Although the counter at the top of the page says there are 134 days until Penn State football, tomorrow we get a small hit to calm the withdraw shakes when Penn State plays, well, Penn State in the annual Blue-White Game. I have a lot of things I'm going to be looking for in the game. Here are my top 10 questions that I'm looking for answers to.
- Has Derrick Williams regained the explosive play making ability he showed in 2005? Or will he look more like the player that could never seem to get open in 2006?
- How will the defensive line look sans Ed Johnson, Jay Alford, Tim and Jim Shaw? Is Maurice Evans ready to become an impact player? Is the unknown Abe Koroma as good as everyone says he is?
- I'm pretty confident we'll see a good game out of Morelli since he tore it up in last year's BW game. But I'm really interested to see how Daryl Clark and Pat Devlin look as his backups.
- Is Austin Scott ready to be an every down running back? Has he learned to be decisive and hit the hole hard or does he still try to run around people? Has his blocking improved? (Note: Since I'm not expecting to see any blitzes, we may not get an answer to the latter question.)
- How does Tony Davis look at safety? Does he take the right angles? Has he improved his open field tackling and run stopping support?
- Who appears to be the front runner to replace Davis at corner? A.J. Wallace or Lydell Sargeant?
- Who is going to replace Poz at linebacker? Right now it's a tossup between Jerome Hayes, Navorro Bowman, and Tyrell Sales.
- Can Kevin Kelly hit a solid field goal from outside of 35 yards? Or are we in for another season of closing our eyes when the field goal team takes the field?
- Has anything been added to the offensive playbook or are we destined for another season of running up the middle and throwing bubble screens and short out patterns? I'm looking for slants, comebacks and crossing patterns.
- Has the offensive line improved? Can they create some lanes for the running backs to run through and give the quarterbacks time to throw?