State College native Keaton Ellis has wasted little time transitioning his outstanding high school play to the collegiate level, coming in just behind fifth year senior John Reid on Penn State’s newly released depth chat ahead of Saturday’s season opener against Idaho.
The true freshman Ellis joins Trent Gordon in the Week 1 back-up cornerback roles on a defense that has not shied away from using multiple personnel and rotations throughout a game over the past several years.
The Little Lion product has made a strong first impression with coaches and teammates ever since enrolling early, and in turn a strong summer that put him into the thick of the Nittany Lions’ secondary unit was hardly a surprise.
‘When you get a guy that’s got his length and ball skills, all the way back from high school, was a high school wide receiver, was really good. He’s also smart, and he’s mature,’ Coach James Franklin said on Tuesday. ‘I think the other thing that I think kind of jumped out to us early on was his playmaking ability and confidence…. [he has] just got a combination of traits. He’s long, he’s fast, he’s quick, he’s athletic, he’s put on some good size. You look at him physically, he looks strong enough. He looks like he’s got a Big Ten body now…’
‘I just think he’s going to have a really good year for us and going to have a great career because he’s just got so many characteristics that you’re looking for.’
Ellis will have plenty of time to learn behind veteran corner John Reid who enters his final season of eligibility in Happy Valley. Reid is looking to bounce back from an up and down year in his return from a season-ending injury during the 2017 season. For a player that has seen a lot of football, Reid, who says Ellis led the defense in takeaways during camp, knows a good player when he sees one.
‘Keaton has done a really good job with that. He’s made a lot of plays throughout camp. I think we’ll see him a lot early,’ Reid said Tuesday.
Overall Reid will have plenty of younger players to mold in the coming months with the Nittany Lion depth chart a handful of underclassmen including freshman Joey Porter Jr, Tyler Rudolph and Drew Hartlaub. How many of them see the field and for how long remains to be seen, but in the eyes of Reid, it’s as much how you approach the game as it is how you play it.
Do the first part right, and the second tends to take care of itself.
‘You have certain guys who come in and just work,’ Reid said. ‘They can be four stars, five stars, but they come in and just work. They’re not really looking to carry that over into college. Whereas you’ll have some guys who will look to carry that into college, and it takes them a bit longer to realize that players are really good here.’
‘As a guy who’s older in the program, you can kind of see certain players just from summer workouts, the guys who really have it, just their mentality and their approach to working and being pretty much in an environment that they’re not used to..’
