UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- They have fixed the problems. They know what went wrong. They corrected it. And this year will be different.
Phil Trautwein guarantees it.
I asked Penn State's offensive line coach this past week if he and the other offensive coaches were able to figure out what went wrong with the running game last year, when the Nittany Lions had their second-worst rushing attack ever during a 7-6 season.
"Yeah," Trautwein said, "we looked at that in the spring, and we attacked it, and we got better in the spring. We know what we need to do. And we're fixing it. We're gonna show you guys (when the season starts)."
How confident is Trautwein that the team on the field can back up his words this season?
"I'm confident," he replied.
So, I followed up, "100 percent? 90 percent? Give me a number."
"100 percent," he said, before adding this quick little line.
"I know how to run the ball."
OK, so to that, I added one more follow up to Trautwein by asking, "A lot of people looked at last year and said, Penn State's always run the ball and they couldn't last year. So can you give us a reason why you're 100 percent confident that you can run the ball?"
Now, it was pretty clear that Trautwein had already grown at least a little defensive or impatient or whatever by getting pressed with several questions in a row on this subject. These Penn State coaches -- including offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich -- are tired of talking about the past because, well, the past was really bad last year.
They all want to focus on the future. Which, in all honesty, is really what they should be doing.
But hey, these questions about last year's terrible running game and what's been done to fix it are only the single most important topic concerning the Penn State football program right now, and these are the questions that MUST be asked.
Because if the Lions cannot run the ball, they're going to be lousy this fall. That's really just all there is to it.
Now, if they can run the ball, then it would balance the offense enough to take pressure off Sean Clifford. And in that scenario, Penn State could, in fact, be really good.
So, again, the question posed to Trautwein was, What makes you so confident the problems have been fixed?
"Because we got the guys, and our guys understand and we're ready to go. And we're good. We got it," he said.
That's all he said. No real specifics or anything. Just that he's confident the offensive linemen are good and know what they've got to do.
Now look, even if Penn State has made all kinds of changes to improve the running game, it's not like Trautwein would be wise to tell us what they're doing differently. There's no reason to tip your hand, so the smart choice is to remain vague about all of it.
In short, Trautwein wants everybody to trust him on all of this, to have faith that, yes, he and the other coaches have fixed the offensive line problems that caused last year's chaos in the running game.
Because, to repeat what he said, "I know how to run the ball."
Well, Trautwein had better prove that this fall. Because of all the coaches on the Penn State staff, no one deserves to be on the hot seat more entering this season than the third-year O-line coach.
Many in the fan base were calling for Trautwein to be fired following last season. But in all fairness to him, he has done a terrific job in recruiting offensive linemen, which I pointed out in this story from February, and that makes him a very valuable member of the staff.
But no matter how good of a recruiter he is, there simply cannot be a repeat of the incredibly poor offensive line play from a year ago. Because if there is, then James Franklin may be left with no choice but to make a change.
As for the offensive linemen, I also posed a couple of questions to Trautwein about how those guys handle getting so much criticism and if all of it is warranted.
"For me personally, that's why you have to make sure you have a strong line and a strong offensive unit, and you just stick together," Trautwein said. "And no matter what, you don't blame each other, you don't blame anybody. You just go out and you try to get better. So for us, we just have that mindset we're going to focus on ourselves and just continue to get better. Because if we ran for 250 yards every game, you guys would be talking about how great we are, and then we probably wouldn't be working as hard.
"So we're always just making sure that we have that chip on our shoulder, and we go out and we grind every day. And we make sure that we're physical, we have the mindset to we're going to move guys off the ball, and we're always going to at least get 5 yards a carry."
Penn State averaged a measly 3.2 yards per carry last season.
Yeah, yikes.
So anything close to that 5 yards Trautwein mentioned would be a a massive improvement.
