Cothren: DT room ready for reload
Parker Cothren wrapped up his five-year Penn State career combining for half a sack in the Nittany Lions’ 35-28 win against Washington at the Fiesta Bowl.
At a position where statistics don’t nearly tell the story of a player’s impact, in fact, he wrapped up his senior season with the Nittany Lions finishing 14th on the team in tackles with 27, adding 2.5 tackles for a loss, 1.5 sacks, two quarterback hurries, a pass broken up and one fumble recovery.
Described by head coach Penn State as one of the program’s most underrated players going into the 2017 season, a player who has been “invaluable” to the team’s success in 2016, Cothren’s absence from the Nittany Lion roster next season might be less of a concern than some would think.
At least, according to Cothren himself, anyway.
“People had the same question when Austin Johnson and Anthony Zettel left,” said Cothren. “The D-line, we've been saying it for years: we reload. Next man up.”
Given the nature of Penn State’s losses in the interior of the defensive line this offseason, Cothren’s confidence in the position group’s future is a bold assertion.
Fifth-year seniors each, the other half of the Law Firm of Cothren-and-Cothran will be gone in the form of three-technique Curtis Cothran. Himself finishing with 16 tackles, 4.0 TFLs and 3.5 sacks last season, Cothran’s winding journey at Penn State completed itself with a stable final season in which he played, and started, each of the Lions’ 13 games.
Rounding out the departing defensive tackles, Tyrell Chavis has also exhausted his eligibility, going out on top with his own clutch sack in the Lions’ Fiesta Bowl win. For the season, he played in all 13 games, accumulating 19 tackles while finishing among the team leaders with 6.5 TFLs for 26 yards in losses, plus 3.0 sacks, three quarterback hurries, and a pair of passes broken-up.
Immediately after Penn State’s first win of the season, a 52-0 bludgeoning of Akron at Beaver Stadium in which Chavis produced 3.0 TFLs and half a sack, Franklin described what he anticipated the impact would be among the Nittany Lions’ defensive tackles.
“We feel like we've got five interior defensive tackles right now that are pretty darned good, and when you're able to have that and those guys are able to rotate and stay fresh and not play a lot of reps, then that's going to help you in the fourth quarter, that's going to help you late in the season,” said Franklin. “So we're in a pretty good position there.”
Whether or not that will continue to be a favorable circumstance for the Nittany Lions is not in doubt, according to Cothren.
Assessing the room that will remain in their absences, Cothren said the future looks bright.
“We're going to have Rob Windsor, we're going to have Antonio Shelton, and Ellison Jordan. We've got Fred Hansard and Cory Bolds, the two young guys, they're going to be great players,” said Cothren. “So they're going to be fine. They're going to be great.”
Though Hansard and Bolds were true freshmen who both spent the season redshirting, the Nittany Lions saw the first career contributions for the likes of Shelton and Jordan last year.
Playing in seven games, Jordan finished with nine tackles and half a sack while Shelton played in six, making five stops of his own including a sack. Jordan, however, is reported to be recovering from a broken kneecap according to Julie Donaldson of NBC Sports Washington. His anticipated recovery timeline has not been made clear due to the program’s policy of not discussing personnel injuries.
Welcoming three more DTs in the Class of 2018 in the form of P.J. Mustipher, Judge Culpepper and Aeneas Hawkins, each expected to begin his career at the position, additional depth could be supplied if necessary.
Still, with Kevin Givens and Windsor moving into their redshirt junior seasons, the pair is expected to assume the mantle left by their predecessors. With Givens starting five games in the absence of injured defensive end Ryan Buchholz in the latter half of the year, he produced 23 tackles and 3.5 sacks while Windsor also played the whole season, making 19 stops with a pair of sacks and a forced fumble.
Confident that the Nittany Lion senior defensive tackles are leaving with the position group in a spot to continue its success, Cothren said the already established standard is what will help carry it forward.
“It's really just teaching them the way that we do things at Penn State. We do things differently,” he said. “There's a certain way that we approach things, and just trying to get that mindset through to them that no one is going to beat us. It's a tough mindset, about working hard, work ethic and all that.”