Good evening everyone -
Beautiful night here in Happy Valley as the Nittany Lions opened their gates to the Lasch Football Complex for the media to check out the last few minutes of practice, followed by interviews with head coach James Franklin and defensive end Jayson Oweh.
1) Just to get it out of the way from the onset, tight end Pat Freiermuth was dressed and practicing and working with the Nittany Lions Wednesday evening. I was mostly trying to pay attention to the defensive side of the field, so I think he was targeted with only one pass that I saw, and he didn't get hit on the reception.
We know Franklin isn't going to discuss injuries or player availability from week to week, but just from the look of that hit on Saturday, and its aftermath, I'd have a hard time seeing him in action against Buffalo, regardless of his participation today (in which there was no chance of him getting hit). I've been wrong before, though.
2) An offensive depth chart this week, to the best of my ability:
QB - Sean Clifford/Will Levis
RB - Ricky Slade/Journey Brown/Noah Cain/Devyn Ford
TE - Nick Bowers
TE - Pat Freiermuth/Brenton Strange
WR - Daniel George/Weston Carr
WR - Jahan Dotson/Dan Chisena
WR - KJ Hamler/Mac Hippenhammer
WR - Justin Shorter/Weston Carr
RT - Will Fries/Rasheed Walker
RT - CJ Thorpe/Mike Miranda
C - Michal Menet/Hunter Kelly
LG - Steven Gonzalez/Bryce Effner
LT - Rasheed Walker/Des Holmes
Levis connected once to Dotson, once to Freiermuth, and took off for a short scramble. On Clifford’s possession, his first pass was batted down but his second went for a touchdown to Shorter. A third pass went to Bowers in the back of the end zone but he couldn’t wrangle it for the TD.
Not much changed on defense, though Mustipher did get some run with the ones, as did Antonio Shelton.
DE - Shaka Toney
DT - PJ Mustipher
DT - Rob Windsor
DE - Yetur Gross-Matos
LB - Cam Brown
LB - Jan Johnson
LB - Micah Parsons
CB - Tariq Castro-Fields
S - Lamont Wade
S - Garrett Taylor
CB - John Reid
3) One of the things that stood out most tonight was the team needing to run up-backs on the width of the field.
And, without making out exactly what Franklin said about it, it seemed like he made the entire team do it again because of what appeared to be Micah Parsons not running the first rep hard enough.
Asked about the conditioning at the end of practice, Franklin offered this:
“We just have little things. The way we end practice, everybody’s gotta jog up and a couple of guys were walking,” said Franklin. “So we do that whenever guys don’t have their eyes up at the end of practice and we’re going over things or they don’t jog and they get caught walking, then we do things like that.”
From a broader perspective, Franklin then offered that he’s been pleased by practice this week, but has some general concern over the way that Wednesday practices have gone as of late.
“I’m pleased. I think the new practice model has been really good. Tuesdays practices have been really good. Wednesdays, I think can be better,” said Franklin. “But overall, so good. I know that we have a very well-coached coming in this week, it’s going to be a different challenge than it was last week, we just gotta keep getting better.”
4) The early reviews are in for C.J. Thorpe following his performance back at guard after a season swapped over to the defensive line, and Franklin is pleased by at least the first game.
“I think you guys saw some clips of him seven or eight yards downfield and a linebacker. And, you know, he's shown that really since he arrived,” said Franklin. “I think we need his attitude and his demeanor. I found it hilarious because all camp, our defense could not stand CJ. I mean, it was like fights in practice every single day. He's doing this. He's doing that.
“What do you think happened during the game when they’re all standing on the sideline watching CJ doing those same things to the opponent? Well, they love it. They think it's awesome. And that's why I tried to explain to them all camp.
“We need that. We need that mentality, A gentleman and a scholar off the field and the guy who's on the field, when it when the ball is snapped we need a guy that's gonna play with some edge. There’s no doubt that he brings that to the offense and we knew we were losing that a little bit when we moved him over.”
5) Due to the availability of Jayson Oweh following Franklin, he was asked a series of questions about the redshirt freshman defensive end, to his surprise.
In fact, he asked essentially if he’d missed the memo on Oweh, and in fact, he had, as he was not aware that Oweh would be available to the media right after his interview.
One of the things that stood out though when Franklin talked about Oweh was his improvement in the run-game aspect of playing the position.
“Probably the reason he didn't play as a true freshman is the run-game aspects,” said Franklin. “I think if it was probably just a two-minute situation, then yeah, I think it plays to the strengths at that point in his career. It's all the other stuff that I think he realizes, Sean's been very honest with him and upfront, Coach Pry as well, that this is an area he needs to work on.
“He understands that as well. And he's made tremendous strides over the last year. We need to keep doing that because we do think he's got great potential.”
