Sunday Column: Budding Legacy at Lockdown U? Recent Success of the Nittany Lions Secondary Leading to Reloads, Not Rebuilds

College football’s best teams stay on top by replacing NFL talent with more NFL talent, by ensuring that the Next Man Up is as good as the Last Man Who Left.

Like so many teams looking to make the next step to that elite level, Penn State is working to develop that sort of dynamic at as many positions as possible, though it might already have it in a relatively surprising part of the field.

After years of fielding solid, if unspectacular, defensive backfields, often playing behind front sevens stacked with guys who would go on to play for paychecks on Sundays, the Nittany Lions have quietly built a secondary that can stand up to any in the nation and are showing no signs that it’s not sustainable.

Last spring, the Nittany Lions lost first-team all-conference safety Jaquan Brisker and corner Tariq Castro-Fields to the NFL. They responded by finishing second in the nation in pass efficiency defense, breaking up 85 balls in 13 games, and putting three starters (Joey Porter Jr., Ji’Ayir Brown, and Kalen King) on the All-Big Ten team.

This spring, with Porter likely to be selected among the top 20 players in the NFL Draft and Brown looking like a second- or third-day pick, Penn State is … still stacked in the secondary. King, who was third in FBS in passes defended (18 breakups and three interceptions) is back at corner, as are veterans Johnny Dixon and Daequan Hardy. Add in UNC transfer Storm Duck, and you have four corners who could start for most teams. Youngsters like Cam Miller and early enrollee Elliot Washington will have to work for playing time this season but have the talent to earn it.

Brown will be missed at safety, but the Nittany Lions are well-positioned to fill those shoes as well, with Jaylen Reed (31 tackles, three pass breakups in 2022) and Keaton Ellis looking like the starters and Zakee Wheatley, who had two picks and a forced fumble as a reserve last season, also pushing for starter’s reps. As with Miller and Washington, young safeties Mehki Flowers and KJ Winston have the Nittany Lions well-positioned for the future.

Most defensive coordinators would love to work with the group listed above, but Manny Diaz’s aggressive style will continue to benefit from his secondary’s talent. With corners — and safeties — capable of covering receivers 1-on-1, Diaz will be able to rush the passer with more defenders, and he has already showed the willingness to send members of the secondary into the offensive backfield with blitzes, with effective results; Penn State DBs combined for eight sacks and 21.5 tackles for loss last fall.

Looking further down the road, the Nittany Lions added Washington and safeties King Mack and DaKaari Nelson, all rated among the nation’s top 20 at their respective positions in the Class of 2023 according to industry consensus rankings. Penn State also has commitments from 2024 DB prospects Kenny Woseley and Jon Mitchell, the latter a four-star corner from Jacksonville, Florida who announced he had chosen Penn State on Saturday. Whether any of them develop into all-conference players or even starters is of course a mystery at this point, but the track records of Terry Smith and Anthony Poindexter at developing both high school recruits and transfers are already pretty good and are getting better by the year, it seems.

As mentioned at the top of the column, the best programs in the country reload at all positions, but they’re particularly dominant along both lines and have both players who are electric with the ball in their hands and players who have the ability to run with those playmakers and maybe make a play or two on the ball themselves. Even in a cold-weather conference like the Big Ten, you have to throw the ball to win, and while limiting strong passing attacks is easier with elite pass rushers or defenses who can get home with the blitz, defensive backfields who can disrupt a quarterback’s rhythm or get the ball back for their offense quickly are important, too.

Penn State had such a backfield in 2021 and 2022, should have another in 2023, and appears to be laying the foundation for more after that. If the Nittany Lions can get the same thing going at a few other position groups, the list of teams they can’t compete with is going to get even shorter than it already is.