The clock on the web page for Temple football ticket sales counts down the days, hours and minutes to its 2015 season opener on Sept. 5 against Penn State.
At midnight Sunday, the clock read 124:00:00.
For Penn State as well, the countdown to its season-opener against Temple has already begun.
The Nittany Lions hit the exact midpoint of their football offseason on Saturday.
For Penn State, dos de Mayo was 126 days since Dec. 27 and its 31-30 victory over Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium. And it was 126 days until they face off against the Owls at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia (kickoff time tba).
In more ways than one, this weekend marked a true crossroads of seasons for Penn State football. But the real transition will take much longer.
There was the NFL Draft, with selections Donovan Smith, Jesse James and Adrian Amos and the likes of free agents like Miles Dieffenbach heading into the real world, like thousands of non-football-playing Penn State graduating seniors.
Most of those seniors — football-playing and otherwise — began their Penn State careers with a head football coach named Joe Paterno, an Italian-American from Brooklyn who was born in 1926, went to Brown and coached in one place for 62 years. All finish their stay at PSU with James Franklin, an African-American from suburban Philadelphia who was born in 1972, went to East Stroudsburg and coached in nine places before he came to Penn State. There were head coaches of varying tenure and types in-between – Tom Bradley (46 days), Bill O’Brien (724 days) and Larry Johnson Sr. (10 days).
MAY WEATHER
Meanwhile, for the Penn State football underclassmen, the next five days represent finals week at University Park, when the emphasis is totally on student and not athlete.
For his part, Franklin hits six cities in three days this week as Penn State begins Year Four of its Coaches Caravan, with several members of his staff, athletic department and Alumni Association joining Franklin’s entourage. They then go back at in two weeks, with another six cities in three days.
Franklin’s assistants have already transitioned from coaches to recruiters, as they are in the midst of a six-week evaluation period legislated by the NCAA. During that time, the assistants are permitted both academic and athletic evaluations. (Franklin and all head coaches, by NCAA mandate, are not permitted to be on the road recruiting during this time.) Penn State has made most of its offers for the Class of 2016, so this fall’s high school juniors will get a lot of attention.
“That’s really what April through May 31 is about,” says Penn State defensive coordinator Bob Shoop, “gathering information and setting your recruiting board.”
Internally, Penn State is busy planning its marketing campaigns for the 2015 season, road trip logistics, class scheduling for both summer and fall, and recruiting visits. For all of college football, this time of year is one for transitions. But at Penn State, this is still very much a program in transition.
It’s young. Twenty-two freshmen are slated to arrive in late June. Until they do, Franklin’s roster includes about 60 scholarship players – two January arrivals, 15 redshirt freshmen, 15 with sophomore eligibility, 18 with junior eligibility (including another January arrival, Paris Palmer, and newly-scholarshipped Von Walker) and 10 with senior eligibility.
SENIOR PORTRAITS
That senior group of 10 represents the poster boys for a program in transition. Here’s a closer look:
5 — Five are former Paterno recruits, in their fifth and final seasons, and even that group is anything but commonplace. Linebacker Ben Kline is back after being besieged by injuries, still full of promise and questions after what will be a half-decade at PSU. Wide receiver Matt Zanellato is a team leader, but has just six career receptions – including zero in 2014. (At some schools that possess deep young talent at receiver like Penn State’s, Zanellato may have found his scholarship pulled. Props to PSU.) Only center Angelo Mangiro, defensive tackle Anthony Zettel and tight end Kyle Carter are your typical fifth-year seniors with extensive playing experience.
One Supa Six — Carter represents the last man standing among of the heralded Supa Six group of freshmen who arrived in 2011. Allen Robinson left early for the pros after the 2013 season, while Smith and Deoin Barnes, their degrees in hand, declared for the NFL this offseason despite having a year of eligibility remaining. Also gone are Amos and Bill Belton, both of whom played as freshmen in 2011 and contributed greatly throughout their PSU careers.
OB 2 – Two more have O’Brien roots. A preferred walk-on under Paterno, defensive end Carl Nassib earned a scholarship under O’Brien. And defensive tackle Tarow Barney was recruited by O’Brien and came to campus in January 2014 as a JUCO transfer under Franklin. In his first season at Penn State, Barney had seven tackles.
DB 3 – Only three seniors came in as freshmen under O’Brien, played extensively their first three seasons, and are in their final year of eligibility in 2015. All are in the secondary, and two of them – Jordan Lucas (24, second) and Trevor Williams (19, fourth) – rank among the top four in career starts among Penn State’s returning players. Da’Quan Davis is the third.
MILES TO GO
The backdrop to all of this is that Penn State football is still in uncharted waters. Bradley kept the Nittany Lion program on life-support. O’Brien boldly handled the triage, with a corps of veteran players and a pair of uniquely and disparately talented quarterbacks.
Now, Franklin has the ongoing task of rehabbing the facilities, reemphasizing (but not redoing) the core brand, recruiting much deeper and earlier, refocusing the national media and – most of all – returning Penn State to seasons of double-digit victories. (The last time that happened? 11-2 in 2009. In the words of Kevin Hart: Really?!)
It’s a massive job. Yes, there is much that remains great about Penn State football – the university, its alumni, a fan base that mostly never wavered and a type of Penn State football player and person (see: Walker, Von; Dieffenbach, Miles) who has remained constant.
But the offseason for Franklin and Co. represents once again an #awesometask. Since Paterno was fired, Penn State has a record of 23-18 overall and 13-14 in the Big Ten. Things won’t get any easier, with the firm of Meyer, Harbaugh & Dantonio in the same conference division.
Lately, the Nittany Lion talent pool isn’t what it had been, at least according to the NFL. Over the past five drafts (2011-2015), just 15 Penn State players have been picked in that time – none in the first round. By comparison, from 2006-2010 there were 24 Penn State players selected, including first-rounder Jared Odrick. Every draftee over the past five years came in as a Paterno commit.
This puts it into eye-popping perspective: Over the last five NFL drafts, a total of 1,273 players have been selected, 15 of them Penn Staters. That’s one Nittany Lion out of every 85 selections. Florida State is the leader over the past five seasons, with one out of every 35 NFL draft picks. Alabama had one of every 38 selections, while Ohio State had one out of every 55.
HITCH UP THE WAGONS
Penn State saw some of this coming, that’s why back in the spring of 2012 it started the Coaches Caravan. It was designed, pure and simple, to rebuild goodwill and sell tickets. It’s been a big success.
In 2011, Paterno’s final season as head coach, he didn’t leave campus for one summertime fan event or alumni function. Since then, counting this year’s caravan, O’Brien and Franklin will have combined for 59 stops in 31 days over four years.
Last year, Franklin made 17 stops in 10 days. This May, he’ll do 12 in six days. That reduction means more offseason time to concentrate on what’s on the field, not off it.
In the transitional world that is still Penn State football, that’s called progress.
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