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Penn State Football: Recreating C.J. Stroud in Practice? Good Luck with That

Five years ago Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz was asked how the Hawkeyes were going to prepare for Penn State running back Saquon Barkley ahead of a 2017 clash between the two programs. In turn, if it was at all possible to find a scout team player who could even partially replicate the kind player Barkley had become.

“Are you kidding me? ” Ferentz said. “He’d be [starting] if we did. He wouldn’t be simulating — he would be our guy. Or else time for me to be doing something else, that’s for sure. If you see one of those guys walking around that wants to come to Iowa, let me know, will you?”

Walking off the field a few days later, Barkley had amassed 217 yards on the ground and 94 receiving yards to close out one of the great individual performances in Penn State football’s storied history. And while in some ways Iowa managed to hold Barkley well enough in check during a contest in which Penn State only scored 21 points, the future No. 2 overall pick showcased why he was so hard to replicate in practice.

Fast forward to 2022 and Penn State finds itself in a similar bind to the one that Iowa once did: simulating an extremely talented player in practice. While it’s not the first time the Nittany Lions have needed to this, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud provides James Franklin and his staff with a unique challenge. It’s not every day — albeit not uncommon against Ohio State — you need to prepare for the season’s potential Heisman Trophy winner, and figuring out the best way to do that in practice is a challenge in its own right.

“I don’t think you really can,” Franklin said of recreating Stroud on the scout team. “I mean, obviously we do that. Like when we build the scout teams each week, you’re literally saying, ‘OK, this guy should play him, and this guy should play him.’ You know, there’s not too many people in the country that have a quarterback like that, let alone a quarterback like that on the scout team. So that’s hard to pull off and that’s where trying to replicate it as much as you possibly can in practice but then also doing some of the good-on-good work every single day, so they are getting the speed of it. That’s helpful, too.”

What are they trying to replicate? So far this season no quarterback has thrown from more touchdowns than Stroud, who leads the nation with 28 through seven games while his 2,023 passing yards are 19th in the nation. While Ohio State certainly boasts an elite level of talent around Stroud, his arm strength, vision and touch have turned heads in their own right. Surprisingly enough for a program that has thrived on running quarterbacks in the past, Stroud has a -9 yard rushing total this year and has yet to rush from more than five yards on a single play.

Equally true, Ohio State is ranked No. 4 in the nation in sacks allowed, giving up five all year. Only three teams [Temple, Georgia Southern and Oregon] have given up fewer sacks at the midway point of the college football season. So even if he doesn’t run with the ball, good luck getting to him before the ball is sent on its way.

So yeah, Penn State will do its best to create a makeshift Stroud, but good luck getting close to the real thing.