For Penn State, ‘nobody’s feeling comfortable,’ and that’s a good thing
This is the deepest football team that James Franklin has coached in his 10 seasons at Penn State, something he has said multiple times.
The talent margin between the first team and second team is very thin at many positions. As several starters said this week, they can’t afford to become complacent for a minute.
“You can never get lax with the position that you’re in,” safety KJ Winston said. “Nobody’s feeling comfortable. Every day you know you have to come in and work. You just can’t come out one week and just think you’re going to be able to chill in practice or think, ‘This is a chill week.’”
That roster-wide mindset is what separates the 2023 Nittany Lions from the Penn State teams the past nine seasons. Even five-star players are competing to stay or get on the field. Guys are motivated to keep their spot or to overtake a teammate for his position.
“Having guys that you know can start right behind you forces everyone to compete and to get better every day,” guard Sal Wormley said. “We know there’s competition in the room. If we’re not doing something up to par, there’s a guy that will replace you.
“I feel like it just steps up our level of preparation. Everything just goes to the next level because we know what we have to do (to keep their positions).”
Having tremendous depth can help a team in other ways, too. If someone gets hurt, Franklin no longer worries about having someone else to replace him like he did in his first several seasons at Penn State.
Take Landon Tengwall, for example. He was the top prospect in Penn State’s 2021 recruiting class who started the first five games before suffering a season-ending injury in warmups before the Michigan game.
Tengwall was expected to be back at left guard, but he was
forced to retire from football for medical reasons in August. JB Nelson, a Pittsburgh native and transfer from Lackawanna College, stepped into his spot and has played very well.
A deep roster also can keep players from wearing down as the season progresses. The Lions are using a seven-man rotation on the offensive line, including Downingtown West grad Drew Shelton. He filled in for Caedan Wallace at right tackle last year as a freshman and started the final five games.
At running back, Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen continue to alternate. On the defensive line, assistant coach Deion Barnes uses a 10-man rotation. Winston and three other safeties — Keaton Ellis, Jaylen Reed and Zakee Wheatley — alternate at safety.
And because unbeaten Penn State has yet to be in a game decided in the fourth quarter, the starters aren’t playing as much anyway. Franklin said the defense has played 86 fewer snaps through four games than it did last season at the same time.
“You want to stay in games and help your team win,” Wormley said. “You want to compete. But as the weeks go by, the minutes start to add up. So to be able to take one or two drives off here and there and reduce your hits by 20 or 30 reps, that helps you in the long run. “I feel it now. I still feel pretty fresh. This little rotation we have going on is extremely
important, something that we didn’t really have last year. It’s been clutch.”
On the flip side, starters who aren’t getting the playing time they would like or aren’t putting up the numbers they would like can become unhappy. Linebacker Curtis Jacobs leads Penn State’s top-ranked defense in tackles with just 15; he led the Lions in their 31-0 whitewashing of Iowa with only three tackles because the Hawkeyes had the football for a meager 33 snaps.
Keeping an entire college football roster happy can be a challenge, if not impossible.
“We really look at probably our two-deep (depth chart) as starters,” Franklin said. “We’ve really tried to sell everybody on the fact that we’re sharing the reps, which is going to help us in the fourth quarter and in a long season, hopefully a very long season. I think guys have really embraced the idea of what we have to do to win and what we have to do to keep developing our roster and to stay deep. They understand that ultimately it’s about what you do with the reps you get.”
For the most part, Penn State players have accepted that reality and not complained, according to Franklin.
“Competition solves a lot of issues,” he said.