Dad Poquie is the mother of all Penn State run-ons.
The true freshman from Philadelphia is one of six new faces on Penn State’s kickoff team, beginning with the Michigan game – his first action as a Nittany Lion freshman.
On a coverage unit comprised mainly of Billywood extras and non-schol- arship players, Poquie contributed immediately against the Wolverines. He was in on two of the six Sam Ficken kickoffs that weren’t touchbacks.
And of the six PSU kickoffs that were returned in the three games since, he’s had two more tackles, including one against Minnesota. Said coach Bill O’Brien after that 24-10 loss: “We covered pretty well. Dad Poquie made a play, Jordan Smith made a play. We had a bunch of guys going down there on special teams making plays.”
THE DEAL: DAD BY DAY
But Poquie’s biggest contribution may be his day job – doggedly covering Allen Robinson in practice as a member of the scout team called The Dirty Show.
Poquie, who stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 180 pounds, is not without credentials. As a defensive back last season for 12-2 LaSalle College High School (alma mater of defensive coordinator John Butler and conditioning czar Craig Fitzgerald), he earned all-Catholic League AAAA honors and led his team to its fifth straight league title and the PIAA state semifinals.
Of course, Robinson has credentials of his own. He also has 5 inches and 30 pounds and 2 years on his Dad. Robinson, a junior, just became Penn State’s leading single-season pass receiver (with 1,106 yards) last Saturday against Minnesota, and in 2013 is college football’s No. 3 receiver for yards (122.9) and No. 9 for receptions (8.1) per game.
Poquie, along with fellow run-on and diminutive (5-8, 180) cornerback Jesse Merise, has shined frequently behind the scenes this fall. Still, it’s hard to imagine that he often gets the chance to trash-talk his Twitter handle A-Rob’s way in practice, as in: “Whosur_daddy1”? Poquie is Run-on Good, but he doesn’t even show up among the seven names on the Nittany Lions’ depth chart at cornerback. And Robinson is, clearly, College Football Best.
And here, as much as anywhere (OK, we’ll get to linebacker in a moment), is where Penn State’s lack of depth is telling. Seven Nittany Lions are ahead of Poquie. Two are true freshmen, four have sophomore eligibility – including starter Jordan Lucas and former starter Trevor Williams, who was a rookie at the position when he started the season as a starter. Yet it’s Dad whom Allen often faces.
Only not so often these days.
THE NO. 1 WAY TO PRACTICE
Down at least one, sometimes two scholarship players per position, the Nittany Lions have been forced to match their first-string offense against their first-string defense in practice on a much more regular basis. It’s risky – the chance of more injuries, the diminished time spent on your own schemes and plays, the reality of more heated scuffles – but it has a deeper meaning.
“We’ve played well when during the week in practice we’ve gone up against each other quite a bit. And that means 1’s vs. 1’s,” O’Brien said Thursday. “We try to do that a lot. Whether it’s a two-minute drill or third down or first and second down, I think that’s helped our football team. Our kids love to compete against each other. We’ve done that more and a little less Dirty Show this year.”
Not to be sanction-moan-not-us about it, O’Brien’s best players need the best-possible look. That wasn’t happening. Injuries, like the bad shoulder that linebacker Ben Kline began the season with, and the torn pec he ended the season with, wreak havoc on limited-size rosters. So do smaller senior classes. Or under-performing position groups. Or position groups that now have a bunch of young players to compensate for a lack of depth two years ago.
The problem isn’t just Saturdays for the 5-4 Nittany Lions as they head into their game against 1-8 Purdue at noon tomorrow in Beaver Stadium. As the Penn State coaches found out this season, the problem with PSU’s depth chart was that it was missing the same thing Monday through Thursday that it was on game day: Depth. The Dirty Show couldn’t clean up the mess all by itself.
TOO THIN, NOT DEEP
Safety is especially thin. This week’s depth chart lists five different players for the two safety positions – with former walk-on Jesse Della Valle a back-up at both spots and Stephen Obeng-Agyapong likely to spend his time at linebacker now that Ben Kline is out for the season. So, really: Four guys, two positions. Little depth.
Linebacker is especially thin. Too. Fifth-year senior Glenn Carson is the position’s rock, and Mike Hull has gamely – and gimpingly – played beyond what anyone has the right to expect, managing 10.2 tackles per game in Big Ten play despite fighting off myriad leg injuries and who knows what else. That leaves O’Brien with a remaining linebacking corps that has made a combined 10 starts. Let’s look at those more deeply: Four have been by Obeng-Agyapong, hardly a protoype ‘backer at 5-10 and 205, and six by Nyeem Wartman, who’s had zero tackles in three of the Nittany Lions’ five Big Ten games.
So, look for a lot of freshman Brandon Bell this week. He can play either outside linebacker spot, although earlier in the season O’Brien opined that Bell is the type of player who might have been redshirted under different circumstances. That should ring a bell: Brandon is another casualty of depth – or, more accurately, lack thereof.
The receiving corps is especially thin, not (even) two. In Penn State’s five Big Ten Conference games, Robinson has had more receiving yards (658 out of 1,285) than the rest of the Penn State roster combined (627). That’s 51.2%, a much greater percentage than in all of 2012, when Robinson accounted for 31% of the team’s passing yardage. In Big Ten games this season, Robinson has grabbed 47 of the team’s 106 completions – 44.3%, again a bunch more than the 31% he accounted for in 2012.
The problem is exacerbated by a lack of production from fifth-year senior Brandon Felder, who had 12 catches in the first two games of 2013. But he’s had just 11 catches in the four Big Ten games in which he’s played, with six for 97 yards and 2 TDs against Michigan. Otherwise, he’s had only five grabs – and just one in the past two games, although he was targeted by quarterback Christian Hackenberg at least five times against Minnesota. The rest of the wide receivers aren’t helping either. The quartet of Richy Anderson, Alex Kenney, Matt Zanellato and Geno Lewis has caught all of six passes in the past four games – combined. In that time, A-Rob has had 33. Deeply good.
And the tight ends, too? What was going to be a deep four-man rotation is now an ailing three-man one. Production has suffered. In 2012, Penn State’s tight ends accounted for 30.5% of all pass receptions and 33% of all passing yardage. Through the first five games of the Big Ten schedule, it’s only been 21% (22 of 106 catches) and 19% (244 of 1,286 yards).
To be fair, the Nittany Lions lost their most veteran tight end, Matt Lehman, in the first game, and both sophomore Kyle Carter and freshman Adam Breneman have been fighting some fairly serious injuries. Only Jesse James, a sophomore himself, has been healthy. To be fairer still, O’Brien’s fair-haired QB is a true freshman, not deep in age or experience or practice reps or veteran quarterbacks in the meeting room. But he is deep on talent and smarts, and is daily getting a deeper understanding of O’Brien’s offense.
The group of seasoned seniors is thin; so too are the seasoned leaders. Only 10 players in their final year of eligibility made the trip to Minnesota, showing a decided dearth in experienced leadership on and off the field. Seven were fifth-year players, while just three — Pat Zerbe, Alex Butterworth and Eric Shrive, hardly all-Big Ten’ers – are true seniors. Another nine seniors on the trip had junior eligibility. Overall, about 13-15 players will be honored during next week’s Senior Day. That’s less than half the 31 who were honored last year.
That can be a deep problem. Enough, even, to drive you off the deep end.
