ALTOONA, Pa. -- We're in a different world now when it comes to young college athletes. Because if they don't play early in their careers, there's a good chance many of them will bolt for another school and better perceived opportunities.
The grass isn't always greener on the other side, a lot of those players find out after entering the transfer portal, but it's hard to tell them that in the present.
They just want to play.
Now.
James Franklin and the Penn State coaching staff have handled this new transfer portal era perfectly so far this season, not only getting a whole bunch of young players some experience, but most importantly getting all of the key guys early opportunities to make a mark on the field.
"Most importantly, we're getting the guys in the game a little bit earlier than maybe we had in the past, and that is really putting a priority on creating depth," Franklin said Tuesday. "That is based on previous experiences. That is what I think we need to do in 2022 with making sure that as many guys in the locker room feel like they're getting opportunities. It's all of that."
Coaches obviously want to play true freshmen who are ready to play, and throughout the history of college football, that number hasn't always been very big. Then the NCAA changed it to where a guy can play four games and still keep his redshirt, and so coaches adjusted to get guys the four games but, in a lot of cases, no more.
The Nittany Lions have played four games, and seven true freshmen have played in all four:
QB Drew Allar
RB Nicholas Singleton
RB Kaytron Allen
WR Omari Evans
DE Dani Dennis-Sutton
LB Abdul Carter
DT Zane Durant
Now, it's absolutely no coincidence that those guys were all big-time recruits who are considered the future of Penn State football. The potential star power in that group looks to be off the charts.
All seven of those guys undoubtedly will lose their redshirt, as it's certain they'll all appear in one more game.
But it hasn't just been those stars getting in on the action. As 247Sports reported, 15 true freshmen have appeared in a game this season. These are the other eight, with game counts from 247Sports' Tyler Donohue: CB Cam Miller (3), S KJ Winston (3), WR Kaden Saunders (2), CB Cristian Driver (1), S Mehki Flowers (1), OL Vega Ioane (1), OL Drew Shelton (1), LB Keon Wylie (1).
Franklin made sure to point out in his opening comments Tuesday that Penn State played 59 players in Saturday's 33-14 win over Central Michigan. The Lions also played 74, a staggering number, in a 46-10 win over Ohio in week two.
We'll see how much the trend continues during the Big Ten season, and odds are it won't be nearly as much when the Lions are in closer games.
Still, the coaches already have succeeded in a lot of ways in giving so many guys as much playing time as they have thus far.
There are still tough decisions, though, for Franklin when it comes to how early to play the younger guys in games.
"It's a fine line because everybody's critiquing me -- that guy should get in the game earlier," Franklin said. "But then you guys all watch college football, and there's things that come up every Saturday where people felt like the game was over, and it wasn't. So that's where it's not necessarily science. It's a little bit of an art in being able to navigate that.
"It's also the thing that I try to emphasize on the headsets because more times than not I make suggestions. So, like when I'm on the headset, we're playing a team and maybe they have left their starters in late in the game and then something happens. I'm using that as examples with our staff guys. This is why, although I want to lead the country in scoring defense, it's not worth an unfortunate targeting penalty and now we lose a guy for the second half (next week). Or it's not worth an unfortunate sprained ankle to one of our guys that really didn't need to be in the game.
"But it's not always perfect like that, especially when you're on the road and you have less options of guys to put in the game in terms of what you're able to travel."
The biggest question mark about getting a guy into a game earlier has obviously been with Allar, the prized freshman quarterback. Franklin has said a couple of times he wanted to get Allar into the game in the second quarter, but sometimes plans change during the game.
Franklin was asked if the plan still might be to get Allar in by the second quarter this week against Northwestern.
"Yeah, we want to try to," Franklin said. "We have a very similar discussion about how we're going to rotate Hunter Nourzad and how we're going to rotate (Bryce) Effner, the running backs, I can go on and on kind of at every position on both sides of the ball.
"But yeah, I think the more experience that we can get for guys. (Allar's) situation is probably a little bit different because he just hasn't played college football as much. But the more experience that we can gain and allow those guys to get, the better we are."
The bottom line for many Penn State fans is that Allar can't get into games quickly enough, despite the fact that Sean Clifford has done well in helping lead the team to a 4-0 start.
"Fortunately, Sean Clifford and the offense and the coaches and the defense have allowed us to be in a situation where we've been able to get him time in every game -- not just Drew, but some (others), as well," Franklin said.
"There's a ton of value in that. We would love to be able to do that again this week. We have not talked about our strategy about that this week yet. We always will do that as a coaching staff first and then obviously talk to the players about what our approach would be before I would make any announcements in the public with the media."
