Penn State football: Position battle updates at safety, receiver, kicker, and punter

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State football has fewer questions than answers during head coach James Franklin’s 10th preseason camp in State College. But, the Nittany Lions do have a few things to figure out. On Sunday, Penn State coach James Franklin and his coordinators spoke to reporters at team media day inside the media room at Beaver Stadium. Plenty of ground was covered, included updates on key position battles. No winners were named, however.

Franklin started the discussion with a look at the quarterback situation.

“Drew and Beau obviously in year two, they look like guys that are year two in the same system mentally, physically, and they’ve both gotten stronger, leaner, faster, more confident with their reads, their accuracy, their decision making, and those type of things. They’ve been impressive.

“Beau and Drew, they look like guys that are year two and more experienced guys and confident and know how to execute and run the offense. Both of them have the teams respect. We aren’t making any announcements or decisions at any positions at this point. We want to create competition at every position as long as possible.”

Read on to learn more on the other competitions.

What’s up at receiver?

Penn State has a leader in its receivers room in KeAndre Lambert-Smith. But, the program must find out who will be the Nos. two and three options behind him, not to mention four through six.

“I think there’s probably eight guys that are legitimately in that competition, and it kind of goes day to day,” Franklin said. “The big thing that we’re looking for at each position, and then really across our team and our team as a whole, is consistency. That’s one of the thing we talked about earlier [Sunday] at the end of our walkthrough is, we got to consistently have championship-level practices. And that’s really the same thing at the wide receiver position. There’s probably eight to nine guys that are showing flashes that they could be the starter for us. But, it comes down to consistency at every position.”

In other words, the jury is still out on this battle.

Penn State likes its safeties room

Penn State will start Keaton Ellis, a senior and team captain, at one safety spot. But, who plays beside him and how many others find a spot in the rotation behind the two first-teamers still must be decided.

“So that’s a position that you could make the argument is better than the depth we had last year. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that the starters are going to be better because, as we all know Tig Brown was a heck of player and had a ton of production. I don’t necessarily expect one person to replace production his production. I think what you hope is, among that group, that we can get that type of production as a group.”

Franklin went on to add that Penn State isn’t “there yet” in terms of figuring out the depth chart at safety.

An update on the Lions’ special teams

Penn State special teams coordiantor Stacy Collins broke down where things stand across his position group.

Return game: “From a kickoff return standpoint, Nick [Singleton] is still there,” special teams coordinator Stacy Collins said. “Kaytron Allen got a lot of reps. We’ve had guys like Omari Evans, Trey Potts, and a crew of young guys that will continue to work and develop. We’ll continue to put those guys in different situations. King Mack’s got really good ability, Zion Tracy, Elliot Washington, so we’ll continue to work through it.

Kicking: First of all, we’re looking for consistency. Right now, our focus has been on putting those guys in different situations. Sander [Sahaydak] and [Alex] Felkins are striking the ball extremely well. And, I like where Ryan Barker is as a freshman coming in.

Punter: Certainly Alex [Bacchetta] got a chance to get some game reps last year. He’s continued to have a good offseason. I like what Riley [Thompson] did throughout the spring. Gabe [Nwosu] has done a nice job. But, we’re focused on the daily part of it. I like the growth and development and the competition that we have.