Blue White Illustrated

A T T H E 2 0 1 8 N I T T A N Y L I O N S Castagna, Yetur Gross-Matos, Daniel Joseph, Shareef Miller, Shane Simmons, Shaka Toney; DT: Corey Bolds, Kevin Givens, Fred Hansard, Immanuel Iyke, Ellison Jordan, Antonio Shelton, Robert Windsor KEY LOSSES DT: Tyrell Chavis, Curtis Cothran, Parker Cothren NEWCOMERS DE: Jayson Oweh; DT: Judge Culpepper, Aeneas Hawkins, P.J. Mustipher OUTLOOK The Nittany Lions have an abundance of talent and experience at defensive end. Of the six ends who recorded at least a partial sack in 2017, all are expected to be back this coming fall. That list includes their sack leader, Miller, who finished with five, and Toney, who finished second with four. The Lions are coming off a season in which they tied for the Big Ten lead and were seventh in the FBS with 42 sacks, so there's obviously a lot of potential here. That said, there were also a few late-sea- son games in which they weren't able to get to the quarterback consistently. Penn State generated a combined total of four sacks in its losses to Ohio State and Michi- gan State. J.T. Barrett threw for 328 yards in the Buckeyes' 39-38 victory, while Brian Lewerke threw for 400 in the Spar- tans' last-second 27-24 win. If the Lions are going to take the next step, they'll need to bring the heat on a weekly basis. The good news for the coaches is that they may already have the players on hand to do that, including a potential breakout player in Buchholz. As a redshirt sophomore, the 6-6, 275- pound Buchholz finished with 18 tackles and two sacks despite missing three games with an injury. Said defensive co- ordinator Brent Pry, "He has a chance to be one of the better D-linemen to come through here. Which is a big statement, I realize. He's got tremendous size and also is a very good athlete. People don't realize how athletic he is. "And he's a great student of the game. If you've ever watched him pre-snap, his head is on a swivel. He's sizing up the whole formation. If they trade the back, he sees it. If they move the tight end, he sees it. … He's an athlete who can run and already has a bunch of experience under his belt. He's a special player, in my opin- ion. He's got a chance to be a complete and run your system," Franklin said. "You've got to hire them to come in and run what they've been successful doing. "For us, that was an option. The other option was to stay in-house and allow this team to continue to grow. And Ricky has done a great job of it. The quarter- backs in our room were a big part of that. Ricky recruited every single quar- terback in our room. So a lot of it had to do with what Trace McSorley felt good about and what Tommy Stevens felt good about. Talking to the players, it's been a really smooth transition for the most part." Things certainly went smoothly in the Fiesta Bowl against Washington. Facing the fifth-ranked defense in the country one that was allowing only 277.4 yards per game, Rahne's offense set a Penn State bowl record with 545 total yards. The Lions will, of course, be losing one of the key players on that team, as Saquon Barkley is off to the NFL. But they will have a more-experienced of- fensive line and a veteran quarterback in McSorley, so there is plenty of talent on hand with which to build a solid of- fense. Franklin's advice to Rahne has been straightforward: embrace change but don't embody it. "Don't try to come in and be someone else," Franklin told him. "Be authentic. Be you, and the offense will evolve, no different than it did be- tween year one and year two [of Moor- head's tenure]. It will evolve again this year." Rahne is the Nittany Lions' third offensive coordinator since November 2015, and while that sort of up- heaval isn't uncom- mon in college football, it still doesn't feel entirely nor- mal at Penn State, where predecessors like Fran Ganter and Galen Hall spent decades. But Rahne said he hopes to be with the Nittany Lions for a long time. His wife, Jennifer, is from Pittsburgh and still has family there, and Penn State, with its resources and its history of field- ing championship-caliber teams, af- fords Rahne the chance to fulfill his professional ambitions. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime oppor- tunity for me that I hope lasts a life- time," he said. ■ RICKY RAHNE Steve Manuel

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