Analyzing the Only Interesting Quotes From Penn State Spring Practice

As we crawl closer to the Year 1 finish line of this largely sophomoric/sparsely informative venture, more than one Friend Of The Blog has inquired whether we ever foresee a day when FTB morphs into a legit journalistic entity – you know, with real reporters asking real questions, jotting down real quotes instead of us embedding 1990s Simpsons clips in our stories.  

The answer is an emphatic NO…for a few reasons. 

For starters, our site’s philosophy has always been (and will always be) to complement, not copy, Penn State’s existing beat coverage. Doesn’t make sense to do what dozens of other outlets are doing…and doing better than we ever could. So for traditional Penn State coverage, go to sources like Donnie Collins in Scranton, Audrey Snyder at The Athletic, Ben Jones in State College, and BoFlo, Pickel and discount college t-shirt enthusiast Dave Jones in Harrisburg. They all do an awesome job. 

Second, 99 percent of athlete/coach quotes are worthless, nothing more than verbal plastic knives – dull, disposable, and recycled. At Penn State, because of the school’s frustrating batting-order/take-turns approach to press conferences where reporters can’t spit out follow-up questions, it’s more like 99.7 percent. 

So, like a single-toothed 19th-century prospector, we spent the weekend in the figurative creek sifting through the clumps of clichés clogging up PSU spring press conferences, as well as tangential discussions on whether rabbits are considered livestock (this really happened), in hopes of finding a few flakes of spoken gold. 

Here’s what we discovered:

“Tempo is a weapon. If you don’t have true tempo in your offense, it’s hard to get your defense ready for it. And to be honest with you, we’ve never been tempo…There’s been coaches that I’ve interviewed and hired and they’ve sold themselves as tempo guys but then we weren’t really that.” – James Franklin, Head Coach

Franklin speaks in absolutes here, but seldom is any aspect of football absolute. For example, when we released our first FTB Film Study of the spring, the one where we compared the Inside Zone Run Attacks of the Moorhead/Rahne/Ciarrocca Eras against Mike Yurcich’s tendency to feature a lot of Wide Zone and Outside Zone in the past, we got a few comments asking, “So Penn State isn’t going to use any Inside Zone this year?” No, they will. 

Same thing here.

If we take Franklin’s word as gospel here, it sounds like Penn State has never utilized tempo on offense. But that’s simply not the case. Just like he did at Western Michigan and Minnesota, Kirk Ciarrocca occasionally went FAST/UP TEMPO in short yardage or goal-to-go situations when the opposing defensive personnel didn’t fit the down and distance.  

Here’s an example of Ciarrocca using tempo to his advantage in last season’s Illinois win. This sequence is unedited to give you a better feel for the sudden hurried pace. The poor FS1 director actually gets caught in a full-screen graphic and misses the 2nd and 1 snap:

On 2nd down, Penn State snaps the ball with 25 seconds left on the play clock. On 1st and Goal, 29 seconds remain. No second check – or “LOOK-LOOK” as Franklin called it — to the sideline on either play. It’s technically tempo, but since Ciarrocca always ran tempo in confined spaces, HIS tempo doesn’t have a frantic, NASCAR pit-crew pace because no one (besides the receivers) has to hurry to line up.

Now, let’s look at an unedited example of Yurcich’s offense using tempo:

Damn, that’s, uh, really fast – like guy speaking in the old Micro Machines commercials fast (over/under number of people who get that reference: 3.5). The nanosecond Oklahoma State moves the chains, Yurcich’s caffeinated, cleated ballet gets set in motion. Oklahoma State’s 2017 offense was full of upperclassmen, which might explain why this looks so freaking smooth. Everyone knows where to be and what to do. 

On the next three plays, Oklahoma State doesn’t substitute (no clue why the ref is holding things up on 1st and 10 from the OSU 40) and snaps the ball with 28, 31, and 29 seconds left on the play clock, respectively – incredibly impressive start times, especially when you consider every Okie State player hustles a combined 52 yards downfield. The scene looks chaotic but it’s calculated…and it’s obviously way different than any tempo Penn State has sprinkled in since 2014.

“Last year was a weird year, in general…the first time I threw to Parker (Washington) was two weeks before the first game. (That) was the first time I really got a lot of reps with him. It makes you appreciate this time now, even more.” – Sean Clifford, QB 

Sean Clifford’s spring media session shed some light on both the future and the recent past – particularly when the presumed starting QB touched upon Penn State’s unorthodox 2020 fall practice schedule when speaking about Parker Washington.

