Penn State Football: September storylines to watch

Penn State Football storyline #5 – year one of the Manny Diaz defense

Anytime there’s a new coordinator in town, much of the attention early in the season will be drawn to them and their side of the ball. Each of the last two seasons, it was on the offensive side with Kirk Ciarrocca and Mike Yurcich. Now, it’ll be on defense with Manny Diaz.

Diaz certainly has the horses to lead one of the better defenses in the entire country, but will he be able to put them in a position to be successful week in and week out?

In two of the first three games of the season, Diaz and his defense will face two unique tests, both of which should give us a good indication of how well this unit will perform in both major facets of the game.

Against Purdue and their air-raid offense, we will get a great look at Diaz’s exotic blitz packages and disguised coverages, as well has how well they may or may not work.

Two weeks later at Auburn, we will get a look at the front seven and how Diaz plans to defend the run as the Nittany Lions will face a physical runner and one of the best running backs in all of college football: Tank Bigsby.

By the end of September, will this look like a top 10 defense, a liability, or something in between?

Time will tell.