How Penn State football is dealing with injury issues on the interior of the offensive line
Penn State’s interior offensive line has had to dig deep the past few weeks and now it will have to do so for the rest of the season. Head coach James Franklin announced Tuesday that starting left guard Landon Tengwall is out for the season due to an undisclosed injury.
He suffered the injury during warmups prior to the Michigan game.
“Obviously you hate these types of setbacks and disappointment,” Franklin said at his weekly press conference. “It is part of the game. We do seem to have a little bit more of them right now than we’ve had maybe in other years. Maybe in other years we’ve had them at certain positions with certain players that have made it maybe a little bit more attention on it, but we seem to have a number of these right now. Landon’s attitude has been phenomenal, and the team’s attitude about next-man-in has been really good.”
Without Tengwall, things will surely get more tenuous up front, especially when you consider the rest of the team’s offensive guards and where they stand with injuries.
Hunter Nourzad, who replaced Tengwall, has been banged up at times this season and was in and out of Saturday’s game against Indiana due to injury. He was originally replaced at left guard, but had to come back in at right guard after Sal Wormley was banged up and had to exit.
That will put more pressure on players like JB Nelson and Vega Ioane, both of whom were in position to be redshirted this season. Now they will both have to see the field more in order for Penn State to win games.
“Yeah, so Vega is a guy that we are preparing in practice every single week to play,” Franklin said. “JB is a guy that we’re preparing — JB is a guy that we’re not only preparing at left guard, we’re preparing at left tackle. He played left tackle in high school. So we did that all last week, as well. ... Then there’s also the discussion about how many games left do they have available, so do you play Vega now this week to get him one game and then shut somebody else down to try to manage it as much as you can, again, but not so much so that it limits your ability to be effective and explosive and be 1-0.”
There will be adjustments from those players, but there will have to be other changes that take place in order for Penn State to keep up the high level of play it has had all season in the trenches.
That includes every level of coaching, from Franklin to offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich to offensive line coach Phil Trautwein to analyst Frank Leonard.
Franklin said all of those coaches have shown their worth in making changes this season as it moves along.
“Phil has done a great job,” he said. “Frank has done a great job. I think Mike has done a really good job in the way he’s called the game and understanding there’s some things we’ve got to do going into last week where we’re going to have to tweak and change how we call the game to put those guys in the best position as possible, whether that’s running the ball a little bit more, whether that is moving the pocket a little bit more, whether that is chipping with tight ends and running backs to try to help those guys, all those types of things, max protect, whatever it may be. Yeah, I think we’ve done a nice job under really challenging circumstances.”
Drew Shelton’s emergence
Penn State isn’t just struggling with injury issues on the interior of the offensive line. Olu Fashanu emerged as a star at left tackle this season but now his status the rest of the year is in question. He left the Ohio State game with an injury and missed the matchup with Indiana on Saturday.
Franklin said his status remains up in the air moving forward, calling him “week-to-week.”
If Fashanu can’t go again, it could be Drew Shelton who replaces him. Shelton was a highly-touted recruit in the 2022 class and got his first start last week against Indiana in Fashanu’s stead. His play last week was as good as you can expect for a player that young at a difficult position to play early.
“I thought Drew Shelton has really prepared all season,” Franklin said. “He’s another one of those freshmen in this class that I’ve talked to you guys about that has been very intentional about how he’s worked, been very mature, and really from a very early point when he arrived on campus, we thought he had a chance to be pretty good.”
While Shelton could be forced onto the field, he would have been on it already if not for redshirt considerations. That could still come into play for the true freshman the rest of the way.
“He’s been preparing all season kind of for his opportunity, and there’s been a lot of discussions in college football over the years about just going to a five-year model where everybody just has five years, and if he was, he would have played a ton already this year,” Franklin said. “We’ll see how it all plays out, but he’s just a guy that checks a lot of boxes in terms of intelligence and maturity and athleticism and body type.”
Keeping the quarterback room
Drew Allar’s emergence as the team’s backup quarterback has rightfully earned him the spotlight so far this season. He’s ascended to near the top of the depth chart with less than a year of experience as a college quarterback.
What has gone unnoticed for the most part is what that means for the player who was expected to back up starting quarterback Sean Clifford this season. Christian Veilleux was widely expected to be that player but now sits third on the depth chart with a younger player in front of him.
Logic dictates that he could be a prime player to enter the transfer portal in search of a potential starting job at the end of the season. Franklin hopes that isn’t the case.
“We’ll see how this all plays out, but I hope he stays at Penn State and continues to chase his dream and gets his degree and see how it all plays out,” Franklin said. “... There’s part of me that it breaks me heart a little bit about the conversations and the things that you’re having now in college football that you didn’t used to have, but I also — as you guys know, I also understand this is where we’re at and kind of embrace it.”
Franklin understands that the nature of college football could push Veilleux out the door. He plays a position where only one player can start and it sure seems like that player will be Allar next year.
However, the road to a starting job can be windy and Franklin emphasized that when discussing the quarterback.
“Christian has been phenomenal,” Franklin said. “Those are tough conversations and tough decisions that have to be made. It’s interesting because I’ve kind of used this with the players before. You look at some players that may play as a true freshman and play well, and another guy redshirts and they’re in the same class. And then you look three years down the road and the guy that redshirted ends up having what people would describe as maybe a better career. There’s a lot of twists and turns along these journeys, but I think Veilleux has been phenomenal. His attitude has been great. He’s been great in meetings. He’s totally engaged. We’ve been rotating those guys down to the scout team. They’ve been awesome down there.”
Quick hitters
- Franklin said the team hopes to have starting right tackle Caedan Wallace back last week, but they thought that might be the case last week as well.
- The Penn State head coach said he and his staff have emphasized voting with his players, and said he was set to do so right after the press conference ended.
- Nourzad announced earlier in the day that he would return next season for his final year of eligibility. Franklin said his lineman told him the news Monday.
