Depth chart breakdown: Where Penn State football stands at cornerback in 2020
Penn State football returns plenty of depth along with its No. 1 option at cornerback this season. The Nittany Lions have a young, but talented, group set to take a step forward.
Let’s take a look at where the team stands at cornerback heading into the 2020 season.
Projected starters
Senior Tariq Castro-Fields and sophomore Keaton Ellis
Penn State has plenty of options to replace former starter John Reid — who was taken in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Houston Texans — and many of them are in their first two years on campus. The options, while young, are more than ready to step up and fill that role from a talent standpoint. Ellis is one of several players vying for the starting spot, but it will be Castro-Fields who takes over for Reid at the top of the depth chart.
The senior cornerback’s play fluctuated in the 2019 season and he failed to establish a clear baseline the Nittany Lions could rely on from a week-to-week basis. He spent the first few weeks of the year looking like a surefire NFL cornerback who would’ve been gone by the end of Day 2. At that point, it was Then, a rough patch hit and Castro-Fields struggled. He was better than his backups, but the corner wasn’t playing up to the standard he set in the weeks prior. The rough stretch made it clear — from an outsider’s perspective — that he needed to come back and rebuild his stock with a strong senior season.
Now it’s time for Castro-Fields to show his doubters that the early season performance from 2019 wasn’t an aberration. He has the talent to do just that, but needs to play up to that talent to reach his ceiling.
The 6-foot, 190-pound corner has the physical tools to take on any receiver in college football and find success. He’s long and athletic with enough physicality to bother bigger opponents. Castro-Fields can attach himself to a receiver’s hip and be a nuisance at his worst and a turnover waiting to happen at his best. He’s in a position to put those talents on display as the team’s best corner and his position coach is expecting just that this season.
“(Castro-Fields) is the leader of the corner room,” Penn State cornerbacks coach Terry Smith said in a teleconference with the media in April. “Tariq, not to put pressure on him, needs to have a great year for us. We need a lock-down corner that can handle the best receiver of whoever our opponent is. We expect Tariq to be that guy.”
Even if Castro-Fields regains his early-season form, he’ll need help from his position mates to solidify the back end of the Penn State defense. That starts with Ellis, the frontrunner to start on the other side of the field. The State College native made it difficult for the Nittany Lion coaching staff to keep him off the field last season. He played in all 13 games — including one start — and impressed with his advanced play given his age. The young corner forced three fumbles and defended two passes in his limited playing time, while showing the necessary skills to excel at the position in the long run.
The 5-foot-11, 183-pound Ellis has good — but not great — size for his position and looked physically ready from the outset of the season. He uses his athleticism to make up for any technical issues that come with his youth and has good recovery speed when he loses his man.
Ellis has the length to dislodge receivers from their route with a jam at the line of scrimmage, but needs to add more strength to excel in press coverage. He has natural ball skills because of his time as a receiver and kick returner in high school, and that allows him to track the ball well out of the quarterback’s hand.
Ellis is more than ready to step up into a starting role, but he’s far from the only second-year player with eyes on Reid’s old role.
Key backups
Sophomore Marquis Wilson and redshirt freshman Daequan Hardy
Hardy and Wilson will be on the field plenty this season and are two of Ellis’ main competitors for the starting job, but Wilson has the upper hand for the time being.
“They just continue to get better and better,” Smith said about Ellis and Wilson in April. “We see them both as major contributors. They’re both battling for that other starting corner position. ... They both hit the weight room really hard. ... I’m looking forward to, when we have the opportunity to get back out on the field, seeing those guys continue to develop.”
Wilson is easier to project moving forward because he saw more game time last season, but Hardy shouldn’t be counted out. The redshirt freshman arrived on campus as an undersized corner who played well in high school but carried concerns that he was too small to translate his athletic ability to the college level. Hardy has since added weight and has maintained the same athleticism and competitiveness that made him a good high school prospect.
“Hardy was one of our scout team players of the year,” Smith said in April. “He’s bigger, he’s stronger, he’s faster ... I’m looking forward to him competing.”
He’s listed at 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, but has enough size now to play the slot in the Big Ten.
Unlike Hardy, Wilson didn’t redshirt in his first year on campus and proved he could be a playmaker in the secondary for Penn State. The sophomore corner has excellent ball skills and can force turnovers as well as any other player on the team. He forced three fumbles and hauled in two interceptions last season in 10 games played last season and that helped him earn a bigger role.
Wilson takes risks more than most corners, but that allowed him to force turnovers even if it came at the expense of a few extra completed passes. He’s arguably the corner with the highest ceiling — besides Castro-Fields — on the Penn State roster.
Freshman to watch
Redshirt freshman Joey Porter Jr.
The last second-year player competing for the starting spot is another unproven player with upside. Porter Jr. has the pedigree to excel in football for years to come as the son of former NFL All-Pro linebacker Joey Porter, but the redshirt freshman still needs to prove himself at Penn State.
He’s long and physical at 6-foot-2 and 192 pounds with the frame to move to safety — or even linebacker. His athletic profile is enough to keep him at corner and give Porter Jr. a chance to succeed in the Big Ten. He’s the low man on the totem pole for the time being, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Porter Jr. find himself in the mix for a bigger role by the end of the season.
