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Penn State 2019 Season articles

Justin Fields 2nd team pick. Looked like garbage through spring practice and spring game.

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/big-ten-football-2019-all-conference-team

Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State are the projected top teams in the Big Ten this season by Athlon Sports, so it’s no surprise those three programs lead the way in all-conference selections. The Wolverines boast 15 picks on Athlon’s All-Big Ten team for 2019, followed by the Nittany Lions at 13 and the Buckeyes at 11. Michigan State and Iowa are next with nine selections.
 
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https://bwi.rivals.com/news/franklin-hopeful-for-stevens-penn-state-after-transfer

Sitting down with Blue White Illustrated for a wide-ranging interview this week, Penn State head coach James Franklin recounted the events that led to this point and, maybe more important, detailed how the program is moving on in Stevens’ absence.

“Obviously, a little unexpected,” said Franklin of Stevens' decision. “We had a lot of conversations with Tommy and his dad. And I don't feel like either side got exactly what they wanted out of those conversations, but I felt like we had kind of got to a compromise and then moved forward. But at the end of the day, I wish Tommy nothing but success. I would have loved for it to be here, but I wish him nothing but success.”

“I do think in a lot of ways, obviously, the Lord works in mysterious ways,” Franklin said. “Sean was able to get a lot of those reps this year for some circumstances that were outside of Tommy's control, but it allowed Sean to gain some experience. Now it has thrust (redshirt freshman Will) Levis into a more prominent role, and then those two freshman quarterbacks. Good thing we signed two.”

Instead noting his long-held belief of considering every single position an open competition, every single year, Franklin said he understood the tendency of fans, media, and the public-at-large of making presumptions. But, he added, within his own program, that tendency has and will continue to be avoided.

“What I don't want to do is, I don't want to ever make promises or make statements and then don't live up to them,” said Franklin. “We don't do that in recruiting. A lot of schools do that in recruiting. They promise a guy a number, they promise playing time. We just don't do that.

“To me, we're supposed to be using the game of football to teach kids life, and you earn things in life and you earn things in college football.”
 
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PENN STATE’S 2019 BREAKOUT PLAYER (DEFENSE)

Pick 1. Tyler Donohue — DE Jayson Oweh

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While his athletic freakiness has further advanced under the direction of Dwight Galt and crew — evidenced by a 40-yard dash in the low 4.4s and a 36-inch vertical jump at 6-foot-5 and nearly 260 pounds — it’s Oweh’s digestion of those details that will determine just how much of a factor he’ll become in 2019.

While providing an update on his position group days before the Blue-White Game, Spencer explained “the switch started hitting” for Oweh during Citrus Bowl preparation and “big steps” continued this spring. The football trajectory here has been pointing skyward for a few years, and there’s no reason to anticipate a pause in his progression.
 
Has Penn State projected as the 2nd best defense in college football. The "cornerback vacancy" is non existent as Castro-Fields was the 3rd CB last year and played as much as the other starters.



Predicting the Top 10 Defenses in College Football for 2019

KERRY MILLER

2. Penn State Nittany Lions


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    Micah ParsonsJoe Robbins/Getty Images
    2018 Rankings: 4.72 YPP (14th), 350.5 YPG (34th), 20.5 PPG (23rd)

    Key Players: You don't often see a true freshman lead a team in tackles, but that's what Micah Parsons did for Penn State last season. The defensive end-turned-linebacker will be the anchor of this unit once again in 2019. (And almost certainly in 2020, too.) The Nittany Lions also bring back backfield menace Yetur Gross-Matos. The then-sophomore defensive end had 20 tackles for loss last season.

    Potential Weakness: Without safety Nick Scott and cornerback Amani Oruwariye, Penn State has some holes to plug in the secondary. In particular, Oruwariye had seven interceptions and 18 pass breakups over the past two seasons. So it's time to find out if 2017 top-50 recruit Lamont Wade is finally ready to make an impact in State College. The safety has a total of three pass breakups and no interceptions in the past two years, and he flirted with skipping town via the transfer portal. For Penn State's sake, here's hoping he stuck around to prove something.

