Blue White Illustrated

| P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> heir stories this spring were not competing but instead moved along parallel wave- lengths. Chris Godwin, the former Nittany Lion wide re- ceiver who had opted to forgo his final season of el- igibility, was making a splash nationally. Between his 4.42-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine in February, an outstanding follow-up perform- ance at Penn State's Pro Day in March, and his eventual selection by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the No. 84 overall pick in April's NFL Draft, God- win confirmed the immense value of his talent. As his stock climbed higher with each passing week, the qualities that allowed him to amass 153 catches in his career for 2,404 yards and 18 touch- downs, the same qualities that turned him into a two-time All-Big Ten performer, came to seem ever more irreplaceable. The better Godwin per- formed, the more difficult Penn State's challenge began to look. James Franklin himself noted just how daunting that job was going to be. "How are we going to replace the production of Chris Godwin?" Franklin asked at a press confer- ence during spring practice. "I don't know if you necessarily can do that, but when you have so many guys who have played a lot of football for you, it helps. Probably not one guy, but multiple guys will be able to do it." If the spring storyline at Penn State concurrent to Godwin's rise was any indication, redshirt sopho- more Juwan Johnson is the program's most likely response to that challenge. Having spent the past two years situated directly behind Godwin on the Nittany Lions' depth chart – sometimes to his own admitted frustration – Johnson is eager to fill that role. For the redshirt sophomore, spring practice was all about preparing for a season in which his playing time is likely to skyrocket. "It's my time to be up," he said. "I have to step up and fill in the place that Chris had when he was here." Johnson spent the spring doing exactly that. With fellow wideout Saeed Blacknall recovering from an unspecified injury, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound John- son earned glowing reviews from teammates and coaches throughout. The first indications of his progress arrived on April 1 in the form of a one-on-one interview between Penn State's in-house reporter and wide receivers coach Josh Gattis that appeared on the school's ath- letics website. Noting that Johnson was having "an unbelievable spring camp," Gattis detailed the extent of his progress. Said the coach, "When you talk about most improved players on the team, he's one of those guys who comes to mind. He's a guy who is going to make a lot of plays for us this upcoming season and help us win a lot of games." The process that got Johnson to that point was slow and at times painfully frustrating. Arriving at Penn State in the summer of 2015 as a Rivals.com four-star wideout out of Glassboro, N.J., ranked No. 3 in the state and No. 152 among all prospects nationally, he had high expectations for himself. In his first year at PSU, Johnson participated in THE WAIT IS OVER T After a two-year apprenticeship, Juwan Johnson takes on a bigger role in PSU's passing game CHANGING HANDS John- son caught only two passes for 70 yards as a red- shirt freshman, but he is ex- pected to be a much more fre- quent target this fall as the Lions look to replace All- Conference wideout Chris Godwin. Photo by Steve Manuel C O V E R S T O R Y

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