Five things I want to see out of Penn State Football in November
By Nick Kreiser
A lot of reps for young players on defense
Penn State Football will once again be losing a lot of key members on the defensive side of the ball, so it’ll be important to get some younger and more inexperienced plays as many snaps as possible the rest of the way.
Along the defensive line, both Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zane Durant have played quite a bit for true freshman, and both will be key pieces of the Penn State defense in the coming seasons. The more reps they are able to get throughout these last five games, the better off they’ll be in 2023 and 2024.
At linebacker, Abdul Carter is essentially a starter at this point, so he’s already getting about as many reps as possible. However, redshirt freshman Kobe King–who backs up Tyler Elsdon at middle linebacker–could greatly benefit from seeing an increased snap count going forward.
Jamari Buddin may also be expected to step up and contribute at linebacker next season, but he’s played sparingly so far this year. Getting him as many snaps as possible–while of course still playing to win–is important in his development.
On the back end, young defensive backs such as Kalen King, Jaylen Reed, and Zakee Wheatley all either start or play quite often. However, there are many other young defensive backs we’ve not really seen much of this season, such as Mehki Flowers, Christian Driver, KJ Winston, and Cam Miller. If the Nittany Lions are able to build a comfortable fourth quarter lead in a couple of the remaining games, it would be great to see some of those young prospects play multiple series.
One thing about the ‘elite’ programs in college football is that they don’t rebuild, they reload. The more game-ready some of these young defensive players are, the more next season will look like a reload on defense, as opposed to a rebuild with so many game-changers anticipated to be departing for the NFL this offseason.