Pwn the Portal: Grad Transfer DE Arnold Ebiketie

Thanks Temple for Spending Four Years Developing an Unwanted Recruit Into an All-Conference Pass Rusher…We’ll Take It From Here

We’re Portal People, now.  Embrace it.

While the rest of college football was on IG Live squawking about how they kicked dudes in the face and duct-taping squeeze bottles atop trophy stands, Penn State spent the dying breaths of 2020 putzing around the Transfer Portal – College Football’s Monster.com. And wouldn’t you know, while traversing this strange, foreign place, four players 99.9 percent of us have never seen play one snap of football decided to continue their careers in Happy Valley.

Sweet.

The latest (as of this keystroke) and most intriguing newbie is former Temple Defensive End Arnold Ebiketie, a 2nd Team All-AAC Grad Transfer with two years of eligibility left to finish tapping a deep reservoir of talent/potential. By now, you’ve seen his 2020 stats: 42 tackles, 8.5 TFL, 4 sacks, 3 forced fumbles and one defensive touchdown – a gift score that might have been his LEAST impressive highlight all season.

Coincidentally, Ebiketie’s football journey is a hybrid of the paths taken by Penn State’s departing edge rushers – Jayson Oweh and Shaka Toney. Like Oweh, Ebiketie didn’t begin playing organized football until midway through high school. He’s a late bloomer brimming with athleticism. And like Toney, Ebiketie entered college SEVERELY undersized — 195 pounds for Toney, 202 pounds for Ebiketie –making him more of a long-term project than instant impact guy.

From freshman orientation to 2020 Senior Day, Toney completely transformed his body. After redshirting in 2016, Toney added 38 pounds to his frame and played at 233 pounds as a freshman 3rd-down pass rush specialist. The next year, 2018, Toney packed on another eight pounds (241). Toney eclipsed the 250-pound plateau (252 for all you scale watchers) during his final season – a 1st Team All-Big Ten season – at Penn State. That’s 57 pounds total!

Ebiketie’s Dr. Nick Window to Weight Gain has seen him go from scrawny redshirt to 225-pound freshman, 235-pound sophomore, then 240-pound junior. After examining Ebiketie’s sophomore tape (we scouted 2019 Temple-UCF and 2019 Temple-SMU) we found it noteworthy how comfortable opposing OC’s were in letting tight ends and backs block the still-growing backup DE. Here, SMU leaves a tight end one-on-one vs. Ebiketie (NOTE: He wore No. 47 as a freshman and sophomore…look toward the left of the screen) as they slide protection to their left. The lazy run fake gives Ebiketie an extra beat to make the Mustangs pay…but during this stage of his football/physical development, he’s not a threat.

Ebiketie lined up for roughly 10-15 plays in the two 2019 games we scouted and didn’t start a single game as a sophomore. Still, despite the limited sample size, Ebiketie occasionally “flashed” in obvious pass rush situations when he could just eschew size/strength and lean solely on his speed/bend.

I mean, Ebiketie (No. 47, LE in this clip) gets a god awful jump off the snap…which makes this QB hurry even more impressive.  Once Ebiketie finally reaches 77-Jake Brown – he of 38 college starts, two-time All-AAC first-team tackle, and a member of the 2020 Outland Award watch list – the raw youngster does a masterful job of knocking down veteran’s hands and then utilizing a subtle rip move to get around the edge.

Ebiketie also got his first career sack in this game – a blowout loss.  No, it’s not a true pass rush scenario, but Ebiketie does showcase his acceleration on this non-thrown RPO, tracking down the QB once he begins to ad-lib. 

In the final two months of the Old Normal – between Temple’s bowl loss and COVID shutdowns in March – Ebiketie essentially lived in the weight room, according to this Philadelphia Inquirer feature. In that short window of time, he added another five pounds of muscle (#gains) and re-sculpted his body to handle the rigors of every-down football in 2020. Ebiketie enters THIS offseason 12-15 pounds lighter than Toney and Oweh…meaning it might behoove him to beef up even more between now and Sept. 4. Because even at 240 pounds, Ebiketie occasionally struggled to take-on/shed blocks in the running game. 

