STATE COLLEGE – Football media day at Penn State has always resembled a military parade. It is a classic pass and review. All the players don their jerseys and are regulated to huddling together by their positions located throughout Holuba Hall’s vast indoor football practice facility. The afternoon’s proceedings have always taken on a very positive outlook, where players are healthy, and the offseason workouts were well attended. All the coaches are optimistic almost too much so and are more at ease than any time during the season making all the benign queries much easier to digest from a less than anxious media contingent not staring at a tight deadline.
Initially, the news wasn’t too good as the interim suspension of two hopeful defensive players have been made permanent. A Penn State spokesman confirmed that sophomore defensive end Jameial Lyons and redshirt freshman linebacker Kaveion Keys are no longer on the team or enrolled at the university. No one would comment further as the issue was put to rest and the soft ball session of an interview with head coach James Franklin commenced. Despite the two dismissals, there remains 125 players on the active roster of which 85 are on scholarship.
The sweeping sentiments that permeated throughout the facility among staff and players was that the potential for a historic football campaign for the Nittany Lions is no mirage. When the expanded college football playoff that begins this season is combined with the ghost of championship’s past that haunts Happy Valley, the long overdue is, well, due. How could it not be? Such sentiments were like some kind of telepathic goal for all those dressed in their blue and white home jerseys.
The last time the Nittany Lions garnered a national title Ronald Reagan was in the White House (1987). In fact, both of Penn State’s national titles, the first in 1982, came with Reagan in the Oval Office. Perhaps the stupid party needs to open up things a bit on offense and use this in their instate campaigning to turn Centre County and the rest of the commonwealth from blue to red. We are: Republicans.
The NCAA transfer portal that changed the college recruiting landscape forever got underway on October 15, 2018, but the coaches’ transfer portal has been around since the advent of the game. Not missing a beat in the off season, Penn State was quite active not only with players coming and going but by bringing on three new coordinators.
Tom Allen, the former head coach at Big Ten rival Indiana, is the new defensive coordinator, while Andy Kotelnicki, who left Kansas as their offensive coordinator will perform the same in Happy Valley, and Justin Lustig formerly of Vanderbilt will handle the special teams. All three coaches followed James Franklin who provided his coordinator’s the opportunity to share the stage and microphone solo and lend some insight on what to expect from their charges as first-year coaches with the Nittany Lions.
Defensive coordinator Tom Allen has a coaching philosophy where playing lots of players is the first order of the day. “Whether it’s third down package, second pass packages that we have, guys that can cover guys that can tackle. That’s one thing [cornerbacks] coach Terry Smith has done a phenomenal job is, building a room full of guys that have the traits you’re looking for,” said Allen, who looks to establish depth throughout the defense while working through an effective rotation.
New offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who used two quarterbacks together during his three-year tenure at Kansas is comfortable with having his signal callers running the football. For projected starter Drew Allar, running the ball is nothing new, nor intimidating. Allar got it done last season having rushed for 206 yards and four touchdowns. Moreover, Allar has lost ten pounds since the April Blue vs. White game to be a more mobile pocket passer, who can scramble when needed or designed.
That leaves backup quarterback Beau Pribula, as probably the offense’s biggest enigma. Pribula played in 11 games last season as the No. 2 quarterback rushing for 329 yards and six touchdowns with four via the pass. At the Big Ten media day in late July, Franklin addressed Pribula’s situation saying “[Pribula] is probably more similar to the guys that [Kotelnicki] he had at Kansas. I remember talking very early with Drew [Allar] about that.” At the Big Ten media day, Franklin made it clear that Pribula will see the field this season. If that is not enough, Kotelnicki has got to figure out who will replace the three offensive linemen who were NFL draft picks.
Penn State new special team’s coordinator Justin Lustig, who played his college ball at nearby Bucknell in the late ‘90s, brings with him a formidable coaching resume. Lustig served as head coach at Edinboro during the 2016 season, where he was honored as the D2Football.com National Coach of the Year. The former Bison captain always had a nose for the ball that made an emerging public address announcers’ job much easier especially working without a spotter. When I showed him Bucknell’s 1999 media guide – his senior year – I believe Lustig got the biggest laugh he’s had yet in State College. He plans on having plenty more with the wins to accompany them.
Once the formalities of speaking with a plethora of media outlets were finally concluded, to the relief of both players and coaches, the players were to commence with the only laboratory that can produce depth for any roster – practicing in pads. Skull sessions of shorts and tee-shirts are one thing, pads and especially suiting up and playing on game day is quite another. Pads create what coaches, especially on the offensive side of the ball, want from their wideout position – separation. Throughout the years, many of the questions at the annual media day center around depth. After all, there is no game played to comment on.
Last season on offense, the wide receiver position had become offensive, but not in a favorable sense. Leading receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith had one catch over the Nittany Lion’s final three games. Such low production expedited his jump into the spring’s transfer portal that seems more a vortex than anything. The disgruntled Lambert-Smith eventually landed at Auburn.
Emerging from that same transfer portal was wideout Julian Fleming, the former five-star player and the once number one recruit in Pennsylvania from instate Southern Columbia, who garnered solid numbers playing for rival Ohio State despite playing alongside Marvin Harrison III, Garrett Wilson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, all NFL draftees. Then there were the nagging injuries that the 6-2, 206-pound Fleming had to contend with. Besides quarterback Drew Allar, it was Fleming, in his final year of eligibility, who held court answering a series of nonstop questions with poise and patience.
Fleming’s demeanor only underscored what Penn State junior wideout Harrison Wallace III said about him, “He stepped into that leadership role that we didn’t really have in the room by making sure we do extra things, taking us under his wing, teaching the young guys things that he went through, things that worked for him and things that didn’t work for him,” Wallace III, is certainly one who should know and has emerged as a likely starter that will only compliment his 38 catches for 501 yards and two touchdowns since arriving in State College. It is no secret that Penn State needs more than one vertical threat to keep defenses’ honest.
Fleming’s presence and experience (60 receptions for 803 yards and six touchdowns in the last two seasons for Ohio State) should put to rest what many pundits saw as Penn State wideouts taking off too many plays. Such lack of production certainly did not help emerging quarterback Drew Allar. Fleming looked even heavier than his listed 206 pounds, something that should give opposing defenses reason to pause when he runs any slant route. Fleming also credited Bloomsburg native Thomas Hughes, who runs a growing and successful speed performance program (Vapor Trails) for working with him beginning when he was at Southern Columbia to improve his speed. Perhaps the only thing faster than Fleming might be his receding hairline.
Fleming is not just an ex-Buckeye, but a graduate of The Ohio State University as he earned a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies in December before exiting for home through the transfer portal for his one year at Penn State and his final year of college football. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons this being my fifth year of college football,” Fleming said more than once. “It’s kind of too many to even think about right now. But the big one is, as Coach Franklin says, the best ability is availability.” Fleming was optimistic about the upcoming season, expecting like so many of his teammates, to compete for not just a Big Ten title something that has eluded Penn State since 2016, but for a national title as well.
Like last season, Penn State will kick off 2024 in the top 10 at No. 9 in the Coaches Poll. The Nittany Lions are the fourth highest-ranked Big Ten program behind No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Oregon, and No. 8 Michigan. Of this group, Penn State will play only Ohio State during the regular season at Beaver Stadium on Saturday, November 2.
Penn State opens their 2024 campaign on the road with a noon kickoff on Saturday, August 31 against West Virginia in Morgantown.
