3 things we learned on the Penn State Coaches Show: Season ticket count, more on Jon Sutherland's position switch, more

The first Penn State Coaches Show of the fall is in the books.

For those unaware, longtime Lions football and basketball play-by-play broadcaster Steve Jones hosts an hourlong show in the fall and winter. During this time of the year, James Franklin joins him for the 6:30-7 p.m. hour. In the half-hour before that, it could be just about any member of the school’s athletic department. On this night, it was first-year athletic director Pat Kraft preceding Franklin.

While each episode typically airs weekly on Thursday night, this one was broadcast on Tuesday because Penn State plays Purdue in two days at Ross-Ade Stadium.

Here are three things we learned.

How many season tickets has Penn State sold?

A former Indiana linebacker who has since led the athletic departments at Temple and Boston College, Kraft is full of enthusiasm. His strong passion and unwavering belief in the mission he and his department have cannot be questioned

The new Penn State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics hit on numerous topics during his first appearance on the program. He reminded fans that “you are not breaking any rules” to donate to the Success with Honor collective while pushing the importance of name, image, and likeness. He also trumpeted the importance of both Big Ten expansion and the conference’s new enormous media rights deal that takes effect next July.

Beyond that, Kraft also shared the current number of football season ticket sales ahead of next Saturday’s home opener opposite Ohio. It came in response to a question about the strong attendance and television ratings tied to Penn State and the Big Ten overall.

“There’s a school in Columbus [Ohio State], and there’s a school in Ann Arbor [Michigan], and then there’s us,” Kraft said. “We’re that power brand. Now, we got to get our mojo back. We got to get some juice, and carry that stick, and not be shy to be confident about that. But, I’ll tell you one number that I think is staggering. We have 91,754 season ticket holders. Nobody in the country has that. So let that number sink in: 91,754 season ticket holders. Texas just went out and promoted 63,000. We’re going to have them by 30,000 That tells you how powerful we are. And, when we’re all together in that. That’s that’s impressive.”

For the record, it’s unclear how many season tickets Texas sold. The school promoted breaking its previous record mark of 63,000. But, it has yet to reveal the actual updated number.

Lions had another tie to landing Hunter Nourzad

When Penn State landed former Cornell guard Hunter Nourzad in February, he told BWI that a couple of things about the Lions helped ultimately make them the winner.

“I love [offensive line coach Phil] Trautwein and I think he’s a great guy,” Nourzad said. “I have a lot of respect for him, although I have a lot of respect for the Iowa and Illinois staff as well. They’re all great people at both of those schools, too, from what I could tell during the process. But I think one of the big things was that I felt really comfortable around Coach Traut. 

“But also, Penn State kind of has a blueprint for what I’m trying to do with them. Last year, with Eric Wilson, they took an Ivy League guy who played inside, and from May to August, which is my same timeline, they developed him enough to start some games. So, that was one of the biggest draws for me. They’ve done what I’m trying to do.”

As Penn State coach James Franklin mentioned Tuesday night, however, there was one other factor that helped the Lions and perhaps Nourzad too: Big Red offensive line coach Sean Cascarano. He’s been a Cornell assistant since 2019. Before that, he was a graduate assistant under Franklin and co., from 2017-2019.

Franklin brought up the connection while discussing how the program looks for fits out of the transfer portal.

“Hunter’s o-line coach at Cornell was a GA for us,” Franklin said. “So, whenever you have that, where a guy can call you and say, ‘you’re gonna love this guy, he’s your type of guy, you got nothing to worry about,’ guys that I know that care about Penn State, guys that I know that care about my coaching staff, and me, and they’re going to tell us the truth.

“Because, there are a lot of guys in the transfer portal for a reason. And, you better find out what the reason is.”

More on Sutherland’s position switch

Penn State moved four-time team captain Jonathan Sutherland from safety to linebacker this offseason. Franklin was asked to explain why that was the right move ahead of the opener.

“If you really study Jon, almost all of his plays that he made were down in the box,” Franklin said. “Almost like Marcus Allen, who’s [has played] linebacker for the Steelers [after playing safety at Penn State]. Was Marcus a great player here? Yes. But, most of his playmaking was in run support near the line of scrimmage. And, if you look at Sutherland, very similar.

“Being able to get more athletic on the field and by position, slide him down; that field linebacker is almost like a safety anyway, the way we build it and the way college football is trained, has changed. Now if you’re playing Wisconsin in week one, maybe it doesn’t make as much sense, because you’d prefer to have three almost MIKE linebackers on the field against that type of offense.”