Penn State breaking in a new safety in hopes of adding depth

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Nittany Lions’ 2016 recruiting class lost safety pledge Andrew Pryts on National signing day when he opted to head to Stanford instead, so how is depth shaping up with the last line of defense? 

Penn State was forced to throw Malik Golden into the mix toward the end of the season when senior safety Jordan Lucas was lost for the year with a shoulder injury. While Golden has been a reserve player, he’ll be in the mix for the starting spot opposite Marcus Allen this year. Troy Apke, who burned his redshirt as a freshman to contribute on special teams, saw time last season too. 

But, in an effort to balance out a loaded position group of running backs headlined by Saquon Barkley who eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing as a true freshman, Penn State moved running back Nick Scott to safety this offseason, cornerbacks coach Terry Smith confirmed. Moving Scott, who completed his redshirt freshman season where he added depth in the backfield but was a key special teams contributor, has long been an option. 

Scott played running back, quarterback and safety in high school and was asked about the possibility of switching positions last month prior to the Lions’ TaxSlayer Bowl. He said he’d “do what’s in the team’s best interest,” but added that it had been awhile since he played on the other side of the ball. Looking at his senior year highlights I only saw one clip of him in the secondary that was included, the rest were of him playing running back and some quarterback too. 

“The greatest challenge is him learning our fundamentals, our technique and our terminology,” Smith, the Lions’ cornerbacks coach and defensive recruiting coordinator, said last week during National signing day. “Football is a simple sport, but we try to make it complex by giving it 52 words when you can just use one word that means the same thing.  

“That’ll be his greatest challenge: Base alignments, do we want him to take 10 yards by 2 yards off the hash versus 8 yards by 1 yard inside based on what the coverage of the defense is? He’s just got to understand why he’s here and what purpose he’s serving and where he fits into the defense whether it’s a gap responsibility or a coverage responsibility so those are just the challenge like any other position that he’s got to learn and as he learns them he’ll trigger faster and be a better player for us.”

Smith said special teams coordinator Charles Huff timed Scott running a 4.5-second 40-yard dash and when the coaching staff turned on special teams film to see who was maximizing their speed Scott clocked the same time. Scott will likely continue to make his biggest contributions on special teams, but safety has been impacted by injuries the last several years (Ryan Keiser’s injury made way for Marcus Allen as a true freshman, Jordan Lucas’ season ending injury made way for Golden) so building depth here is important. 

Safeties on scholarship (8)

• Malik Golden (Sr/Sr) (Grades reflect eligibility for 2016-17 season)
• Marcus Allen (Jr/Jr)
• Troy Apke (Jr/Jr)
• Koa Farmer (Jr/So)
• Nick Scott (Jr/So) (moved from RB to Saf. this offseason) 
• Jarvis Miller (So/Fr)
• Ayron Monroe (So/Fr)
• Johnny Petrishen (So/Fr) 

Johnny Petrishen, Ayron Monroe and Jarvis Miller all took redshirts this past season while Koa Farmer, who is coming off his redshirt freshman season, was used on special teams. Safeties coach Tim Banks, who was hired last month, will need the spring — including the Lions’ spring game which is announced for a 2 p.m. start on April 16— to sift through the depth chart and see how they’re all progressing. 

“We have a solid six, maybe seven guys at safety that we feel really, really good [about],” Smith said. “Some young guys in the program that their time is up, their time is here, they’ve got to step up. We feel like within those six we’ll find an additional 2-to-3 to go with Malik and Troy Apke and Marcus. We feel like we have a good foundation there.”

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