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Nittany Lions' Offensive Line Confident of Capability, Working to Ensure It

When Penn State offensive lineman Michal Menet joined reporters Wednesday for a web conference, the rising senior center brought 25 games of starting experience with him.

A mainstay along the Nittany Lions’ offensive front each of the past two seasons, Fries was joined soon after by teammate and fellow vet Will Fries, who now leads all returning starters in the program with 33 to his career.

That combination of experience and, maybe more important, the development that accompanies it, has the unit exhibiting quiet confidence in advance of the resumption of college football.

“I think there's a ton of potential for our whole O-line as far as athleticism, talent, work ethic, all that kind of stuff,” Menet said. “We all want to work hard and get better each and every day and that has always been our mentality since I've gotten here. We've done it, and we've progressed this far, and I think with some of Coach Traut's new fundamentals, techniques and mentalities, I think that our potential for this year is very high.”

Penn State's offensive lineman is expected to be a strength in 2020.
Penn State's offensive lineman is expected to be a strength in 2020.
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Menet isn’t alone in his assessment.

Boasting a returning group that includes a 13-game starter last season in rising redshirt sophomore Rasheed Walker and multi-game starters vying to start at left and right guard in Mike Miranda and C.J. Thorpe, respectively, to go along with Menet and Fries, the new maestro of Penn State’s offense, coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, has heightened expectations for the group’s potential.

“What I'm really excited about Penn State upfront is that they're really athletic. Their athleticism is off the charts,” Ciarrocca told BWI Thursday. “It's something that you can see. That's not me guessing. That's not me watching the film and just thinking, 'I think he's athletic.' That's me watching them run around in winter workouts.”

Though brief and unable to commence for spring practice due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Ciarrocca’s time with the Nittany Lions proved fruitful in learning what he has in the position group.

Stressing the cohesion of the group as a whole, that Penn State has so much leadership and experience even with the introduction of new assistant coach Phil Trautwein and without the daily repetitions of the spring and summer, it could create the conditions for success that Ciarrocca is counting upon.

“I think we have some great leadership up front, which I think is really important at that position, because, those guys, they're not five individuals, they got to play as one, those five guys. In order to be a great offensive line. I'm not talking about being a great offensive lineman. For a program to have a great offensive line, they have to play as one,” Ciarrocca said. “And so the leadership that we have up there, I'm really excited about that.

“I want an offensive line that's going to be detail-oriented, that's going to trust each other and play together, and they're going to be physical. Football is a physical game. It just is. And I think that when you have a physical, tough offensive line, it usually means you have a physical, tough unit. It all starts with them.”

Holding each other accountable throughout their time apart, the group’s strength, toughness, and athleticism are all characteristics very much being maintained, both Menet and Fries said. Recounting the new and inventive methods in which they’ve attempted to replicate on-campus workouts as faithfully as possible, and the frequent check-ins between players taking pace both within their unit as well as at every other position in the program, it’s a standard Menet said has long been established and will continue to be.

‘“I think it kind of speaks to the culture, that's kind of been built since before I was here, but it's been continued to be built every single day since I showed up,” Menet said. “We're going to be really hard-working, we're going to be self-accountable, we're going to hold each other accountable. It goes from the top to the bottom.”

And at the top, Ciarrocca stands confident and excited about what’s to come for the group as a whole.

Comparing the importance of an offensive line to that of a jet’s engine, less appealing than the components capable of doing “tricks” but fundamentally essential to the offense’s performance, he expressed his optimism for what’s to come.

“That offensive line, they got to get us up off the ground, and I'm excited about them,” he said. “We've got a nice core group coming back and we've got some young guys that are going to push the older guys, too.”

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