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Lions' roster inching closer to Franklin's ideal

James Franklin and the Nittany Lions enter the offseason riding the wave of a Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl appearance in 2016, with an eye toward more in the campaign ahead.

Running back Saquon Barkley cemented himself as a legitimate Heisman contender alongside spark plug quarterback Trace McSorley, the introduction of Joe Moorhead’s high-octane offense is gearing up for a second run, and the Nittany Lions feature leadership throughout the roster worthy of Franklin’s confidence this summer.

A man who repeatedly acknowledges a perpetual state of wanting more, though, Franklin tackled a question during the recent Penn State Coaches Caravan across the commonwealth worthy of a second look.

Specifically, how does Penn State’s roster breakdown align with what Franklin would consider the ideal?

Still in the process of coming out of severe sanctions against the program, and the impact on the overall scholarship roster that resulted, Franklin assessed the present while offering up a vision of the future.

Miles Sanders, Andre Robinson and Mark Allen have helped create outstanding talent and depth among the Lions' running backs.
Miles Sanders, Andre Robinson and Mark Allen have helped create outstanding talent and depth among the Lions' running backs.

“We're in a better place,” Franklin told reporters at the Hazleton stop. “I still think we're looking to create more depth. That's through development as well as recruiting, but I do think we've made progress. It's lightyears ahead of where it was three years ago when I first got the job. But that's a constant battle.”

Certainly, Penn State’s situation in January of 2014 upon Franklin’s arrival brought an undeniable set of challenges. Though young talent existed in a handful of four-star recruits coming off their first years in the program, the realities of reduced-scholarship classes of 35 combined players with team rankings of No. 51 and No. 43 in 2012 and 2013 existed nonetheless.

Sanction strategies that saw fewer offensive linemen brought into the program on scholarship saw Franklin and his staff able to utilize just nine healthy bodies in the unit their first spring practice. Talent and standouts were present, able to help keep the program afloat en route to continuing its stretch of going without a losing season throughout, but it was a circumstance of uneven scholarship distribution and talent unlikely to repeat itself under his watch moving forward.

Franklin described in depth the process.

“What you try to do is get into a situation where you don't have so many peaks and valleys. Where you have one position that has tremendous depth and then you've got another position that doesn't. So what you're trying to do is across the board,” he said. “So I'm constantly studying our scholarship grid and where do I feel really good?

"To me, at every position we should have a starter that we feel really good about, that we feel like we can win the Big Ten with, we should have a backup that we feel can go in and really play at a similar level, and then you've got a young, exciting player that is developing that you're really excited about. And you need that at every position.”

Which leads to the inevitable question:

Is that the situation the Nittany Lions have on the roster as they gear up for what many are considering monumentally high expectations in the season ahead?

According to Franklin, not quite.

“I wouldn't say that we have that,” he said, “but we're much closer to that now.”

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