Sunday Column: Solution To Penn State’s WR Issues Can Be Found a Little Closer To The Ball
There are only two things, if you believe the word on the street, that stand to prevent a Nittany Lion offense that appears to be stacked from threatening to blow up the scoreboard this autumn:
- Drew Allar needs some time to become the real deal (quite possible) OR he isn’t the real deal (shut yo’ mouf!!)
- Allar is money but his wide receiving corps isn’t up to snuff OR they don’t provide him enough support to, um, be money
Maybe KeAndre Lambert-Smith is ready to make the jump from ‘Occasionally Explosive’ to ‘Consistently The Man.’ Maybe Tre Wallace is going to step up and be the solid No. 2 that this offense sorely needs. Maybe Dante Cephas will be able to produce at the Big Ten level the way he did in the MAC for Kent State. Or maybe someone will emerge from the grab bag containing Omari Evans, Malick Meiga, Liam Clifford, Kaden Saunders, Malik McClain, Anthony Ivey, Cristian Driver, Tyler Johnson (this meeting room is standing-room only) and be a modified Cinderella story not unlike Jordan Norwood and Deon Butler exploding onto the scene from relative obscurity in 2005.
Or, just maybe, the group as a whole will underwhelm, to the extent that a Parker Washington-Mitchell Tinsley-led unit did for much of 2022 or, perhaps, even worse.
To be clear, Penn State will, at some point and likely a few points in 2023, need some production from its wideouts no matter how good Allar is or how many defensive backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen truck on their way to the end zone. But should KLS, Wallace and/or the rest struggle, the Nittany Lions would be wise to do what they did last season, and lean on the tight ends.
Yes, Brenton Strange departed for the NFL with eligibility to burn, but Penn State still returns the rest of a group that, for the first time since Pat Freiermuth went down with an injury early in 2020, began to play to the considerable potential we had been hearing so much about. Strange (5), Theo Johnson (4), Tyler Warren (3) and Khalil Dinkins (1) combined for 13 of Penn State’s 29 touchdown catches last season, nearly double the seven the team’s tight ends had totaled the year before and the most by any Big Ten tight end group in 2023.
Theo Johnson (who may or may not have to serve some sort of game-based punishment for the assault charge he picked up during the offseason), Warren and Dinkins are all back this fall and are all likely to see significant snaps, whether the Nittany Lions are in 11, 12, or 13 personnel. And it was the success of the offense when it was in those 12- and 13-personnel groupings (let’s not even get started on the T-formation plays) in both the run game and pass game in 2022 that makes the strongest case for Penn State going TE-heavy in 2023.
Have doubts about your third receiver? Get your two top tight ends on the field. Johnson and Warren will both enter the season having played in 24 career games, and both have shown playmaking ability and improved blocking skills. Have doubts about your No. 2 wideout? Send in Dinkins, who has added some weight and been publicly pegged as a potential breakout candidate by none other than his head coach this summer, and rock with three tights.
Mike Yurcich was not afraid to shake up personnel groupings and formations last season to take advantage of both Penn State’s offensive depth and the respective skill sets of his skill guys. And even with a young quarterback who is still grasping the nuances of the playbook and the rhythms of the game, he will likely continue to do that this fall. We could see Singleton and Allen together in the backfield again. We could see Yurcich and Allar test defenses vertically, not only with the tight ends themselves but with deep shots to the wideouts that would open things up underneath for the tight ends later in the game.
We are fairly certain Penn State’s offensive line, led by likely All-America tackle Olu Fashanu, will be demonstrably improved, but it nonetheless might not be a bad idea to supplement the linemen’s blocking with the giant tight ends in the run game or to provide Allar extra protection from the potent defensive lines of Michigan and Ohio State. If Allar and his wide receivers aren’t able to connect on some plays over the top, defenses will take away other things until they’re able to do so. Should it come to that, having 6-foot-6 intermediate targets who can make things happen after the catch (Johnson led the squad with a 16.4-yard average last season) would help an inexperienced quarterback build confidence and move the chains.
The ideal scenario for Penn State, of course, would be that Johnson and Warren continue to produce, that Dinkins breaks out AND the wideouts produce both big plays and consistency. Then it becomes a matter of Yurcich deciding exactly how he wants to dissect a particular defense based on its weaknesses rather than scheming around his own unit’s.
It is more likely that a few of the wideouts will need some more time, though. And during that time, the best thing the coaches can do for Allar, the offense, and the team is to give the big guys that have already proven they can be counted on to make plays chances to make more of them, no matter how many of them are on the field at the same time.
