Blue White Illustrated

All-American home. He's always been the best player in whatever sport he plays. It has always come very easy to him. "And, for the 6rst time in his career, he had to face some adversity. Like most people, when you face adversity for the 6rst time, you don't always handle it well. The adversity he faced and the lack of success that he had really had kind of an e7ect on his con6dence. "I also think the fact he never blocked anyone in high school, coming here and trying to block Carl Nassib, 270 pounds, the lack of success he had in the run game spilled over to his con6dence in the passing game. That happens when you're weak in one area and really strong in the other. Either the strength is going to build on your weakness, or the weak- ness can deteriorate your strength, and that's what happened." I agree that Gesicki's problems the past two years didn't relate to his ath- letic ability. It was his declining con6- dence that impacted his game. This spring he appeared to get that con6dence back. One reason for the im- provement could be that he found him- self 6tting nicely into a Moorhead- coached o7ense that seemed to be per- fectly designed to take advantage of his physical assets. Gesicki is still going to be required to block in Moorhead's "down6eld RPO of- fense," but the Blue-White Game de6- nitely showed how important the tight end will be in Penn State's game plans going forward. The tight ends were tar- geted 11 times in the spring game, re- sulting in seven catches for 82 yards and a touchdown. In Moorhead's o7ense, the tight end has to be able to execute a trap block. But the part that has to excite Gesicki the most about the new scheme is that the tight ends are required to stretch the 6eld vertically on seam routes. "I think his strength by far is his ability to catch the ball and his ability to run," Franklin said. "It didn't show that way [the past two seasons], but that's by far his strength." On defense, it would have been easy to name redshirt freshman tackle Kevin Givens as my breakout player coming o7 his strong performance in the Blue- White Game. Givens 6nished with six tackles, including 3.5 tackles for loss and two sacks and received accolade a8er accolade coming out of spring practice. But instead, my choice as Penn State's breakout player on defense is Bowen. Not only has the 6-1, 220-pound outside linebacker matured physically, adding 20 pounds to his frame, but he has dis- played just the sort of versatility the Nittany Lions need right now. He ap- pears fully capable of playing the Sam outside linebacker position, and he can also handle the star position, which is an outside linebacker/strong safety hybrid. Franklin has indicated that the star po- sition will 6gure prominently in Penn State's plans this fall. It's a logical move, as the Lions lack depth at linebacker but have an abundance of big, strong safeties such as Marcus Allen and Koa Farmer. "To leave all these guys at safety when they could see more signi6cant roles at linebacker, not only for this year but in the future, I don't know if that makes a whole lot of sense," Franklin said. "You'll probably see some of that movement. ... With the styles of o7ense that people are running, a lot of people are playing full-time nickels. They are going 4-2-5." Bowen perfectly 6ts the 4-2-5 defen- PHONE A FRIEND Gesicki and fellow tight end Jonathan Holland share a laugh during Penn State's football media day in Au- gust. Photo by Steve Manuel

• Cover