Blue White Illustrated

P R E V I E W season, consider this: Even if you throw out the big statistical outlier, that excru- ciating season-opening loss to Temple in which they allowed 10 sacks, the Li- ons' recalculated average of 2.4 sacks per game still ranks 13th in the Big Ten, ahead of only Purdue (2.5). And let's not dwell on quarterback hurries, a statistic that the Big Ten doesn't keep and one in which Penn State would have de9nitely not have fared well. Given the many disappointments, frustrations and false starts (both literal and metaphorical) of the past two sea- sons, is there reason to hope for better results this fall? Actually, there is. One of the Lions' biggest problems the past two seasons – a dearth of experi- enced personnel – has been recti9ed. Four starters return from last year's of- fensive line, and three of those players have two seasons of starting experience. In addition, the Lions will have some legitimate competition for jobs, a luxury that former assistant coach Herb Hand didn't have in 2014 and '15 when Penn State was scrambling just to cobble a starting 9ve together. Redshirt freshman Ryan Bates and January enrollee Connor McGovern are both expected to challenge for substantial playing time, and maybe even for starting jobs, at guard and center this spring. Also, the tackle spots are be- ginning to 9ll up, with Noah Beh and Chance Sorrell getting set for their red- shirt sophomore seasons, and Sterling Jenkins coming o; a redshirt year. College football's conventional wis- dom has long held that freshmen are a liability on the o;ensive line because they haven't spent enough time in the weight room to make the transition from high school to college. But like a lot of old truisms, it's becoming less true as the game evolves. High schools have better weight training programs than they did years ago and prospects are more inclined to work with private trainers. Meanwhile, college coaches are able to use the summer camp circuit as a way to re9ne their player evaluations. The result has been a surge in the number of freshmen who are capable of playing early in their careers. Ohio State had three freshmen and two sophomores on its two-deep when it defeated Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. Clemson start- ed true freshman Mitch Hyatt at le< tackle, where he protected Deshaun Watson's blind side throughout the sea- son as the Tigers reached the national championship game. Perhaps most im- pressive of all, Wisconsin had four red- shirt freshmen in its starting 9ve and three more on its second-team unit, and it still averaged 378.6 yards per game – 30 yards per game above Penn State's average – en route to a 10-3 9nish and a victory over USC in the Holiday Bowl. Is Penn State going to be relying on a freshman or two this fall? Maybe so. At the very least, the newcomers will have an advantage in that they're going to be playing in an o;ense that new assistant coach Matt Limegrover describes as "very o;ensive line-friendly." Also work- ing in their favor is the fact that all of the linemen on Penn State's spring roster are going to be starting from scratch as they learn Moorhead's scheme. Limegrover, who was o;ensive coordi- nator at Minnesota before being hired to succeed Hand, said that the coaching sta; isn't going to take seniority into ac- count as it 9gures out how to reassemble its depth chart. "The best 9ve are going to play," he said. "It doesn't matter if they're redshirt seniors or true fresh- men. I'm going to hold them account- able every day. What ends up shaking out of that is that we will 9nd the best 9ve. They've been put on notice – in a good way." 4 Who are the Nittany Lions' potential breakout players this spring? There are a couple of ways of looking at this question. The 9rst is to survey the team's biggest vacancies and try to iden- tify the players who appear best pre- pared to seize the opportunity. One player who comes to mind imme- diately is redshirt sophomore Torrence Brown. He's 6-3, 257 pounds and has al- ready seen signi9cant action, coming on in relief of Carl Nassib when the stand- out defensive end got hurt late last sea- son. His signature moment came against Michigan when he barreled into the back9eld and put quarterback Jake Rudock :at on his back during a passing attempt early in the game. It was the kind of hit that made you wince even if you were rooting for the Nittany Lions. No matter who mans the weakside de- fensive end position this year, that play- er will be hard-pressed to match his pre- fensive coordinator this off-season in Joe Moorhead. Like Moorhead, Limegrover grew up in Penn Hills, just east of Pittsburgh, and attended Central Catholic High. He said the Nittany Lions' new offensive system is "very offensive lineman-friendly in my opinion." "Coach Moorhead's philosophy is to spread the width and length of the field," Limegrover said. "Instead of having more guys in between the tackles and having to account for bodies and giving the defense more ways to defend you with safeties and having multiple linebackers in the box, Coach Moorhead likes to get things spread out more and isolated. We're working on that, blocking up front. Literally what it comes down to, in a lot respects, is a five-on-five [blocking scheme]. We'll declare who the five are we're going to block up front, and either a tight end or a re- ceiver or a back will take care of any- one else inside the tackle box. "More importantly, if they start overloading you, the thing I love is Coach has a lot of answers out on the perimeter to make sure they're hon- oring you – not just on the interior but also on the outskirts of the field and the sidelines and really the whole width of the field. When you start do- ing that, that opens up some lanes for you and creates some balance and al- lows the guys up front to have a better idea of [who to block]."

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