Blue White Illustrated

K I C K O F F I S S U E and hopefully, when I got to Penn State, to just get on the field. That was my main goal. I was working out constantly, twen- ty-four/seven." That focus clearly paid off. But Allen is his own harshest critic, and when he looks back on his freshman season, what stand out are the plays he didn't make: assign- ments he blew, tackles he missed, turnovers that didn't happen because he wasn't as opportunistic as he could have been. He still vividly recalls heading to the middle of the field, only to watch Ezekiel Elliott circle outside for a 10-yard touchdown run in the first quarter of the Ohio State game. "I really think I could have done much better my freshman year," he said. Turnovers are a particularly sore subject. For all their success on defense last season, the Nittany Lions only finished seventh in the Big Ten with 21 takeaways. The team leader in interceptions was defensive tackle Anthony Zettel, and of the 10 picks the secondary amassed, eight occurred in two games, victories over Rutgers and Temple. Allen didn't have any intercep- tions, and even though he administered a succession of hard hits, he didn't force or recover any fumbles. "I had a lot of op- portunities to create turnovers," he said, "and if I would have done that, I would have put my team in a better situation." To bring those numbers up, Allen and his fellow defensive backs performed strip drills throughout the off-season and worked on sharpening their ball-hawking instincts as the JUGS machine spit footballs at them, one after another. "Coach Shoop made sure that was a main point [of emphasis]," Allen said. "We worked on it in spring ball, and I've been working on it in my spare time also, just hitting the JUGS constantly." Shoop said the 6-foot-2, 209-pound Allen has been modeling himself after Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowler Kam Chan- cellor, describing him as a classic "box- type safety who's really good in the run game." When longtime NFL coach Jim Haslett joined Penn State's staff this past spring as a consultant, Allen was one of the players who caught his eye. "He said, 'If this guy can improve his ball skills a little bit, the sky's the limit for him. He can take his game to the next level,' " Shoop said. "And I do feel that way about Marcus." Shoop, who coaches the Nittany Lions' safeties, shined a spotlight on Allen's per- formance with his comments prior to the Pinstripe Bowl last year. Allen was excited to receive such an emphatic vote of con- fidence, but in the months since Shoop singled him out, he hasn't dwelled on his coach's words, insisting they're safely stored away "in the memory bank," where they won't trip him up by encouraging complacency. "I want to stay humble and strive to be the best, to be better than anyone at my position," Allen said. "That's what every- one wants to be, they want to be the best at what they do. So I understand and re- spect everything he said. I was happy. But I want to do better." ■ J ordan Lucas at least has some good humor about it. The Nittany Lions' senior safety is coming off a productive season as the leader of a secondary that was much improved in 2014. Playing in all 13 games, he finished tied for third on the defense with 58 tackles, including a pair of sacks and four tackles for loss. He also broke up nine passes and defended nine others. His stat line even included a 1-yard punt return. The problem? Zero interceptions. And Lucas, who played cornerback as a junior before switching to strong safety in the off-season, wasn't the only Nittany Lion defensive back to come up short in this critical area. Although Penn State's defense as a whole put up some of the best num- bers in recent years, the secondary had difficulty producing takeaways. Of the 16 interceptions that Penn State totaled – third-best in the Big Ten – the defensive backs were re- sponsible for only 10. Even more in- explicable, all but two of those inter- ceptions occurred in the Lions' vic- tories over Rutgers and Temple. Asked recently what would make this season a success in his eyes, the preseason Nagurski Trophy watch list member didn't need more than a moment to find his answer. "For me personally, getting an in- terception this year," he said. And for the unit? "Leading the Big Ten in intercep- tions and finishing top five in the country in interceptions. "It was definitely a failing," he con- tinued. "We have great expectations going into this year. We did a lot of good things last year. We want to do a lot of great things this year, so our expectations are very high going into this year." Not surprisingly, Penn State head coach James Franklin fully endorses this mentality. He's been urging the secondary to make the type of game- changing plays that can give a strug- gling offense a chance to score points, and he noted again this sum- mer what his hopes are for the unit. "We didn't capitalize" last season, he said. "Although we had some turnovers, if you look at turnovers in our secondary, we didn't have Lucas's objective: more interceptions |

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