How the 2022 freshman class can change Penn State football under James Franklin

Penn State’s 2022 recruiting class joined the program with sky high expectations. There were five-star players at the skill positions and elite talents at defensive end and offensive tackle. The group had plenty of four-star talent to complement them and help build the foundation of the next great Nittany Lion football team.

Somehow, just one year into their college careers, they’ve shattered those expectations and have made an even greater impact than anticipated.

The 2022 group set the tone last season and is now poised to lead the program in just their second year on campus as arguably the best to join Penn State in head coach James Franklin’s tenure.

There’s talent everywhere on the 2023 roster from the class but the focal point will always be former five-star quarterback Drew Allar, who is set to take over the helm as the starting signal caller and lead it. That hasn’t changed his mentality with regard to the job. He said in July that he trained as if he was the starter last year, just as the whole room did, and he’s noticing the progress he’s made in his time on campus.

“I just feel like the coaching staff has done a great job with all of the quarterbacks in the room,” he said at media day. “Giving us stuff that we can be comfortable with and just increasing our overall knowledge of football and how they want us to operate the offense. Definitely feel a lot better than I did last year at this time.”

He was biding his time last season as he awaited his opportunity, but there were a number of last year’s freshmen who were able to make an immediate impact.

On offense it was Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen at running back who made the biggest impacts. They quickly established themselves as the two best backs on the team, ultimately leading to veteran running back Keyvone Lee departing the program for the transfer portal.

Their impact wasn’t just about their talent, but also the way they positioned themselves to succeed by how they prepared and handled the transition to college mentally.

“(The class is) obviously talented,” offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich said. “But then emotionally driven. Driven to be the best. Playing with physicality, and then playing with intellect. I think those are really important things in the game of football. It’s not a game for dummies. You have to be very understanding and aware of everything around you from an intellectual standpoint.”

It helps, though, to have that high end level of talent to be able to get on the field. There were even more of those type of players on defense last season with a few of them establishing themselves as potential stars in the early days of their time on campus.

Defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton and defensive tackle Zane Durant look like they’ll be multiple year impact players on the defensive line, while Abdul Carter is already beginning to etch his name into the history books as the next great linebacker at LBU. Those players came in and were able to get the job done and help a veteran laden defense despite it already being one of the best units in the country.

Now it’s about finding the next level of play and making improvements.

“It’s better than the alternative where they haven’t had success and you have to make them believe they’re better than they are,” defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. “I will tell you this, the coach’s best friend is the film. Obviously you have to be intimate with your reality. What that means is, that whatever they say about you as a performer and all the accolades, we’re just going to dissect the performance and not the performer. Because everyone has all these things to say about the performer but we really want to talk about the performance. And if the performance is good, in practice you’re doing it the way that we say it, then we have no concerns. If you’re complacent then it’ll show. If we see that all of a sudden you’re not doing things the same way you did a year ago, now we have a problem and that’s where you have to be honest.”

While plenty of the players in the class showed they can be stars, or at the very least starters, Carter and Singleton showed they’re already at that level.

The former was a force in the center of the defense and that was apparent early on last season. He was ejected for targeting in the season opener against Purdue last year but even then it was clear how good he was. The then-freshman went on to rack up 56 tackles, 6.5 sacks, four passes defended and two forced fumbles on the season and was the best linebacker on the team.

Singleton had a slow start against Purdue, with 10 carries for 31 yards, before bursting onto the scene against Ohio for 179 yards on the same number of carries the following week. He ended his freshman campaign with 1,061 yards and 12 touchdowns on 156 carries to lead the team in the first two categories.

He and Carter will be at the center of just how good the class can be because they’re both already among the elite in college football, but the number of stars — and starters — that end up in the group will be what dictates the ceiling over the next few years. Players like offensive tackle Drew Shelton, who could follow left tackle Olu Fashanu as a cornerstone lineman, will help determine what’s to come.

Shelton and his classmates have their goals in mind, and know what it looks like at the end, but they also know what it will look like on the path to get there.

“Obviously our goal is a national championship, a Big Ten championship,” Shelton said. “But day to day it’s 1-0 each week. If we attack 1-0 each week and keep building on that week in and week out, we will be able to reach the goals that we make for ourselves and this program has for us as well.”