Tony Rojas quickly established himself as one of the leaders of the Penn State defense, and in his junior season, had emerged as a difference-maker on the second level for first-year defensive coordinator Jim Knowles. Now, Rojas is expected to be out with a long-term injury, and that will put a longtime fan favorite back in the spotlight.
Former walk-on linebacker Dominic DeLuca has played a role for the Penn State defense in each of the last two seasons, having his best performance on the biggest stage with two interceptions against SMU in the first round of the College Football Playoff last season. Yet faced with the prospect of the two-year team captain playing a full allotment of snaps at linebacker, James Franklin balked, instead adding North Carolina transfer Amare Campbell in the spring Transfer Portal window.
Campbell now leads the Penn State defense in snaps played and tackles, but with 25 tackles and 4.5 for loss, Rojas won’t be easy to replace. Franklin spoke to the media about how true freshmen Alex Tatsch and Cam Smith may see an increased workload, but DeLuca will be the one elevated into a starting role, and in Knowles’ defense, it’s a major one.
Can Jim Knowles play his three-safety defense without Tony Rojas?
Once a blitz-happy coordinator, Knowles has settled into a more conservative approach, utilizing multiple deep safeties to limit big plays and allow his four-man pass rush to win without much help. That’s how he won the national championship at Ohio State, and how his defense cut Oregon’s explosive play-rate in half in Penn State’s Week 5 loss.
With the amount of three deep safety looks and an increased usage of zone coverage compared to previous Penn State DCs, Knowles, especially because he prefers to keep a four-down front, puts a lot of stress on the second level. The two linebackers in his 4-2-5 system are asked to cover a lot of ground, fitting gaps in the run game, dropping with depth in zone coverage, and rallying to tackle the underneath completions that the defense is designed to funnel the opponent’s passing game towards.
To play that way, as he did down the stretch at Ohio State, and has started the season at Penn State, you, of course, need sure tacklers at linebacker, but you also need athletes who can run sideline to sideline and cover in space. DeLuca is a better athlete than you’d expect from a former walk-on, but he’s not Rojas, who can run 4.4-4.5 at 6-foot-2, 230 pounds.
So, the question for Knowles is, does he trust DeLuca with Rojas’s responsibilities to keep his new favorite defensive structure, or does he bring another body down around the line of scrimmage, either another linebacker or a physical nickel, to limit DeLuca’s exposure?
Luckily, he’ll have the opportunity to try both structures in Week 6 against a winless UCLA team that just fired its offensive coordinator, after firing its head coach.