    What to Expect: The Nittany Lions are stacked at linebacker and have three returning defensive linemen (YGM, Shaka Toney and Robert Windsor) who had at least five sacks last year. If they get that cornerback vacancy figured out, they'll be almost impenetrable.
 
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https://bwi.rivals.com/news/oweh-re...Uxhlheeoq4uFDqnM4RAzejFnXq6rwABVfTQILGtJVfCIo

Oweh ready to display athleticism, offseason improvements
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Beginning his career in Penn State’s week three win against Kent State, Oweh saw the most defensive snaps of the season, 31, and made the most of them. He finished the game recording three tackles, including a pair of sacks and a quarterback hurry...“If you would look the Kent State game, you would see that my rushes I was just focusing on my athleticism and speed. I wasn't really using hands. I would let the tackle hit me and stuff like that,” said Oweh. “Also, you would see that my run game wasn't as good. So that's what I really focused on. “I’ve never worked this hard in my life,” he said. “Just finding my inner self and finding what I had to do to be successful, going through academics and everything obviously because I want to major in engineering. So doing that, the course load and everything, it was hard. But I feel like I got better and I plan to have a big year.”
 
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Justin Shorter

Shorter was one of three 5-star recruits in the 2018 class, along with Parsons and Slade.

The 6-5, 230-pound Shorter was redshirted last fall and he suffered an early-season leg injury that affected his development. But Shorter’s talent is obvious and it should only be a matter of time before the wideout becomes a bigger part of the Lions’ passing game.

“Justin Shorter, obviously, came in as the No. 1 receiver in the country,’’ Oweh said.

“Things didn’t go his way in the early stages (of 2018) but he works tirelessly.
 
Elite RB prospect set to enroll at Penn State
ByTYLER DONOHUE 21 hours ago
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The Penn State offensive backfield will soon get another boost. Devyn Ford, an elite running back recruit who signed with the university last winter, is set to enroll this weekend.

The North Stafford (Va.) High School standout told Lions247 he will officially embark on his career as a collegiate student-athlete Sunday. Ford collected more than 30 scholarship offers as a prospect, announced his verbal commitment to Penn State last May, then signed with the Nittany Lions in December.

"[The goal] is to get ready, get acclimated to the playbook so I know my assignments and what I need to do," Ford said during a recent appearance on the Lions247 Podcast. "Basically the whole thing is learning my role. Once I get to learn that role, I can excel at that role, and we'll see where it goes from there."

Considered the No. 5 running back in 247Sports 2019 composite prospect rankings, Ford joins a competitive positional group following the departure of second-round NFL draft selection Miles Sanders. The conversation starts with sophomore Ricky Slade and redshirt sophomore Journey Brown, while fellow true freshman and four-star 2019 signee Noah Cain has impressed since enrolling in January and completed his initial Nittany Lions spring camp with a team-high 14 touches and two scores in the Blue-White Game.
 
Culpepper talks year of adjustments
BySEAN FITZ
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Season one was one of adjustment for Culpepper, the former high school tight end and defensive end who made the transition to defensive tackle in his rookie year. He did not play in a game for the Nittany Lions last season as he reshaped himself into a player that could help Sean Spencer’s group in 2019.

The 6-foot-4 Culpepper is hovering around his listed 286 pounds and would like to get around 290 to start the season. He said he would have liked to play last season and get some experience, but redshirting ended up being the right call.



“For me, absolutely. I get another year of eligibility and I got all of that experience down on scout team,” he said. “It was just me and Aeneas [Hawkins] down there, we’re taking 100 reps a practice or something ridiculous. It sucks when you’re doing it, but the long-term benefits are astronomical.”



Culpepper is hoping to crack a rotation that hopes to cultivate depth below Robert Windsor, Antonio Shelton and classmate PJ Mustipher on the depth chart. Junior Ellison Jordan, sophomores Fred Hansard and Damion Barber and redshirt freshman Aeneas Hawkins all hope to make a statement for playing time this season.
 
