Scanning the spring roster: Defensive line

There will be no Blue-White Game at Beaver Stadium this year, as all spring football practices and on-campus activities have been cancelled by the spread of the coronavirus. But coaches have been busy evaluating tape and putting together plans for the fall, hoping there will be better news on the health front and, in turn, a football season to play.

Leading up to what would have been the annual spring scrimmage on April 18, we’ll be breaking down the Penn State spring roster positions by position, as we would have under normal circumstances. It will be more a look at the roster as a whole than it is a judgement of how spring practice unfolded, of course. But with several key positions open and Penn State hoping to put itself in a championship race when college football does kick off, the staff’s evaluation of those position must go on. So does our’s.

Today, we take an in-depth look at the defensive line.

The Players

No.	Defensive tackle	No.	Defensive end
27	Aeneas Hawkins	18	Shaka Toney
44	Joseph Appiah-Darkwa	20	Adisa Isaac
51	Hakeem Beamon	28	Jayson Oweh
53	Fred Hansard	33	Bryce Mostella
54	Fatormah Mulbah	34	Shane Simmons
55	Antonio Shelton	46	Nick Tarburton
58	Evan Presta	92	Smith Vilbert
77	Judge Culpepper	98	Dan Vasey
90	Damion Barber
91	Dvon Ellies
95	Cole Brevard
97	PJ Mustipher

 

Returning starters: 2 (DT Shelton, DE Toney)
Key losses: DE Yetur Gross-Matos (early entry, NFL Draft), DT Robert Windsor (graduation), DE Daniel Joseph (graduate transfer – NC State)
Early enrollees: 3 (DT Brevard, DT Mulbah, DE Mostella)

The key fact: The Nittany Lions lost arguably their two most gifted — and most productive — players at each position up front, in Gross-Matos and Windsor. But this is a group that rotated regularly the last few seasons, and that depth should come in handy in 2020. Eight returning defensive linemen played in at least 10 games last season.

The steadying force

DE Shaka Toney thought about leaving after his junior season for the NFL Draft, but he decided to return. That’s huge for Penn State, which sure did need him for a few reasons. First, he was one of the unquestioned leaders of the entire defense last season, a tireless worker who frankly beat the odds as an undersized recruit to forge a really strong career as a multi-year starter as a Big Ten end.

Just as big a factor, though, is the fact that Penn State really doesn’t know what it has behind him outside of tremendous potential. Jayson Oweh had five sacks last season, but when he was in the game, teams ran at him with consistent success. He needed to make plenty of improvements in that area, as did sophomore Adisa Isaac, who showed promise in limited action last year. Penn State, to make a run at a Big Ten title, needs to be dynamic off the edge, and Toney is the best bet to make up for some of Gross-Matos’ production. He’ll need to better his 8 TFLs and 6.5 sacks from 2019.

The biggest spring question

What will life without Sean Spencer look like? This was going to be the first season at Penn State without the beloved Coach Chaos, who left the program in January to become the defensive line coach of the New York Giants, and that was going to be an adjustment. Not just for the players, but for the coaching staff. After all, Spencer had been with the Nittany Lions since head coach James Franklin’s inaugural season in 2014, and he was easily one of the most popular assistants among players.

Penn State replaced him with John Scott Jr., a veteran D-line coach who spent the last two seasons in the SEC at Arkansas and South Carolina. He spent the 2010 season at then-FCS power Georgia Southern, coaching the line under defensive coordinator Brent Pry, who of course leads the Penn State defense now.

“John is different than Spence in a bunch of ways. You know, his nickname isn’t going to be Chaos. But that’s not to take anything away from from Spence or John,” Pry said. “They’re both just tremendous guys in their own right, very different in some areas in their coaching style — not so much in technique. Spence and I were very much on the same page coming into our time together and then certainly moreso after. John has worked with me in three different places, and we’re very much on the same page, so that transition is very, very smooth.

“John’s certainly going to bring some fresh ideas. He has been around some very good football coaches. He has already impacted our unit that way.”

Scott has a pretty good resume, and he has coached some top talent; he guided Gamecocks DT Javon Kinlaw last year, and he may be the most explosive defensive tackle available in the 2020 NFL Draft. But you never know how that transition is going to go in the near term. Penn State’s players had a belief in Spencer that, frankly, might be hard to replicate immediately with Scott.

Or, maybe it won’t be. Issue is, that won’t become clear until the Lions get on the field.

The potential star

Many would go with Oweh or Isaac here, but it Penn State is going to be really good whenever it gets back on the field, the biggest step needs to be taken by DT PJ Mustipher.

The Nittany Lions probably can get by if Toney, Oweh and Isaac have average seasons. They’re all so quick and gifted, it’s difficult to imagine any being busts. But Robert Windsor probably was a bit underrated last season, especially when it came to his role in stopping the opposing rushing attack. He was a high-motor interior lineman who could take on double-teams, beat them, and get to the quarterback on the passing downs, to boot.

The Lions will be deep at tackle, but easily their best bet when it comes to finding one player who can be the two-way threat Windsor was lies in Mustipher. He has been a steady, serviceable player the last two seasons. But he needs to take another step and be a more disruptive force. He had one sack last season. Penn State needs to find a way to dramatically increase that number. This is a defense predicated on getting to the quarterback with the front four.

Who hurts the most with no spring?

First of all, it’s difficult to believe DE Shane Simmons is a senior. Doesn’t seem like that long ago that he arrived in Happy Valley with a world of potential and plenty of recruiting experts raving about what he’d be able to do as a rush end in Penn State’s system.

That never materialized, of course. And hey, that happens in big-time college football. He had some injuries. He had a bigger learning curve. He had, honestly, players who beat him out who were quite productive.

But even in limited playing time last year, Simmons showed some flashes. It wouldn’t have been a stretch if he came into camp this spring and competed for more playing time, if he built off of some of those successes. He’s probably never going to be a starter for Penn State — the spring was probably his last chance to make a run at that kind of role — but he can be a serviceable player this fall.

Projected depth chart

	First team	Second team	Third team
DE	Shaka Toney	Adisa Isaac	Smith Vilbert
DT	Antonio Shelton	Fred Hansard	Damion Barber
DT	PJ Mustipher	Judge Culpepper	Dvon Ellies
DE	Jayson Oweh	Shane Simmons	Nick Tarburton

 

Realistically, Penn State is probably five deep at both end and tackle, which is pretty good for the spring. It’s only of just a handful of positions on the field where there are holes to be filled, but obvious choices to fill them, so there wasn’t going to be a major position battle this spring anyway. But certainly, there was going to be an adjustment period with Scott taking over, and it would have been interesting to see how that dynamic took shape. Penn State is going to be good here when play resumes. Potentially, it can be really dynamic. But it’s difficult to get too high on the unknowns when you’ll have no idea what they do under the spotlight until it’s time to flip the switch.