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P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> Given the off-season departure of last year's starters, Evan Schwan and Garrett Sickels, Penn State was never particularly experi- enced at defensive end at any point in the season, and the injuries only ex- acerbated the team's per- sonnel concerns at the position. With two of the Lions' veteran ends side- lined and Miller "nicked up," as Franklin described it, the scholarship depth chart showed mostly freshmen heading into the final weeks of the regular season. In addition to Toney, there were redshirt freshmen Daniel Joseph and Shane Simmons, plus true freshmen Yetur Gross-Matos and Damion Barber. Daniel has played spar- ingly, while Barber is headed for a redshirt. The others have had to grow up in a hurry. "It's a great opportunity for those guys to continue to grow and develop and make plays," Franklin said. "Obviously, with some of those younger players, it's easier to play them in a one-back offense, spread-style situation, where it's going to be a lot of pass rush, compared to a Michi- gan State situation where they're going to try to run the ball down your throat and play-action pass. We're going to have to continue to develop those guys." The alternative, Franklin said, was to get creative and exploit the versatility of the defensive tackles. Redshirt sophomore Kevin Givens appeared at both end and tackle during his debut season and has the ability to play outside despite stand- ing 6-foot-1, 287 pounds. In the Lions' game at Michigan State, the coaching staff decided that moving Givens to defensive end was a better choice than asking Toney to handle the bulk of the snaps as he was forced to do at Ohio State. Slowed down by the slop of a 3-hour, 22- minute extreme-weather delay at Spartan Stadium, Toney finished with only three tackles and no hurries or sacks. Forced to confront a changing reality in his first season of action, Toney has got- ten the first big challenge of his college career. Listed at 6-3, 233 pounds, he has been called on to play a larger-than-ex- pected role without the benefit of a years- long development process. "I just think he needs to keep learning," Miller said. "He needs to take all the coaching and be patient to take the next step. He'll be fine if he listens to Coach Spence and Coach Pry. "He needs to get bigger in the weight room so he can be that defensive end he wants to be. He wants to be the type of defensive end who can play all three downs instead of just playing on third down, so I just try to tell him to keep working and keep listening to the coaches, looking to the older guys and keep developing. He's getting better." Difficult as it may be for anxious Penn State fans or even for Toney himself, Franklin concurred with the sentiment. The Lions may have been hindered by the inconsistency of their pass rush in back- to-back losses at Ohio State and Michi- gan State, but no matter how desperate the need, Toney's acclimation cannot occur on an on-demand basis. "That doesn't happen over a couple of weeks. It's an ongoing process," Franklin said. "We're very excited about Shaka and his future. We still feel like at this point he's a situational defensive end. We were forced [in the game at Ohio State] to not use him in situations and play him more as an every-down defensive end. But that's going to be an ongoing process. You don't resolve that in a couple weeks, although we're very excited about his future." ■ DROP ZONE Buch- holz drags down Michigan's John O'Korn. The sopho- more defensive end was injured the fol- lowing week against Ohio State. Photo by Steve Manuel

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