Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2022 preseason coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Spare the embarrassment of showing up to Beaver Stadium in LAST year’s sweat- & alcohol-stained gear. Grab something fresh from our collection of Penn State jerseys, T-shirts, and more right HERE.

Same deal as yesterday’s offense article. For those diligent FTB readers, no need to explain the format or premise of this blog post. You know the drill. Gold star for you. For those who didn’t bother reading Monday’s ‘End-of-Season Starting Lineup: Offense’ well, I hope you have a doctor’s note or some other valid excuse for your absence.

DE: Adisa Isaac

Isaac was anointed a future first-round pick by a former Nittany Lion before last year’s medical redshirt depreciated his NFL stock a bit. Five-star freshman Dani Dennis-Sutton is nipping at his heels and by the end of this sentence you won’t be able to say I didn’t mention Smith Vilbert’s name. Adisa’s a man on a mission, though; he’ll come by this spot honestly.

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Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2022 preseason coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Spare the embarrassment of showing up to Beaver Stadium in LAST year’s sweat- & alcohol-stained gear. Grab something fresh from our collection of Penn State jerseys, T-shirts, and more right HERE.

Warning: The superstitious should skip this article.

The reason? Well, because in the next dozen or so paragraphs we’re going to tempt fate and gaze in the future to predict the Nittany Lions’ starting lineup for the FINAL game of 2022. Yes, you read that correctly – the FINAL game of 2022, presumably a bowl game that (fingers crossed) will be played in 2023.

Around this time every preseason, several publications – be they physical or digital – print out their thoughts regarding Penn State’s Week 1 projected starters. To us, that seems kind of boring, especially since the lone up-in-the-air position battle on offense is whether Sal Wormley or Hunter Nourzad will line up at right guard four Thursdays from now. Instead, we’re projecting four months from now – Who opts-out? Which young player beats out a veteran early-season starter? That sort of thing.

For context, last year only 4 Penn State offensive players that started Week 1 at Wisconsin started in the same spot on January 1 vs. Arkansas…so there’s something to this exercise. One thing we’re not doing, though, is predicting injuries. Not putting that negative energy out in the universe.

So find some salt, spill it, then throw it over your left shoulder … Ok, ready? Let’s tuck in.

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Don’t call last year a disappointment. The Nittany Lions didn’t lose a game by more than four points – if you overlook the scoop-and-score from the OSU game and consider the Opt-out Bowl an outlier. Twelve student-athletes graduated to NFL rosters, eight by way of the draft. Most importantly: 15 current and former Penn State players received diplomas this past May.

Is it possible to lose half your defense to the NFL one year and have a better team the season after? Ok, that’s a loaded question; I’ll scrape off some of the sour cream and bacon bits. I’ve graded and ranked each position group of Penn State’s 2022 roster. After doing so, one thing is clear: James Franklin’s team will have a very different identity come the first of September.

Scale: F – Unacceptable, D – Below-the-line, C – Average, B – Good, A – Great

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For the Nittany Lions, The Road Too Often Traveled To Start Conference Play Has Been On The Road — a Discrepancy Penn State’s New AD  Won’t Let Be Dismissed as a Coincidence Anymore

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This year’s Big Ten Media Days offered Penn State football’s top brass an opportunity to vent.

During James Franklin’s turn at the podium, the Nittany Lions’ head coach took a subtle shot at the frequency with which his team has been scheduled to open conference play on the road (seven straight years counting 2022, and 12 of the last 13). Later on, when a reporter questioned Dr. Pat Kraft about the topic, State’s new athletic director assumed a more direct approach. With a brand of candor uncommon to his profession or employer, Kraft made his view plain: “It stinks.” He went on to describe an appeal to the league office seeking relief.

But how big of a beef do James and his new boss really have?

Penn State fans absolutely love to complain about discriminatory treatment from the Big Ten. Any number of Blue and White backers will insist that what could simply be innocent quirks of a complicated scheduling process, in fact, characterize a pattern of mistreatment that predates the retirement of Bo Schembechler. To these impassioned partisans, their beloved program endures a special and exclusive aggrieved status.

Turns out, at least in this case, they’re right!

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