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Penn State mailbag: Visits, Holuba Hall practice fields and RB depth

By Audrey Snyder/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 8 years ago

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The season opener is just a day away and before we all get our first real look at this Penn State team, let’s jump right into some of your questions.

As always, keep tweeting (@audsnyder4), emailing (asnyder@post-gazette.com) and asking them.

Our first question gets us started with recruiting:

Yes, night games typically are the biggest attraction for official visitors and this usually coincides with the White Out game. Now, Penn State’s White Out game this season is against Michigan on Nov. 21 and while a time for it still hasn’t been announced I’d pick that as the one many kids will likely choose to attend. Granted, high school schedules are always difficult for kids to work around, another reason why you usually get the biggest recruiting turnout of the year for the night games. Plus, the atmosphere is always the best for those games. I do think Penn State will probably have a nice number of unofficial visitors for the Rutgers game Sept. 19 because it’s an 8pm kick, but we’ll see how that goes. With 20 kids already giving Penn State their verbal pledge for this 2016 class there likely won’t be much more movement here as far as official visits making key impressions for kids (because there’s not too much space left in the class) but the other thing that helps with those visits is having a winning team that plays well to help make a strong impression for prospects and their parents.

As for Penn State’s practice in Holuba Hall Wednesday (after rain forced them indoors) what in the world is up with those fields running side by side? James Franklin says that will be changed in the future.

September 3, 2015

Okay, so Penn State’s practice fields in Holuba Hall are two 80-yard fields running side by side, rather than one normal, full length field. The problem with it is when it comes to kicking we’ll often hear balls hitting off the rafters, so the team can’t work on that indoors as well as it would like to. What they can do is what happened on Wednesday where they had half the team working on goal line on one field while the other half did the same on the field next to them. As far as I can remember -- and while it’s not all that long, this is my sixth season covering the team-- I can’t remember the field in Holuba ever being “normal.” I remember Bill O’Brien mentioning it once or twice and after digging around on the Internet I came across this statecollege.com article from May of 2012 when O’Brien contemplated, but opted against changing it from two fields to one.

In the article O’Brien said that Joe Paterno wanted two fields, one for offense and one for defense, and while he thought about changing it, O’Brien settled on keeping it the same. Franklin said Wednesday after practice that ripping up the blue rubber around the outskirts of the fields and turfing it to the wall to make one big field is something he wants to do. He said he likes the skeleton or structure of the facility, but the field will be changed at some point.

John emailed to ask.... Will Saquon Barkley be Akeel Lynch’s backup and how will he play this season?

For now, Barkley, the freshman running back, is listed behind redshirt freshman Mark Allen and redshirt freshman Nick Scott. Redshirt freshman Johnathan Thomas wasn’t listed on the depth chart so we’ll keep an eye on Saturday to see if he’s healthy or not and see if he can be part of the backfield at some point this season.

James Franklin was very high on Allen throughout camp, usually citing his pass protection skills and Allen’s high energy that that team thrives off of. We do know that Barkley is slated to play this season--one of at least four true freshmen who will do so-- and as it progresses I think we’ll see him take on a bigger role, but let’s not simply overlook Allen either. Penn State will need at least three running backs to contribute and right now there’s a lot on Barkley’s plate. For any freshman to step in and play right away is a challenge, but Barkley continues to get bigger and this week was listed on the depth chart at 5-foot-11, 222 pounds, making him the heaviest of the four backs.

They all are very different runners so we’ll see how Barkley adjusts and if he can keep up with the rapid acceleration he’s already had since arriving this summer. So far he’s certainly looked strong in short periods we’ve seen live, but Allen brings a different dimension --and certainly build at 5-foot-6, 181 pounds-- that the backfield needs as well.

Audrey Snyder: asnyder@post-gazette.com and Twitter @audsnyder4.