Olu Fashanu among three notable players ruled out for Penn State vs. Indiana

Penn State will be shorthanded against Indiana on Saturday. Three key playmakers didn’t make the trip to Bloomington — including one of the Nittany Lions’ top offensive linemen.

Offensive tackle Olu Fashanu, guard Landon Tengwall and running back Keyvone Lee will all miss the matchup after staying behind. Fashanu is the biggest name of the list, anchoring the Penn State offensive line and coming in at No. 23 on ESPN NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr.’s latest Big Board.

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The Nittany Lions are trying to bounce back from last week’s 44-31 loss to Ohio State in Columbus. James Franklin’s group still appeared in the first College Football Playoff rankings earlier this week, coming in at No. 15.

Penn State coach James Franklin shares how he makes starting lineup changes

Be it for injury, a younger player improving their play or any number of reasons, a mid-season starting lineup change is pretty commonplace in college football. Penn State head coach James Franklin shared recently how it’s not really a big deal, behind the scenes.

Basically, Franklin said, the coaches will get together and make a determination, usually in the middle of the week for a bigger change. There’s rarely some big announcement to the team or any such fanfare, just a flip on the depth chart.

“Typically we don’t make announcements to the team,” Franklin said. “But it’s during the week. I mean sometimes, obviously, it could happen on game day and things like that. But it’s typically during the week. We’ll start to make some adjustments as the week goes on, to our practice, depending on how it plays out. And then we have a discussion as a staff and the coaches have a discussion during the week on ‘What is the rotation going to be on Saturday?’ And unless it’s something dramatic, a big change, then we don’t really talk about it until Saturday morning.”