Buzzworthy: Penn State football’s big spring storylines
The dust has settled on Penn State football’s spring practices. Along the way, the Nittany Lions saw major plot lines progress as the 2024 campaign looms.
In every sense, there was movement that will undeniably impact the successes and shortcomings of the program this fall. From the arrival and acclimation of three new coordinators, key position changes, early enrollee impacts, and a significant departure from the receivers room, there was no shortage of items big and small worth keeping an eye on.
Monitoring it all, Blue White Illustrated surveyed the program for a deeper understanding of where things stand. Dive in with us to take the pulse of the Penn State football program with the major storylines, spoken and not, coming out of spring camp, starting on the offensive side of the ball:
KeAndre, fin
The only appropriate place to start is with the unraveling of KeAndre Lambert-Smith‘s relationship with the program in the final weeks of spring practice. It’s a big deal and has ramifications, both positive and negative, that need to be explored to gain a better sense of where Penn State goes from here.
But, its telling also demands a broader perspective on roster management in the NIL and transfer portal era.
The short version of the story, as understood here, is that Lambert-Smith effectively enacted a college football approximation of a contract holdout. And, effectively, that holdout ended with Lambert-Smith entering the transfer portal earlier this week, now reportedly in conversation with Texas A&M, Missouri, West Virginia and Auburn.
A more detailed account, assuming a shared understanding of Lambert-Smith’s four prior years at Penn State, is a little more complex. Publicly acknowledging his dedication to becoming “the guy” at receiver for the Nittany Lions after the departure of Parker Washington and Mitch Tinsley in 2022, Lambert-Smith carried those expectations into the 2023 season. Despite a great start, as the year progressed, his waning influence on the passing game eventually crashed with a virtual no-show appearance in the Peach Bowl.
Accordingly, and given the other struggles at the position last season, Penn State sought help in the transfer portal. And, in a coup for the program after a few weeks of negotiations, that help arrived in the form of a commitment from Julian Fleming. Crucially, one of the first signs of that relationship between Fleming and the Nittany Lions coming to fruition appeared as an expensive, Blaise-Alexander tagged, Dodge Ram truck.
The original fears of NIL management came with it.
While Penn State football works vigilantly to set up performance-based NIL “packages” and guarantees, effectively player compensation not tied to actual endorsements, the transfer portal predictably upends that work. Winning the commitment of a new player, at a position of need, usually demands compensation exceeding the standards previously set within the rest of the room.
For Lambert-Smith, that was a problem, and one that wouldn’t dissipate. And, for Penn State, his problem became its problem.
While Lambert-Smith’s 2023 stats were the most returning production on the team, making 53 catches for 673 yards and four touchdowns, and exceeded Fleming’s 26 catches for 270 yards at Ohio State, the totality of his impact didn’t rise to the level of “star” treatment. That consideration included his interpersonal status within the receivers room and team, too, leading to two questions that served as the crux of his departure.
How do you handle a player who unilaterally bails on the program’s spring practices seeking a big raise? How do you do so understanding the varied perceptions of that player throughout the program, with everyone keenly aware of what was happening?
The answers, for Penn State, were that you don’t.
Importantly, that effect is again in play as the Nittany Lions look to the transfer portal for more help at the position. Understanding the realities of delicate dynamics for position groups and team cohesion in the first place, exacerbated wildly by NIL and the transfer portal, the takeaway is this:
For Penn State to pony up for a productive receiver this spring, the juice needs to be worth the squeeze. Short of a star-power wideout that the rest of the room can honestly acknowledge will deliver on compensation that exceeds theirs, it’s unlikely to happen.
Instead, the program is left with optimism that Lambert-Smith’s exit represents a cultural turning point for the room. An established veteran with influence to match, “the guy” in the room is now Fleming, who brings with him a work ethic and standard operating procedure that has been universally described through the program as professional. The Nittany Lions are very much counting on that playing a role in the development it now seeks from its personnel still in the room.
“I’ve had all the faith in the world in our wide receivers in terms of talent and ability,” Franklin said after the Blue-White Game. “We have the talent in the room. The reality is we got to take this next step and we got to do it on a consistent basis. And we got to make plays against all the people on our schedule. All those guys are in the locker room for a reason. We have belief in those guys. We believe they’re ready to take the next step.”
Andy Kotelnicki has buzz
Broadly speaking, Andy Kotelnicki is at Penn State to help them in that effort. And, without hesitation, the consensus through the program is extremely optimistic that Kotelnicki can deliver on it.
To understand that optimism, pay particular attention to what Franklin said about Kotelnicki’s interpersonal influence on the team earlier this spring.
“I think the biggest thing that you guys have heard me talk about in the past is being the head coach of the offense, or the head coach of the defense, or special teams, or by position. And I think he’s done a really good job of that and taking a ton of time of explaining the why, which in 2024, I think is really important,” Franklin said. “I think student athletes and young people will do the same things that we did in the 90s, in the 80s. But, they just wonder why. And I think Andy’s doing a really good job of explaining the why, and teaching football, and really getting everybody pulling the rope in the same direction and excited about what we’re going to be able to accomplish on offense this year.”
No doubt, schematically, Penn State believes it is in business for improvements offensively. There are changes, boiled down, that are meant to feature the talent that exists instead of hiding that same personnel’s weaknesses. There were ups and downs in terms of its efficacy against the still-excellent defense the Nittany Lions boast this spring, as expected for one unit starting fresh and the other reloading on its fantastic 2023 performance.
But, the most-discussed contrast from Mike Yurcich is the buy-in and gravitas that Kotelnicki has worked to establish with this group.
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