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A year ago, at the start of the December signing period for the Class of 2020, James Franklin was asked about the running backs he had just landed, Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes. Both were from Florida, both had received four-star ratings from Rivals.com, and both were heading into a situation at Penn State in which it seemed likely that their glittering high school resumes weren’t going to translate into ample playing time, at least not right away.
Penn State already had three former four-star running backs on its roster in Noah Cain, Devyn Ford and Ricky Slade, and the one running back who hadn’t joined the Nittany Lions amid an outburst of recruiting fanfare – Journey Brown – was only a week away from gashing Memphis for 202 yards in the Cotton Bowl. So the backfield that Lee and Holmes had just agreed to join was overstuffed with talent, meaning that the two true freshmen were going to have to work relentlessly for every carry they got during the 2020 season.
That was fine with Franklin. More than fine, actually. When the veteran Penn State coach goes recruiting, he’s looking for guys who want to work relentlessly for carries, catches, tackles and sacks. As far as he’s concerned, having an overstuffed depth chart is a feature, not a bug. Besides being one of the most important ingredients in any team’s on-field success, it’s a window into the ambitions of potential recruits. In the case of Lee and Holmes, that window illuminated just what Franklin wanted to see. The willingness of the two coveted running backs to step into a highly competitive environment, one in which they weren’t assured of anything except for a chance to show off their potential, was in itself a sign that they were the kind of players he wanted in his program.
“I love when guys never ask you about the depth chart during the recruiting process,” Franklin said. “I’m not saying it’s a negative when people do ask about it, but my point is that guys understand, if you’re going to go to a school where you want to compete at the highest level for conference championships, for national championships and all those types of things, you’re going to have to compete wherever you go. The top programs are recruiting the best players in the country year after year after year, and if you expect to compete in the NFL, then you’d better learn to compete on a college campus. I love that guys are embracing that and not fearing that.”
At the time, it seemed as though their competitive nature would yield its biggest dividends a few years down the road. But by the first quarter of their first college game, Lee and Holmes were running out of guys to compete against. Slade had entered the transfer portal in February, Brown was forced to give up football due to a heart condition that doctors discovered in September, and Cain suffered a season-ending injury on the first offensive possession of Penn State’s opener at Indiana. That staggering wave of attrition left Ford as the starter, and then he too was forced to miss nearly two full games due to an injury and a death in the family.
The result of all the upheaval was that Lee and Holmes ended up nearly at the top of that depth chart to which they hadn’t paid any attention back when they were being recruited. Lee finished the Nittany Lions’ COVID-shortened regular season as Penn State’s leading rusher with 353 yards and three touchdowns on 70 carries, while Holmes was fifth with 150 yards on 39 carries.
And they were hardly the only true freshmen to make a big impact for Penn State this season. Through eight games, Parker Washington was the Nittany Lions’ second-leading receiver with 35 catches for 473 yards and six touchdowns. Fellow wideout KeAndre Lambert-Smith had 14 catches for 127 yards, while tight end Theo Johnson, promoted to the second-team offense after Pat Freiermuth went down with a season-ending injury, caught a pair of passes for 14 yards.
On defense, Curtis Jacobs helped shore up a linebacker corps that went into the season without its presumed leader when Micah Parsons opted out to prepare for the NFL Draft, then lost backup Charlie Katshir to a season-ending injury. Listed second behind Brandon Smith at the Sam outside linebacker spot, Jacobs finished the regular season with nine tackles and a pass break-up.
Other true freshmen who made the depth chart at some point during the regular season included Tyler Warren (tight end), Olu Fashanu (right tackle), Malick Meiga (wide receiver), Coziah Izzard (defensive tackle) and Enzo Jennings (free safety).
Some of those players had been expected to have an early impact on Penn State’s fortunes. Washington was one of them. The Lions had prioritized wide receivers in their 2020 recruiting class, and in the 5-foot-10, 205-pound prospect from Sugar Land, Texas, they knew they had landed a good one.
On signing day, Franklin gushed about Washington’s habit of coming down with anything thrown in his vicinity. “He’s not the biggest guy,” the coach said, “but watch his tape. He’s like a vacuum. Anything in this area, he’s catching – one-handed catches, crazy catches. You’re going to look at him when he shows up [on campus]. He looks like a running back. He is physically developed.”
During Penn State’s preseason camp, Washington showed the coaching staff that he was indeed ready to compete for immediate playing time. The penchant for circus catches was evident on his tape, but it takes more than dramatic flair to excel at the college level. If you can create separation, there’s not quite as much need for acrobatics. As receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield likes to say, “Great routes equal easy catches.” So Stubblefield worked with Washington to refine his routes, and the freshman receiver made plenty of headway in the weeks leading up to the season.
“If you were able to look at some of the stuff from earlier in fall camp, you would see the progress that he’s made in his route-running,” Stubblefield said. “And then obviously it’s reps. It’s reps, reps, reps, reps, reps, so that you can get comfortable with the way your body is supposed to move, the way your body is going to be positioned when you’re getting ready to catch the ball.”
