Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Perfect, perfect, perfect night in Happy Valley. Penn State football continuing its preparations in advance of a Saturday afternoon date with visiting Indiana at Beaver Stadium. As per usual, head coach James Franklin and the Nittany Lions graciously opened the gates of the Lasch football complex to allow the media a brief look at the Nittany Lions in action tonight.
I'm going to get Wright into it.
(Get it?)
1) Chasz was working with the second team tonight at right tackle, but seemed to be moving well. Tuesday at his weekly press conference, Franklin indicated that "it will be good having Chasz back" so, along with the visual of him absolutely steamrolling one of the poor scout team defensive ends, it is at minimum safe to say that this does not appear to be a long-term deal.
As I always say, though, you just never know what Penn State's plans are going to be with players working back from apparent injuries.
Business as usual along the rest of the line. Bates, Mahon, McGovern, Gonzo, Fries. Left>Right
2) I wrote a little column on Monday about the correlation between the last-minute drive for Penn State to win at Indiana and the typical Wednesday practice routine that includes a two-minute drill with lots on the line. The players themselves mentioned it after the game, and Franklin again brought it up on Tuesday at his press conference.
Oddly enough, we didn't see it this afternoon.
According to Franklin, they decided to do some ones vs. ones or twos/ones, etc. work at the beginning of practice just because it's such a challenge for any scout team personnel to really duplicate or come close to the hurry up aspect of what Indiana's offense does.
"It’s hard to simulate on a scout team, so we started today instead of going two minute we changed up the plan up and did a tempo period, offense vs. defense, and not really the way our tempo is," said Franklin. "We went fast. We have the ability to do that, although we don’t do it very often, so we did that in practice today against the one defense and the twos. Not for very long but just to get a little bit of that before Saturday."
3) The portion of practice that we were able to see included the first and second team offense against a scout team look, right in the red zone striking range of about 15-20 yards.
Multiple, multiple touchdown passes to DaeSean Hamilton and Mike Gesicki in those looks, one to Brandon Polk and another from Tommy Stevens to Irvin Charles, as well as a rushing TD for McSorley.
This was half-speed type work, and a lot of the passes were touch-pass fades and high pointing work. But, there were some pretty nice catches among the bunch.
4) You're going to see a lot of stuff on the uniforms this weekend, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it here, although Franklin himself addressed it in a few ways.
But, he did have some interesting comments about the small details that can have an unexpected impact toward giving your team some "juice" at this point in the season. With the initial hype of the start of the season somewhat worn off, and in the middle of the year now with the fifth game coming on Saturday, there are always little things that can really help - and to Franklin, he explained how the simple notion of white shoes as part of the throwback uniform can amp a team up a little bit more than it might otherwise.
It's always about finding a competitive edge, and Franklin is a huge believer in what those types of things can do.
5) You guys can watch the video for yourselves, but Franklin kind of assessed how the team is playing as a whole at this point in the season and I thought it was a pretty pertinent point he made about playing complementary football - which might be the best form this program has taken under his direction in year four.
"I would say more that I think we’re playing at a fairly early point in the season we’re playing pretty good complementary football," said Franklin. "What happens a lot of times, you might have a defense start out real strong and the offense is still trying to find their identity, or special teams or whatever it is.
"I think fairly early on this season we were able to build off last year’s momentum and I think the offense is playing good enough to win. I think the defense is playing good enough to win. I think special teams is playing good enough to win, and when you’re playing in all three phases at a fairly high level - don’t take me the wrong way. I’m not saying we’re playing perfect, there are things we did not do well on Saturday - but I think all three phases have shown that we can play well enough to win. When you do that you have a chance to be a good football team, because there are good football teams who are just doing with just two of the three components."
Nationally, Penn State is No. 20 in offense, No. 17 in defense, No. 23 scoring offense, No. 2 scoring defense, Tied-No. 8 in turnover margin, No. 12 in punt returns, No. 17 in punt return defense, No. 21 in fewest penalties.
Yeah, this is a team that is dangerous, because even when one area might not be firing on all cylinders like you saw with the offense on Saturday night in the first half, you've got a defense that went out and did all but suffocate Iowa offensively until that swing in momentum at the end of the first half.
Bonus) For those who have been curious, positive behind the scenes reviews for Journey Brown. This shouldn't come as any surprise because he, along with much of the rest of the freshman class acclimating this year, are still figuring it out. But, the burst is undeniable. The kid has quickness and speed that you just can't teach, even further setting up an interesting situation for Penn State next year at tailback, with the safe, safe assumption that Saquon Barkley will be playing on Sundays next year.
Bonus Part II) Nick Bowers was in practice, in pads, in a scout team jersey. I don't know anything about him beyond that, but, he was there and in pads.
