Penn State practice observations: Offense works on run game, an update on center battle and more

Penn State football opened the doors of Holuba Hall on a rainy and stormy afternoon to conclude Media Day on Saturday, Aug 3. Blue White Illustrated was there in force to provide you with our observations about the team’s practice and progress through its third day of preseason camp. Here are the offensive observations from the first ten minutes of practice.

Snap(ing) judgments for the Nittany Lions centers through two practices

One of the most exciting and anticipated players this year has been freshman Cooper Cousins. For the first half of spring practice, Cousins was pushing veteran Nick Dawkins for reps at center. But during the Blue-White Game, Cousins filled in for veteran Sal Wormely, who didn’t participate in the scrimmage.

Since then, we haven’t seen him take a snap. During the two open practices, Cousins has been working with other units or at a different position than center. On Saturday, redshirt sophomore Vega Ioane was working behind Dawkins with the quarterbacks and running back going through option handoff drills to start practice.

“I think his transition has been like a lot of guys’ in terms of he probably came in further than ahead than most guys. And it kind of skyrocketed up, and I think he was getting a lot of attention and a lot of people noticing him, coaches, teammates, all that kind of stuff,” Franklin said late in spring pracitce.

“Then kinda as the playbook started to build up on him and the blitzes and the different fronts and games started and you know, like, like most of these guys, they kind of have a lul that they got to work through. And now he’s starting to kind of pick it back up again.”

Penn State guard depth in question

While there are no definitive answers, the SS-Cooper Cousins seems to be steaming ahead in a new direction.

Part of that could be due to the team’s health at guard. JB Nelson was a scratch due to injury for some spring practice. While he’s been out at fall camp for both sessions we’ve observed, his participation has been limited. It’s a bit of speculation, but if Nelson isn’t full-go, the team needs to build resiliency and depth at guard.

The team will want to take reps off of Wormley during the non-conference season to keep him fresh for Big Ten play and they need an insurance plan if the oft-injured Nelson’s situation lingers. Getting their best young lineman up to speed at guard is prudent for the team’s overall health.

One final note about the offensive line regards right tackle Anthony Donkoh. The standout redshirt freshman was absent from Saturday’s early practice work. However, Blue White Illustrated confirmed later that there’s nothing to worry about on that front, and Donkoh is fine.

Very little from the quarterbacks right now

Whether it’s by design or coincidence, we’ve yet to see the quarterbacks throw a pass beyond 10 yards for most of the spring and all of fall camp so far. On Wednesday, the team worked on passes behind the line of scrimmage to begin practice. This week, they worked on reading defensive signals without receivers. Primarily, what we’ve seen so far is ball handling, different option concepts, and running. Franklin hinted that this isn’t just a smokescreen during his press conference on Saturday. It’s something that will be a core of the Penn State offense under Andy Kotelnicki.

“But I also think some of the things systematically that we are going to do — and I would say even some of these things we are going to do, you guys are going to look at and say, I don’t know if that’s something I would imagine Drew doing but by him doing just enough of it opens up and creates opportunities for other things in our offense and makes us difficult to defend. I think it’s really good.”

For more on what those “things” are, check out my film review thread of the Kansas offense against West Virginia from 2022.

Penn State wide receivers work on routes

The last note we’ll pass along today concerns the wide receivers working on route transitions. Receiver’s coach, Marques Hagans, discussed how he wants his receivers to run lateral cuts to create maximum separation. The group went through a drill where they had to cut hard left or right based on a signal from an assistant coach, using the technique Hagans demonstrated.

Veteran Trey Wallace was first through the line and drew praise from Hagans for “taking the coaching” and applying it quickly. Wallace has been a quick study this year under Hagans and drew similar praise during the spring when we observed the group working on techniques.

Kaden Saunders followed next, followed by Omari Evans and the three Penn State freshmen. Evans slipped on the play and couldn’t complete the drill. Next, Josiah Brown, Peter Gonzalez, and Tyseer Denmark each got individual pointers about improving their transitions.

None of this should be taken as definitive evidence of anything. Still, its a useful snapshot into what the receivers are doing to improve heading into the second week of camp.

Sean Fitz contributed to these offensive practice notes.

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