Blue White Illustrated

| P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> he Penn State football team scored 534 points last season. That is a boatload of points. Only six teams in the Football Bowl Subdivi- sion equaled or surpassed the Nittany Lions' average of 41.1 points per game, and only one of those teams – Ohio State – played in the Big Ten. The only drawback to scoring that many points is that someday you'll in- evitably have to replace the players who amassed all those touchdowns, field goals and PATs. For Penn State, that day has arrived. The 2018 Nittany Lions will be without four of last year's top five scorers, as Saquon Barkley has left early for the NFL, while Tyler Davis, DaeSean Hamilton and Mike Gesicki have ex- hausted their eligibility after playing huge roles in the program's revival. To- gether, those four players scored 344 points last year. That amounts to an av- erage of 26.5 points per game and makes up 64.4 percent of Penn State's total scoring output for the season. The quest to find replacements for those departed offensive playmakers has been one of the big storylines of spring practice. But not the only storyline. The Lions also have some big holes on de- T maturity standpoint and from an ac- countability standpoint and from a teammate standpoint. He's been very respectful of the older guys and is working like crazy and competing like crazy. He has been really good." It's a two-way street, of course. In- coming players have to buy in, but the coaches have to give them some- thing to buy into. That's where all those wins come in handy. The Nittany Lions are 22-5 over the past two seasons, with a Big Ten championship, a Fiesta Bowl vic- tory and two top-10 finishes in the final polls. As Franklin's immediate predecessor, Bill O'Brien, once said, "At the end of the day, winning cures everything." He was right. Winning creates an atmosphere of positivity that often yields short-term results in the form of more wins. But just as important, it creates a foundation for long-term success by giving the coaching staff the credibility it needs in order to acclimate newcomers into the team's roster and culture. It helps, too, when the success con- tinues after your players leave cam- pus. In February, Saquon Barkley, Mike Gesicki, Troy Apke and others "lit up" the NFL Scouting Combine, to borrow NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock's phrase. Their performance served to further legitimize the staff's workout and practice regimen. Barkley is probably going to be a top- five pick, while Gesicki may well have worked his way into the first round. Apke is probably also going to be a draftee after only starting one season at Penn State, and a number of other players are headed into the league, from Marcus Allen to Jason Cabinda. Why wouldn't you buy into that? For a long time, Parsons wasn't sure that Penn State was what he wanted. But he came around eventually, and now that he's arrived, he could soon find himself becoming yet another example of the coaches' ability to max-out the potential of high-level prospects. After all, he's already at 9.5 percent body fat. ■

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