What you just witnessed was the only negative we assessed Ebiketie in this game, Temple’s 39-37 nail-biter vs. South Florida. Following Temple’s lone win of 2020, the AAC named Ebiketie (NOTE: Now No. 17) its Defensive Player of the Week partially because of his career-best 3.5 TFLs – two of which you’ll see here:  

On each of those stops, Ebiketie is simply too quick for the pulling guards. To be fair, though, South Florida’s offensive tackles didn’t fair much better, either.

Same rip move Ebiketie used in the 2019 UCF clip. Notice, though, how Ebiketie is upright and positioned a half-yard to a yard behind the LOS? Well, we did. So we rewound the film and tracked that Ebiketie put his hand in the dirt on only 42 percent of snaps vs. USF. Best guesstimate…Penn State’s defensive ends were in a 3-point stance 85-90 percent of snaps last season, so that might be a bit of a learning curve for the transfer. 

On this play, Ebiketie (top of screen DE) lines up even further away from the line (2 yards?) but it doesn’t matter. Speed, Speed, SPEED. The USF tackle is completely overmatched…got to finish, though. 

Now granted, we only scouted three games, but within that small sample size we never saw Ebiketie do anything but go wide on a pass rush – no inside moves at all. Every snap was a race to the edge. No twists. No stunts. No spins. No “Bull and Pull.” Just GO! Ebiketie is the DE at the top of the screen, again:

Finally, we’d be remiss  if we didn’t include two key 4th Quarter situations where Ebiketie  “Made The Play” even if it  the effort didn’t earn a mark in the box score. 

First play: 3rd and 4.  Temple is in man coverage. Both linebackers blitz inside. South Florida sneaks the H-Back to the flat in hopes 17-Ebiketie crashes on the play-fake…but he doesn’t. 

This display of discipline allows the then-Temple DE (now-PSU DE) to get hands on the eventual pass catcher and re-route his route. Doesn’t seem like much, but this slight harassment blows up the whole play. The USF H-Back should catch this pass a half-yard behind the line of scrimmage, giving him a decent shot of turning upfield and beating the safety to the yellow line. But because of Ebiketie, the H-Back catches the ball 2 yards behind the LOS and .5 seconds later than intended – allowing the Owls safety 3-Amir Tyler to make the tackle and force a punt. 

OK, second play: South Florida just scored and trails by two points. One minute to go. On the touchdown, Ebiketie had a chance to  stuff the RB but he missed the tackle. No time to sulk, though. Game is on the line on this next play: 

Look familiar? This is the EXACT same concept we clipped and showed 700 words ago – the QB run for 6 where the USF TE handled Ebiketie. Well, this time, Ebiketie ATTACKED the TE right from the snap, re-setting the edge 2-3 yards upfield. The RB briefly doubles Ebiketie, but the junior DE doesn’t give an inch. Ebiketie’s pressure forces the Bulls QB to bounce this wider than originally designed – a reroute that makes it impossible for the two pulling linemen to make blocks.  Temple safety 3-Tyler gets the TFL thanks to Ebiketie’s key assist.   

CONCLUSION: Under normal circumstances, Ebiketie would be a slam dunk to start for Penn State in 2021. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Remember, Ebiketie’s positive offseason weight gain occurred mainly during January, February and early March last year. Well, is Ebiketie even going to be on campus in two weeks? Will Penn State have winter workouts? Can he get to 250/255 pounds without the proper support staff? At 240 pounds, can Ebiketie hold up in the running game versus teams like Ohio State, Iowa, and Wisconsin? Or will he be relegated to the 2017-2018 Shaka Toney pass rush specialist role? So much is uncertain.