Which Penn State freshmen are ready for bigger roles over the final three weeks?: Redshirt report
Penn State football has nearly completed its season-long balancing act with the Class of 2024. With just three regular season games to go, numerous first-year Nittany Lions will see either expanded playing time or perhaps their first snaps in blue and white over a stretch of contests that sees the team play at Purdue and Minnesota before hosting Maryland on Senior Day.
“The way we look at the green/yellow/red. Green, you’re trying to burn. Yellow, you’re trying to hold the redshirt if you can. And red is a guy that’s most likely going to redshirt. And all those things can changed based on injury,” head coach James Franklin said Monday. “What I’m saying is we manage this that we now should be at this stage, a lot of these guys be able to play and still be able to keep their redshirt.
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“I think Max Granville is a good example. We had decided, I guess, in some ways to green light him in terms of if we needed him to win, he was going into the game. But we weren’t just going to put him in if he wasn’t necessarily needed. We were fortunate over the last couple of games to be able to get through those games and not have to play him because what I’m very sensitive to is you put a guy in for three plays, like once you’re going to play a guy, there’s got to be a commitment throughout the program on special teams with the coordinators and the position coach that the kid and the parents feel at the end of the year it was worthwhile, it was in everybody’s best interests.”
Who will that help moving forward?
“So some guys that I would say fall in that category right now are Corey Smith and Tyseer Denmark, Eagan Boyer and Donnie Harbour, Xavier Gilliam, Max Granville, Jaylen Harvey, Anthony Speca, [Antoine] Belgrave-Shorter, and [Kenny Woseley Jr.] and [Jon] Mitchell,” Franklin said.
Some of these guys it will be this game. Some of the guys it will be next game. But the guys that have only played in one game, they’re good to go. The guys that have played in two games, we’ll probably try to hold them for another game.
Here’s a look at this week’s redshirt report.
Penn State redshirt report: Washington
It was not an overly busy week for the Nittany Lion true freshmen despite the wide final margin of victory over the Huskies. Tight end Luke Reynolds did not have any counting stats over 16 snaps on offense. Offensive lineman Cooper Cousins took 12 snaps on offense and six on special teams. Safety Dejuan Lane had six on special teams and 16 on defense, ultimately finishing with no counting stats.
Linebacker Anthony Speca and cornerback Kenny Woseley Jr., both played for the second time this season. Both took 10 snaps on defense. Neither saw any special teams action.
Last but certainly not least, running back Corey Smith made his debut. He turned five carries on five snaps into 95 yards. That figure is headlined by a 78-yard run on the final series of the game.
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PSU redshirt tracker after Week 11
First, a reminder: Any member of the roster can play in up to four regular season games and still preserve a year of eligibility. Once you pay in a fifth, you can no longer redshirt. And, most importantly, postseason games do not count against the total. It is a regular season counter only.
Nine games
TE Luke Reynolds
OL Cooper Cousins
S Dejuan Lane
Three games
RB Quinton Martin Jr.
Two games
S Vaboue Toure
DE Max Granville
LB Anthony Speca
CB Kenny Woseley Jr.
One game
RB Corey Smith
WR Tyseer Denmark
DE Jaylen Harvey
DT Xavier Gilliam
OL Eagan Boyer
CB Jon Mitchell
CB Antoine Belgrave-Shorter
Zero games
QB Ethan Grunkemeyer
DL Liam Andrews
OT Garrett Sexton
DE Mylachi Williams
OL Donovan Harbour
WR Josiah Brown
DL T.A. Cunningham
OL Caleb Brewer
LB Kari Jackson
WR Peter Gonzalez
DT DeAndre Cook
