There are 162 days between now and Penn State’s Week 1 meeting against Wisconsin in Madison.
That seems like a lot, because it is, but it’s also not nearly as much football time as you might think.
Because there are only 15 spring practices, then there’s a lot of offseason work but it’s cardio, it’s weights and it’s player led workouts on the field that can’t be regulated. So sure there’s film and meetings and the occasional conversation, but the value of the summer has a lot more to do with the intangibles than hands-on instructions with helmets and pads. That won’t come until a month before the season starts.
So time is everything.
For a Penn State program that didn’t even get a spring practice in 2020, getting back those 15 practices may not seem like much to some, but it’s everything to a coaching staff looking to rebound from – or perhaps simply avoid – last year’s 0-5 start while installing Mike Yurcich’s new offensive system along the way.
“Obviously the practices are extremely valuable in the spring […]” Penn State coach James Franklin said after Wednesday’s practice. “Just being really strategic about our practices this spring and using all 15 to get better and really challenge our guys also be smart in how we do it in terms of trying to keep everybody out there as much as we possibly can.”
The bad news for Penn State is that much like 2020, the 2021 slate features a trip to Wisconsin and hosting SEC based Auburn in Week 3, so there isn’t much room to ease into things.
It stands to reason that Penn State’s opening three weeks in 2021 will be slightly less dramatic with a far more normal offseason in the works. All the same, there won’t be much room for mistakes or miscues, one of the great advantages of a normal out of conference slate is the ability to work out the kinds without much cost.
Of course when you start on the road with a Big Ten game for the second-straight year, life is never going to be as easy as facing Kent State on a sunny afternoon at Beaver Stadium.
The difficult opening few weeks is going to be the new norm for Penn State in the foreseeable future though. In 2022 the Nittany Lion face Auburn on the road in Week 2, and then in 2023 and 2024 Penn State will open against West Virginia at home and then on the road. No matter where those respective programs might find themselves in the future aside, one imagines the quality and competition will be far more than the cupcakes of years gone by.
“We’ve got a pretty challenging early part of our schedule, not only from a Big Ten perspective but also from an out of conference perspective as well,” Franklin said. “I think it’s a motivator for our guys. We’re gonna find out – have a pretty good idea of who we are very early and be tested. Probably in some ways you could make some, some comparisons to maybe the 2016 season. We faced a pretty tough schedule very early on, and we’re able to grow from that as the year went on.”
Franklin isn’t wrong, Penn State faced Pitt on the road and Michigan on the road in Week 2 and Week 4 with a 34-27 win over Temple sandwiched in between in 2016, all while getting a grasp on then new offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead’s system. In the end the Nittany Lions went 2-2 to open up an eventual Big Ten winning season. Franklin and his staff will be hopeful to repeat how the season ended in 2021, but not how it started.
“Hopefully [the start of the season doesn’t have] the same results,” Franklin said with a laugh. “Just to be clear.”
And he’ll do his best to make the most of the next 162 days, even if there really are far fewer of them to work with.
