Penn State Football: Five Storylines As Spring Practice Starts

Coming off a well documented 0-5 start turned 4-0 finish, Penn State football is looking to get its balance once again heading into the 2021-22 season and close the book on a strange and underwhelming moment in the program’s history.

The good news: the Nittany Lions welcome plenty of talent back to campus and are looking to work in new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich who if nothing else will provide a spark of enthusiasm and momentum heading into spring practice and summer training camp.

Like every spring there are tons of questions that will need to start being answered as Penn State heads into the summer – so these aren’t the only things that matter – but here are five questions/storylines as the Nittany Lions start spring ball this week.

Defensive Line:

With the departures of Shaka Toney and Jayson Oweh to the NFL, Penn State defensive line – particularly its defensive end position – looks to find a solid and aggressive unit with a handful of new faces on the front. At the end position it’s really anyone’s game but transfer Arnold Ebiketie, Adisa Isaac and Nick Tarburton seem like good starting points for a unit that has a ton of youth.

Defensive tackle appears to be a far less uncertain position with a bunch of options ranging from transfer Derrick Tangelo, Fred Hansard, PJ Mustipher with a smattering of other options like Hakeem Beamon, Jospeh Darkwa and Aeneas Hawkins. There is really no shortage of options in that department which is good news for all parties involved.

Overall, how does this group come together? And while Mustipher might be the most well known of the bunch, can this group develop a true pass-rushing and run-stopping star? Maybe not in the spring, but it’s an offseason goal.

Oh and by the way, you could say all the same things for the offensive line looking to replace a handful of steady faces.

Quarterbacks:

It’s beating a dead horse at this point talking about Penn State’s quarterback situation, but can the Nittany Lions figure out who their No. 2 option is? Of course the good news is – he says sarcastically – is that with only three scholarship quarterbacks on the roster the options for who works behind Sean Clifford is a two-man race between Ta’Quan Roberson and Christian Veilleux. So it shouldn’t be the hard.

Of course the quarterback “issue” goes beyond just the backup role, the starter has to play better as well. Even the 2019 iteration of Sean Clifford wasn’t without his issues, so Yurcich will have to figure out not only how to round Clifford back into form, but improve that form as well. When it’s all said and done Penn State would much rather have an average quarterback on a weekly basis than an inconsistent one every week. You can work with average – it’s hard to work with inconsistent.

An added storyline? The transfer portal.

Install:

Aside from the debate as to whether or not Kirk Ciarrocca’s offense would have worked out at Penn State, he didn’t get a very good draw when it came to installing his offense in a pandemic over Zoom and the occasional in-person meetings. Yurcich is going to have some similar hurdles, but being able to practice in-person, look players in the eye in-person, and work in-person is huge. One imagines that there will be some bumps in the road with the installation process, but that’s just how life goes. The fact Penn State can work out those bumps face-to-face is huge and shouldn’t be understated.

There will be some bumps in the process as well to be sure – six members of Penn State’s staff have never done a spring ball before – but this isn’t rocket science. Although it is different.

Next Steps:

If you look at Penn State’s roster and you look at Penn State’s recruiting classes, there is plenty of talent and potential – the question now is how it takes the next step. Star players and critical pieces to a team’s success don’t happen overnight, and they aren’t born in one spring practice session, but the foundation can be set during this time. So who steps up and starts to become a better player than they were six months ago? There are plenty of candidates but being a candidate for stardom and turning into an actual star are two different things. Life might feel a bit normal for the first time in forever, can players and coaches take advantage of that and make more noticeable improvements across the board?

Gang Together For Real This Time?:

Penn State has been waiting seemingly forever for a healthy Tariq Castro-Fields to finally play alongside Jaquan Brisker and the rest of the Nittany Lion defensive back group. Castro-Fields has Top 3 round potential but has had a hard time staying on the field. Penn State’s defense is well documented having struggled with the big plays down the field or chunk plays at seemingly the worst moment possible and getting the veteran back on the field could go a long way in that department. While Castro-Fields might be a little rusty, getting him out on the field with Brisker, Joey Porter Jr and a slightly TBD safeties unit could help Penn State’s defense overall slowing down the frequency of those big plays.