Beautiful night here in Happy Valley as the Nittany Lions opened their gates to the Lasch Football Complex for the media to check out the last few minutes of practice, followed by interviews with head coach James Franklin and defensive end Jayson Oweh.
1) Just to get it out of the way from the onset, tight end Pat Freiermuth was dressed and practicing and working with the Nittany Lions Wednesday evening. I was mostly trying to pay attention to the defensive side of the field, so I think he was targeted with only one pass that I saw, and he didn't get hit on the reception.
We know Franklin isn't going to discuss injuries or player availability from week to week, but just from the look of that hit on Saturday, and its aftermath, I'd have a hard time seeing him in action against Buffalo, regardless of his participation today (in which there was no chance of him getting hit). I've been wrong before, though.
2) An offensive depth chart this week, to the best of my ability:
QB - Sean Clifford/Will Levis
RB - Ricky Slade/Journey Brown/Noah Cain/Devyn Ford
TE - Nick Bowers
TE - Pat Freiermuth/Brenton Strange
WR - Daniel George/Weston Carr
WR - Jahan Dotson/Dan Chisena
WR - KJ Hamler/Mac Hippenhammer
WR - Justin Shorter/Weston Carr
RT - Will Fries/Rasheed Walker
RT - CJ Thorpe/Mike Miranda
C - Michal Menet/Hunter Kelly
LG - Steven Gonzalez/Bryce Effner
LT - Rasheed Walker/Des Holmes
Levis connected once to Dotson, once to Freiermuth, and took off for a short scramble. On Clifford’s possession, his first pass was batted down but his second went for a touchdown to Shorter. A third pass went to Bowers in the back of the end zone but he couldn’t wrangle it for the TD.
Not much changed on defense, though Mustipher did get some run with the ones, as did Antonio Shelton.
DE - Shaka Toney
DT - PJ Mustipher
DT - Rob Windsor
DE - Yetur Gross-Matos
LB - Cam Brown
LB - Jan Johnson
LB - Micah Parsons
CB - Tariq Castro-Fields
S - Lamont Wade
S - Garrett Taylor
CB - John Reid
3) One of the things that stood out most tonight was the team needing to run up-backs on the width of the field.
And, without making out exactly what Franklin said about it, it seemed like he made the entire team do it again because of what appeared to be Micah Parsons not running the first rep hard enough.
Asked about the conditioning at the end of practice, Franklin offered this:
“We just have little things. The way we end practice, everybody’s gotta jog up and a couple of guys were walking,” said Franklin. “So we do that whenever guys don’t have their eyes up at the end of practice and we’re going over things or they don’t jog and they get caught walking, then we do things like that.”
From a broader perspective, Franklin then offered that he’s been pleased by practice this week, but has some general concern over the way that Wednesday practices have gone as of late.
“I’m pleased. I think the new practice model has been really good. Tuesdays practices have been really good. Wednesdays, I think can be better,” said Franklin. “But overall, so good. I know that we have a very well-coached coming in this week, it’s going to be a different challenge than it was last week, we just gotta keep getting better.”
4) The early reviews are in for C.J. Thorpe following his performance back at guard after a season swapped over to the defensive line, and Franklin is pleased by at least the first game.
“I think you guys saw some clips of him seven or eight yards downfield and a linebacker. And, you know, he's shown that really since he arrived,” said Franklin. “I think we need his attitude and his demeanor. I found it hilarious because all camp, our defense could not stand CJ. I mean, it was like fights in practice every single day. He's doing this. He's doing that.
“What do you think happened during the game when they’re all standing on the sideline watching CJ doing those same things to the opponent? Well, they love it. They think it's awesome. And that's why I tried to explain to them all camp.
“We need that. We need that mentality, A gentleman and a scholar off the field and the guy who's on the field, when it when the ball is snapped we need a guy that's gonna play with some edge. There’s no doubt that he brings that to the offense and we knew we were losing that a little bit when we moved him over.”
5) Due to the availability of Jayson Oweh following Franklin, he was asked a series of questions about the redshirt freshman defensive end, to his surprise.
In fact, he asked essentially if he’d missed the memo on Oweh, and in fact, he had, as he was not aware that Oweh would be available to the media right after his interview.
One of the things that stood out though when Franklin talked about Oweh was his improvement in the run-game aspect of playing the position.
“Probably the reason he didn't play as a true freshman is the run-game aspects,” said Franklin. “I think if it was probably just a two-minute situation, then yeah, I think it plays to the strengths at that point in his career. It's all the other stuff that I think he realizes, Sean's been very honest with him and upfront, Coach Pry as well, that this is an area he needs to work on.
“He understands that as well. And he's made tremendous strides over the last year. We need to keep doing that because we do think he's got great potential.”
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