Perfect, perfect, perfect night in Happy Valley. Penn State football continuing its preparations in advance of a Saturday afternoon date with visiting Indiana at Beaver Stadium. As per usual, head coach James Franklin and the Nittany Lions graciously opened the gates of the Lasch football complex to allow the media a brief look at the Nittany Lions in action tonight.
I'm going to get Wright into it.
(Get it?)
1) Chasz was working with the second team tonight at right tackle, but seemed to be moving well. Tuesday at his weekly press conference, Franklin indicated that "it will be good having Chasz back" so, along with the visual of him absolutely steamrolling one of the poor scout team defensive ends, it is at minimum safe to say that this does not appear to be a long-term deal.
As I always say, though, you just never know what Penn State's plans are going to be with players working back from apparent injuries.
Business as usual along the rest of the line. Bates, Mahon, McGovern, Gonzo, Fries. Left>Right
2) I wrote a little column on Monday about the correlation between the last-minute drive for Penn State to win at Indiana and the typical Wednesday practice routine that includes a two-minute drill with lots on the line. The players themselves mentioned it after the game, and Franklin again brought it up on Tuesday at his press conference.
Oddly enough, we didn't see it this afternoon.
According to Franklin, they decided to do some ones vs. ones or twos/ones, etc. work at the beginning of practice just because it's such a challenge for any scout team personnel to really duplicate or come close to the hurry up aspect of what Indiana's offense does.
"It’s hard to simulate on a scout team, so we started today instead of going two minute we changed up the plan up and did a tempo period, offense vs. defense, and not really the way our tempo is," said Franklin. "We went fast. We have the ability to do that, although we don’t do it very often, so we did that in practice today against the one defense and the twos. Not for very long but just to get a little bit of that before Saturday."
3) The portion of practice that we were able to see included the first and second team offense against a scout team look, right in the red zone striking range of about 15-20 yards.
Multiple, multiple touchdown passes to DaeSean Hamilton and Mike Gesicki in those looks, one to Brandon Polk and another from Tommy Stevens to Irvin Charles, as well as a rushing TD for McSorley.
This was half-speed type work, and a lot of the passes were touch-pass fades and high pointing work. But, there were some pretty nice catches among the bunch.
4) You're going to see a lot of stuff on the uniforms this weekend, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it here, although Franklin himself addressed it in a few ways.
But, he did have some interesting comments about the small details that can have an unexpected impact toward giving your team some "juice" at this point in the season. With the initial hype of the start of the season somewhat worn off, and in the middle of the year now with the fifth game coming on Saturday, there are always little things that can really help - and to Franklin, he explained how the simple notion of white shoes as part of the throwback uniform can amp a team up a little bit more than it might otherwise.
It's always about finding a competitive edge, and Franklin is a huge believer in what those types of things can do.
5) You guys can watch the video for yourselves, but Franklin kind of assessed how the team is playing as a whole at this point in the season and I thought it was a pretty pertinent point he made about playing complementary football - which might be the best form this program has taken under his direction in year four.
"I would say more that I think we’re playing at a fairly early point in the season we’re playing pretty good complementary football," said Franklin. "What happens a lot of times, you might have a defense start out real strong and the offense is still trying to find their identity, or special teams or whatever it is.
"I think fairly early on this season we were able to build off last year’s momentum and I think the offense is playing good enough to win. I think the defense is playing good enough to win. I think special teams is playing good enough to win, and when you’re playing in all three phases at a fairly high level - don’t take me the wrong way. I’m not saying we’re playing perfect, there are things we did not do well on Saturday - but I think all three phases have shown that we can play well enough to win. When you do that you have a chance to be a good football team, because there are good football teams who are just doing with just two of the three components."
Nationally, Penn State is No. 20 in offense, No. 17 in defense, No. 23 scoring offense, No. 2 scoring defense, Tied-No. 8 in turnover margin, No. 12 in punt returns, No. 17 in punt return defense, No. 21 in fewest penalties.
Yeah, this is a team that is dangerous, because even when one area might not be firing on all cylinders like you saw with the offense on Saturday night in the first half, you've got a defense that went out and did all but suffocate Iowa offensively until that swing in momentum at the end of the first half.
Bonus) For those who have been curious, positive behind the scenes reviews for Journey Brown. This shouldn't come as any surprise because he, along with much of the rest of the freshman class acclimating this year, are still figuring it out. But, the burst is undeniable. The kid has quickness and speed that you just can't teach, even further setting up an interesting situation for Penn State next year at tailback, with the safe, safe assumption that Saquon Barkley will be playing on Sundays next year.
Bonus Part II) Nick Bowers was in practice, in pads, in a scout team jersey. I don't know anything about him beyond that, but, he was there and in pads.
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