The more things change, the more some things stay the same, and for another season Penn State will look to solidify its offensive line after offseason departures to the NFL and a transfer portal entry leave the Nittany Lions partially in flux in the trenches.
To set the table for the situation, Penn State will head into the 2021 season looking to replace the reliable paring of center Michal Menet and right guard Will Fries, both of whom opted to take the next step, entering this year’s upcoming NFL Draft. The Nittany Lions will also look to replace CJ Thorpe who made multiple starts at right guard in 2020 and entered the transfer portal this January.
Not all is doom and gloom though, Penn State returns left tackle Rasheed Walker who started in all nine games last season as well as right tackle Caeden Wallace who found himself starting seven games at right tackle. James Franklin and offensive line coach Phil Trautwein will also lean on returning left guard and redshirt junior Mike Miranda to help anchor the unit. Miranda started every game in 2020 at the left guard spot.
But as Miranda acknowledged on Monday, he could very well find himself answering the call at center.
“I have been [taking reps at center] we have a bunch of other guys that have been, too,” Miranda said. “I mean, I know I can play anywhere on the inside of the line, so just depends on what my role ends up being. But yeah, I’ve been playing some center.”
While coaches generally shy away from freshmen playing on the offensive front, early enrollees Landon Tengwall and Nate Bruce both look the part on paper and could prove to have a bigger role sooner rather than later. That duo joins Harvard transfer Eric Wilson as the three big new faces to come to campus this offseason with the potential to make an immediate impact.
In terms of players with more in-program experience, the options aren’t lacking. Franklin and Trautwein could go to redshirt junior Des Holmes who had time in the backup roles at left tackle and left guard. Penn State has also long been excited about the future of redshirt sophomore Juice Scruggs and redshirt junior Anthony Whigan. Redshirt freshman Wormley rounds out a solid group with the potential to answer Penn State’s various needs along the front.
“There’s a good handful of guys competing for multiple different spots,” Miranda said. “And all over the line, whether it’s one guy competing for a spot on one side and the other, there’s competition all over right now, so I think that’s the biggest thing. There’s a lot of guys who have the talent to play here, and the competition is off the charts right now.”
That might the best sign so far this spring for a Penn State program that didn’t get a chance to have spring practice last year due to the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Answers or not, issues solved or not, the Nittany Lions are getting far more hands-on work and on field work than they ever had in the lead up to Penn State’s 2020 season. While the spring makes up just 15 practices, those reps are invaluable for a program looking to answer plenty of questions.
And a program looking to stray far away from a repeat performance of 2020’s 0-5 start and instead continue the four-game winning streak it ended the year with.
“It’s already pretty clear how huge spring practice can be,” Miranda said. You kind of lose the perspective of what it can do for some players. There’s younger guys who get here now and already through three practices […] through those three practices, you can see so much growth in just such a short period of time, and we weren’t given this opportunity last year. So it really puts it into perspective.”
