Blue White Illustrated

| P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> FIVE QUESTIONS o one knew it at the time, but Penn State was on the verge of a breakthrough as it began spring practice two years ago. The Nittany Lions returned 15 starters from the 2015 season, and while that season hadn't been wholly satisfying, the core group of young but experienced players that re- turned was enough to propel the team to a Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl berth that fall. At this time last year, the Lions ap- peared to be in even better shape. They went into spring practice with all the manpower they needed to make another conference championship run, as 18 starters were back, including their lead- ing rusher from the previous season (Saquon Barkley), their leading passer (Trace McSorley) and two of their three leading tacklers (Marcus Allen and Jason Cabinda). But this being college football, that period of relative stability had to end sometime. That time has arrived. While the 2018 Nittany Lions have a contin- gent of talented and experienced veter- ans returning, a group headed up by McSorley, the Big Ten's top passer in 2017, they also have some sizable holes to fill on both sides of the ball. Barkley is gone, as are Allen and Cabinda, and those are only some of the more promi- nent names that won't be appearing on the Lions' two-deep anymore. All told, Penn State has bid farewell to four starters on offense, eight on defense and one on special teams. Those absences will make this a very consequential spring for the Lions as they look to sustain the success they en- joyed the past two seasons. The team's overall talent pool has been getting deeper as James Franklin's recruiting classes have replaced the classes that Penn State brought in while still under NCAA sanctions, but expectations are creeping back up to a level they probably haven't reached since the late 1990s. Here's a look at five of the more press- ing questions facing Penn State as spring practice proceeds in advance of the Blue-White Game on April 21. 1 Who's going to succeed Saquon Barkley in the Nit- tany Lions' backfield? Notice that we didn't ask who's going to replace Barkley. No one is going to do that. During his All-America junior sea- son, the NFL-bound running back ac- counted for 32.8 percent of Penn State's 7,098 all-purpose yards. To put that in perspective, the team's leader in all- purpose yardage in 2014, DaeSean Hamilton, accounted for only 17.4 per- cent of the total. In 2013, team leader Allen Robinson accounted for 23.7 per- cent. Barkley arrived in 2015 and led the Nittany Lions in all-purpose yards during all three of his seasons in Uni- versity Park. This past year, he aver- aged a career-high 179.15 all-purpose yards per game. Only one player in the Football Bowl Subdivision topped that figure: San Diego State running back Rashaad Penny, whose average of 228.77 yards per game amounted to an astonishing 45.5 percent of the Aztecs' total all-purpose yards. Point being, Barkley was an outlier whose likes Penn State probably won't see again anytime soon. It's unrealistic to expect any single player to have the kind of impact that he had as a runner, receiver and kick returner. However, the Nittany Lions might not need to find a Barkley clone to have an effective running game in 2018. They are coming off a season in which they fin- ished sixth in the Big Ten and 59th in the FBS with an average of 170.2 rushing yards per game. Those numbers are not so stratospheric that they can't be equaled, and with a veteran offensive line set to return, one that allowed Penn State to rush for 203 yards against Washington's top-ranked run defense in the Fiesta Bowl, they could potentially be surpassed. One of Penn State's top priorities this spring will be to groom a new stable of running backs to split up the workload. The Nittany Lions averaged just under 35 carries per game last year, with Mc- Sorley accounting for nearly a third of them. If they follow that statistical template in 2018, there will be about 20 to 25 carries per game for the running backs to share. Franklin has said that the Lions will most likely take a more equitable approach this year, which means that Miles Sanders, Mark Allen, Journey Brown and Johnathan Thomas can expect to receive plenty of reps in spring practice. Allen, a senior, has the most career carries of those four with 65, but he car- ried only nine times last year, while Sanders had 31 attempts and split time with Barkley in the Fiesta Bowl. The 5- foot-11, 211-pound Sanders is also a tal- ented receiver, having won recognition from Rivals.com as the country's best all-purpose running back. He's the pre- sumptive starter, but his fellow running N With vacancies throughout their depth chart, the Nittany Lions are looking to find answers as spring practice gets under way

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