Prior to the quote you read above, Clifford used the phrase “different camps” during his interview, which suggests Penn State held split-squad practices throughout August, September, and part of October. If that’s the case, it helps explain the early-season lack of cohesion on both sides of the ball. Additionally, if Clifford’s correct with his timeline, it also bumps up the Degree of Difficulty score on Washington’s phenomenal first season in Happy Valley.

Perhaps because Washington hasn’t spoken to the media yet this spring, it feels like his breakthrough potential in Mike Yurcich’s offense has been overshadowed, if not completely ignored, because of Jahan Dotson’s return and the revelation he scribbles the word LEGENDARY in his notebook every day – the type of anecdote that makes journalists drool so it gets a ton of attention in digital print. 

But don’t forget, Parker Washington was the only Penn State true freshman receiver during the James Franklin Era to start every game in an entire season, a Fun-Size campaign where the Texan topped the Big Ten in receptions (36), yards (489), and touchdowns (6) by a first-year player. And don’t forget, according to PFF, Washington made more tacklers miss post-reception (7) than any other Penn State pass catcher last season – a number than should inflate substantially if Taylor Stubblefield’s reports of Washington’s lower body weight-room #gainz are accurate.  And don’t you dare forget that Washington did all that with no spring ball, no summer session, and a mere 14 days to develop a report with Clifford.

“Hakeem Beamon has a chance to be really, really good for us, too. The thing we love about him is Hakeem brings some End-like qualities in there with his footwork and mobility.” – John Scott, Jr., DL Coach

For a pair of reasons – 1. We like his talent/potential and 2. We like that his name allows us to whip up ‘Coming To America’ and ‘Any Given Sunday’ one-liners – Penn State defensive tackle Hakeem Beamon is an FTB favorite, so naturally our ears perked up when John Scott, Jr. said what he said – specifically when the assistant coach spoke of No. 51’s “End-like qualities.”

Does that quote hint at a potential move further down the defensive line for Beamon?

Well, nothing has been formally announced – unlike Zuriah Fisher’s position switch from LB to DE – but it is worth noting that Beamon dropped a ton of weight from the beginning of last season (298 pounds) to the start of 2021 spring practice (269 pounds), and it’s also worth noting that James Franklin seemed concerned that defensive ends Adisa Isaac and Arnold Ebiketie – the two likely Week 1 DE starters — remain several chicken cosmos shy of 250 pounds. So slimming Beamon down another 10 or so pounds and sliding him to DE on 1st and 2nd downs then moving him inside on 3rd-and-Long pass-heavy scenarios isn’t a completely outlandish thought…is it?

Is it?!?!

Beamon’s biggest issue – and likely the reason why he never saw more than 27 snaps in any game last season – was that even at 298 pounds he was a huge liability during run downs and couldn’t hold his ground against double teams – seen here on two plays vs. Illinois where the redshirt freshman gets rudely ushered over multiple gaps.

In pass rush scenarios, however, the script flipped and Beamon looked like a guy who will one day live up to his lofty recruiting rankings. On those plays, he’s quick, explosive, and powerful…even at 298 pounds. No wonder Beamon’s PFF pass rush grade in 2020 was 12 points higher than his run defender grade. Because traditional stats are stupid, Beamon technically didn’t register a single sack last season…but take a look at this play vs. Iowa and tell me who DESERVES credit for the sack – Beamon or Shaka Toney?

“The SAM, you’re more so a hybrid safety…you’re not really in the run game as much depending on the call. Me being in the box more, there’s a lot more things I have to look for as far as the different line movements, recognizing whether it’s Power or Counter – any type of misdirection. So really those have been the little differences between me being at SAM and me being at the WILL now.” – Brandon Smith, LB

Gonna keep this last section short because a few media outlets beat us to the punch and did a great job illustrating the shift in responsibilities between the SAM and WILL linebacker positions (Thomas Frank Carr’s podcast: HERE) and the evolution of the two positions over the years (Brandon Noble on the Obligatory PSU Podcast at the 23:30 mark: HERE). 

Switching Smith from SAM to WILL – the position Micah Parsons vacated in the 11th hour because COVID concerns were a convenient excuse to duck out and start earning money/borrowing against future earnings – does create more TFL opportunities and more chances to blitz the former 5-star from Virginia. According to PFF, Smith only rushed the quarterback 29 times in 2020 from the SAM linebacker spot. Parsons – at the WILL position – blitzed 94 times in 2019. 

Smith takes over the WILL spot from Jesse Luketa – a 4th-year player who (we’re guessing) will spell Ellis Brooks at the MIKE for a year in hopes of being the starter in 2022, or move to DE, or explore the Transfer Portal in search of immediate playing time elsewhere once spring practice concludes.

Yes, that’s 100 percent speculation…but like we said earlier, we’re not pretending to be journalists, so it’s cool.