Five from Franklin: Why will Penn State be better this season?

ALTOONA, Pa. -- There's a pretty simplistic answer to the question above, but it does come with some nuance.

Before we get to the answer ...

Welcome to our season-opening edition of Five from Franklin, where each week we will highlight the five most important topics James Franklin discussed during his weekly press conference.

Obviously, this week the most important topic was the coach announcing that Drew Allar will be the backup quarterback. That's one of the biggest story lines of the entire season, so we broke that out into its own story here.

There was a lot of other good stuff from Franklin on Monday, so let's get into it.

1. Why does the coach think his team will be better this season after going 7-6 last year?

It comes down to three words: More better players.

OK, that doesn't exactly sound like proper English -- more better??? -- but it really means there are more of the kind of better players that the Nittany Lions need to succeed against the rugged Big Ten.

"I just think we're back in more of a similar role than we've been in terms of depth," Franklin said. "We got much more depth than we had in the previous two years for a number of reasons.

"Obviously, the COVID year we lost some players based on some decisions that were made in the conference (delaying the season). Then, obviously, this past year, you look at our depth at the quarterback position in terms of proven commodities or guys that we felt were ready to play in Big Ten games.

"We were just in a much different position, defensive tackle depth, which was a problem last year after losing P.J. (Mustipher), then quarterback depth, as well."

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because we were talking about this exact same thing six and seven years ago.

Coming off the sanctions that depleted the team's roster, Franklin's biggest challenge when he took the job was to build the depth back up, which served two purposes.

First, you obviously -- to steal the coach's favorite word -- need good players at the top of the depth chart to have any chance to win.

Secondly, you also need a lot of good players filling out the rest of the depth chart, so that they can push the starters and push one another every day in practice. That is how players get better, and it doesn't happen when the starter can breeze through practice every day because he's so much better than the No. 2 guy.

Franklin has recruited well in recent years, and those guys are younger guys on the depth chart. Some, such as offensive lineman Landon Tengwall, will be starting early in their careers. Others will be filling key depth roles, pushing the starters hard in practice every day while also getting closer and closer to being ready themselves.

A lot of this is Football 101, really, and shouldn't necessarily require a lot of explaining. But Franklin is absolutely right in pointing out that, when the Lions lost key players, such as Clifford and Mustipher last season, there typically was a pretty big dropoff to the backup, and it turned out to be costly.

Franklin has said several times in recent months that he feels like some of the freshmen who were just brought in are closing to being ready to play than usual, so again, that's a big component to the improved depth.

Now, to play devil's advocate here, having better depth is one thing, but a lot of the players on the depth chart are still very inexperienced. So we can have high hopes for them this season, but at the end of the day, starters are starters for a reason, and Penn State doesn't want to have to dive too deep into all of that depth, or else it still could lead to issues.

2. What process did the coaching staff undergo to improve the offensive line?

OK, so, everything up above really won't matter if the offensive line stinks again. Essentially, nothing we say about any aspect of the team will matter if the offensive line stinks again.

Trying to get specifics from the Penn State coaches about the O-line has been a fruitless enterprise this offseason. They have grown tired of all the questions, but really, at no point has anyone -- from Franklin to OC Mike Yurcich to line coach Phil Trautwein -- ever fully addressed what changes were made to ensure better line play.

We're all just supposed to trust them, essentially, that they know what they're doing, they figured out what was going wrong and they found a way to solve it.

We'll see.

I asked Franklin this on Monday: 

"Can you share anything about the process you went through with your offensive line during the offseason to improve?  Was it personnel, scheme, situational? Anything specifically?"

Here's what he had to say.

"Yeah, not really. I think it's been similar how it's been in the past. Obviously, like I mentioned, I think there's some things that we were able to do from an analyst standpoint that we hadn't been able to do in the past, where now Traut has somebody to bounce ideas off in the meeting room, kind of go through what we need to do from a skill perspective, from a fundamental perspective.

"That O-line position can be a lonely position. To have somebody that's experienced to bounce ideas off I think has been really valuable. A lot of times it's not really anything different, it's kind of to reinforce what you already know.

"Then things I've mentioned before that I think we can do to help the O-line. One of the big ones is probably the investment in the running game and the recruitment of the running game with the two freshmen backs. Obviously, so far they've shown us they may be able to help with that so you're not one-dimensional and you can take some pressure off your passing game and your pass protection, then be able to do as much of those things as you possibly can, whether it's move the pocket, whether it is the screen game, all these different things that we know obviously can help your offensive line out besides your normal development and fundamentals and technique.

"It's been emphasized. Again, I'm going to leave that up to you guys to tell me, which I know you clearly will, how we're playing in that area."

Franklin is absolutely right in that the entire world will be ready to gauge the progress of the O-line Thursday at Purdue. Having some explosive running backs can help, but the issue is that Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen are true freshmen who are still learning, so it's probably too much to ask for them to be able to erupt onto the scene right away with a bunch of big runs.

Maybe they'll be able to do that at some point this season. But until then, it's going to be very interesting to see if the O-line is really doing anything differently from the recent past.

3. James and the "Fatman"

Those who follow recruiting already knew that freshman running back Allen's nickname is "Fatman." It's the first thing you notice on his Twitter account.

The Fatman came to Penn State as kind of a second fiddle freshman running back to Singleton, the Gatorade national High School Player of the Year. But there has always been a lot of buzz about Allen as a potential star himself.

Who knows if maybe he could turn out to be even better than Singleton?

"The surprise of training camp is Fatman," Franklin said. "That's what we call him. But Kaytron probably has been the surprise in camp in terms of his production and big-play ability, as well. A little bit of a different style than Nick, but both big, strong, powerful backs that can make you miss and break tackles.

"Both have seemed to do a really good job with understanding the offense, understand defenses and pressures, protections, all those types of things."

There's still reason to believe that Keyvone Lee will open the season as the No. 1 tailback, especially since it's a conference road game and he has played a lot. We'll see how much action Singleton and Allen get in the opening game, but even if it's not a lot, they certainly should get more and more as the season goes on.

And don't overlook Devyn Ford, either. Franklin did mention he will have "a significant special teams role, too."

In other running back news, former Penn Stater Caziah Holmes has transferred to Florida State. He was a 4-star running back from Florida, so that move makes sense for him. Holmes was forced into action as a true freshman during the crazy 2020 season but didn't play much last year and, with a crowded running back room, decided to enter the transfer portal.

4. Other position battles

Franklin confirmed Tyler Elsdon will start at middle linebacker and that Jake Pinegar will be the place-kicker. Neither is a surprise. The coach said Kobe King will also see a lot of time behind Elsdon at the middle backer spot.

The wide receiver situation is interesting. Parker Washington, Mitchell Tinsley and KeAndre Lambert-Smith should be the starters, but how many others will play?

Franklin said ideally he'd like to have six wideouts ready to play, but that may or may not be the case.

"Kind of looking at it, see how this week plays out to finalize that," he said. "But we'd really like to have a two deep, legitimate two deep, at every position.

"I wouldn't necessarily say we're there. I'd say there's probably five guys that we feel comfortable putting out there, with maybe the sixth guy being right on the edge that we need to see something over these first couple weeks of the season in practice and in games to feel that way."

Franklin did note that the three starting receivers will be out there most plays and will not be rotational guys. They can "tap out" if they need a break, then we'll see a backup.

5. Best line of the day

I've joked for months that Sean Clifford is in his 17th college season and is like 38 years old.

Even Franklin had this funny line about his veteran QB, who is actually 24 years old and entering his sixth season:

"He's 45 years old, experienced, teaching classes."