Washington also benefitted from the presence of an experienced cornerback in Tariq Castro-Fields who was able to critique his performances from the perspective of a would-be defender. “I’ve seen so many guys play that slot, play the outside [receiver spot], so I know little tendencies and things like that that a young guy would show,” Castro-Fields said. “So after guarding him, I would try to break it down: Don’t do this. I already knew you were going to do this because you did that.”
With the benefit of that crash course in college receiving, Washington started the team’s opener at Indiana. He caught two passes for 12 yards, including a 9-yard touchdown grab in overtime, but his potential didn’t really start to show until the following week, when he caught four passes for 73 yards against Ohio State.
“That kid has so much talent,” fellow wideout Jahan Dotson said after the Nittany Lions’ 38-25 loss to the Buckeyes. “I watch him every day at practice, and he’s amazing. Today was like a little preview. You got a little preview of what he can do with the ball in his hands. He can make plays. We have a lot of ballers on this team, and they have a lot of football in front of them. I can’t wait for them to prove themselves.”
Washington continued proving himself over the course of the regular season. Against Maryland, he had eight catches for 70 yards and two touchdowns. At Nebraska, he had five for 70 yards. At Michigan, with the Wolverines paying close attention to Dotson, he totaled nine catches for 93 yards, part of an effort in which true freshman players accounted for 267 of Penn State’s 417 yards.
With at least three more seasons of eligibility remaining, Washington will have a chance in the coming years to show just how high his ceiling really is. But his teammates have already seen enough to get a feel for that. Said Castro-Fields, “The sky’s the limit for him. He has all the tools needed to be successful.”
Meanwhile, in the backfield, Lee has displayed similar potential. Unlike Holmes, a January enrollee, the St. Petersburg, Fla., native didn’t arrive at Penn State until the summer, so he went into preseason camp at the bottom of a five-man depth chart. Even after the Lions began losing running backs, Lee didn’t see much action. In his first three games, he received seven carries.
But behind the scenes, he and Holmes were both starting to “show flashes,” Franklin said. At Michigan, Lee put it all together, getting the start when Ford was forced to miss the game due to a death in the family and rushing for 134 yards and a touchdown in Penn State’s 27-17 victory. It was the most productive rushing performance by any PSU running back to that point in the season, and Ford wasn’t surprised to see one of his freshman backups do so well. “These guys prepare like starters, and they can play like starters,” he said. “You saw what happened on the field with Keyvone. He’s young, he’s still growing, so you’re going to see a lot more of it, too.”
Franklin said Lee’s late-season success – he had 95 yards against Rutgers and 31 against Michigan State – was partly due to the Lions’ depth issues, which afforded him an opportunity that a lot of true freshmen don’t get. It was also due to his physical abilities. Said Franklin, “He’s a 230-pound guy with good feet.”
And there’s another aspect of his skill set that has gotten less attention but has made a difference for a Penn State team that has tended to find itself in the kind of games in which every yard matters: When he’s tackled, Lee always falls forward. “That’s something that a lot of times goes unnoticed,” Franklin said, “but when you can always fall forward, you’re talking about another yard-and-a-half or two yards on every run.
“We’ve needed the ability to be able to grind things out. We haven’t, at this point, had the ability to make the free guy miss and go 80. We need to do that more. But we at least need to be able to break tackles and fall forward and stay on schedule as much as we possibly can. He’s been able to do that. I think for a guy who’s 230 pounds, he’s got really good feet. He’s got really good vision. To be honest with you, he’s handled the moments pretty well for a true freshman. It hasn’t been too big for him.”
The coaches are hopeful that some of their other young players are going to be ready when their moments arrive. Penn State hasn’t gotten Meiga on the field yet, but Stubblefield has touted the physical ability of the 6-4, 198-pound Quebec resident. “You just look at Malick’s size: big shoulders, long arms, he can run, is fairly quick. Obviously, there’s an adjustment from Canadian ball to American ball,” Stubblefield said. “But the ingredients are there. He’s just young, so it’s about developing, trying to make sure that we can get him better.”
Likewise, Penn State is eager to see more of its young tight ends. Johnson, a four-star prospect from Windsor, Ontario, had been considered a possible freshman contributor, but like Meiga, he was transitioning from Canadian football with its bigger field and more pass-oriented offensive concepts. It was thought that his blocking would need some refinement, but that didn’t turn out to be the case after he was called on to play a much bigger role following Freiermuth’s injury. Johnson and redshirt freshman Brenton Strange “have done a really good job of being physical with defensive ends and linebackers, doing it in situations where everybody in the stadium, on a bad weather day or in a four-minute offense, knows we’re going to run the ball,” Franklin said. “They’re sticking their nose in there and running their feet, and they’re really two fairly young players. That’s been really important to us.”
Back in December 2019, at his news conference on the first day of the early signing period, Franklin called attention to how little drama there had been as the letters of intent had arrived at the Lasch Building that morning. All of the 27 verbally committed players in Penn State’s class had signed as expected, and that was very much appreciated. “The older I get,” Franklin said, “the more I want to avoid drama at all costs.”
As it turned out, Franklin spoke too soon. The months that followed were filled with nothing but drama. Most of it was unrelated to football and was spectacularly bad. But some of it was good, and Penn State’s 2020 recruiting class was responsible for more than its share. It will most likely be responsible for a lot more in the years to come.
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