Ranking the 10 coaches most likely to join CFB's 'natty club'
ByCHRIS HUMMER May 23, 10:20 AM


Only 22 programs have won a national championship since 1968. Modern spending and recruiting scouting and tactics have made the sport less volatile over time. College football is truly a sport of power programs and bluebloods from a national championship perspective. Thus, national championship-winning coaches have become college football’s rarest commodities.

With that in mind, 247Sports is looking forward five years and projecting the 10 coaches with the best chance of joining the above list. To do so, 247Sports considered a program’s history, the coach’s recruiting prowess and his career results.

5. JAMES FRANKLIN, PENN STATE
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(Photo: Getty)
Franklin caught a lot of flak a season ago as the Nittany Lions stumbled to 9-4 and finished No. 17 in the final AP Poll. My response? That’s pretty damn good for an off year in which you lost the best running back in program history, had a division low 52 percent of your production return and had your star quarterback (Trace McSorley) banged up for most of the season. Everything else in Franklin’s history suggests he’s an elite coach. He won nine games twice in three seasons at Vanderbilt; the Commodores hadn’t previously won nine games since 1915. Penn State wasn’t exactly in great shape when Franklin took over the program. All the 47-year-old has done since is win a combined 31 games the last three years and a Big Ten title. He’s twice had the Nittany Lions on the cusp of a CFB Playoff appearance. From a recruiting perspective, Franklin signed a fringe top 5 class in 2018 and the Nittany Lions are recruiting five-stars at a championship-winning level. It’s hard to get out of the Big Ten East, but Franklin’s profile is that of an annual contender.
 
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Penn State OL gains 34 pounds eating Chick-fil-A, Subway

For many, playing big-time college football is a dream. Playing a game in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans, and all the perks that come with it — does it get any better than that?

It does, in fact. You could be Penn State offensive lineman Bryce Effner.

You see, Effner gets to play college football, but it doesn’t stop there. To become a better play, Effner needed to gain wait, so he spent a year binging on Chick-fil-A and Subway. A team-mandated Chick-fil-A diet in order to get on the field for your college football team? It truly does not get any better than that.

“I came in at 265 and I weighed in at 299 last time we checked,” Effner told the StateCollege.com. “I gained mostly muscle,” he pointed out. “Mostly muscle. Make sure you get that down.”

Penn State signed Effner in 2018 at the aforementioned 265 pounds, far too small to play at the Big Ten level. He spent his redshirt year lifting in the Nittany Lions’ weight room and chowing down at Chick-fil-A.

“Two sandwiches and a large fry,” Effner said of his Chick-fil-A order. “I hate the turtle back fries, though. I don’t put any sauce on my sandwiches. I’m a purist. I take it seriously. I don’t do soda. I’m not a big lemonade guy. I do water. I get one of the tall ones and chug that.

“After I’m done with Chick-fil-A, I’ll often go to Jamba Juice and get a Pomegrante Paradise. You gotta get the sugar. The sugar and carbs are what is good for gaining weight.”

Effner isn’t done. Though he says he’s 299 pounds now, Effner has another 10 to 15 pounds to gain, which it’s his duty to his Nittany Lion teammates to hit up his favorite fried chicken joint as many times as his stomach will allow.

What a life.

https://collegefootballtalk.nbcspor...ol-gains-34-pounds-eating-chick-fil-a-subway/
 
Never saw the fit for Juwan Johnson 2.0. Give the scholarship to a deserving walk on this year.

 
Early season television times

Idaho: 3:30 BTN
Buffalo: 7:30pm Fox
Pitt: 12:00pm ABC
Maryland: 8:00pm FoxSports1
Purdue: 12:00pm ESPNs or ABC
 
Transfer portal kickoff specialist. Will also compete going forward for FG kicker and punter. RS Soph, has 3 years.

 
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