Penn State spring questions for the coaches: How can Ty Howle and the tight ends improve in his second season?
Penn State is now just seven days away from the start of spring practice.
The Nittany Lions will take to the outdoor practices fields and also the one inside Holuba Hall for their eighth set of drills spread across March and April in the James Franklin era on March 21. After that practice and 13 more, the team will close things out until fall camp with the annual Blue-White game. That is set for 2 p.m. at Beaver Stadium. It will also be televised by Big Ten Network.
As the leadup to the pads going on and whistles blowing continues, Blue-White Illustrated is looking at the biggest question facing each member of Franklin’s staff. Today, Ty Howle, is in focus.
The Howle file
At 30, Howle is the youngest on-field assistant at Penn State.
Howle played for the Nittany Lions, of course. An offensive lineman in college, he was a four-year letter winner and team captain as a senior in 2013. The Bunn, N.C., native started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at North Carolina State in 2014. Following a two-year stint there, he spent 2016-2019 at Western Illinois, where he’d rise to the role of Assistant Head Coach/Co-Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line coach.
Penn State hired Howle back as an off-field analyst in 2020. When Tyler Bowen left a job with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars during the 2021 offseason, Franklin promoted Howle to tight ends coach. He enters his second season in that positon in 2022.
What is the biggest question facing Penn State tight ends coach Ty Howle in spring?
Penn State had extremely high expectations for its tight end group in 2021.
“I think our tight end room, you could make the argument that it’s one of the best groups we’ve got from top to bottom,” Franklin said last August. “I think it’s arguably one of the best tight-end groups in the country. It’s the best I’ve been around in 25 years of football.”
That was the belief before the games began. Once they did, however, the product on the field from this position group was anything but one of the best in college football.
Brenton Strange paced the group with 20 receptions for 225 yards and three touchdowns. Theo Johnson was right behind him with 19-213-1. Tyler Warren, then, had five grabs for 61 yards and a score.
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All three of them are back. Khalil Dinkins could also factor into the mix now that his redshirt season is complete. And, four-star signee Jerry Cross from Milwaukee, Wisc., will arrive and join the room this summer.
One must for Howle this year, and it’s not easy but doable, is the need to push consistency in all areas. This group routinely struggled with fundamentals, from simply catching the ball to missed blocking assignments and so on. Mistakes happen, of course, but that can’t be the expectation game in and game out in 2022.
We’d like to see Howle take on the question of using spring practice to see if there is a gap between one of his guys and the others that would make him the leading man exiting the next 15 practices. It might be Strange, but perhaps not.
Either way, Howle and his players must show improvement this season, and doing so starts in spring practice.
