Donovan Smith (11), Miles Dieffenbach (3) 2014 STATISTICS POINTS/GAME 20.6 (14th Big Ten; 110th FBS) YDS/GAME 335.3 (13th; 111th) RUSHING YDS/GAME 101.9 (14th; 117th) PASSING YDS/GAME 233.4 (5th; 61st) PASS-EFFICIENCY 109.41 (11th; 108th) FIRST DOWNS/GAME 19.2 (6th; 82nd-T) 3RD-DOWN CONVERSION PCT 39.5 (7th; 72nd)