James Franklin Names Starters, Green-Lights Freshmen Ahead of Penn State’s 2025 Season Opener
Penn State head coach James Franklin met with the media for his first weekly press conference of the 2025 season on Monday afternoon.
During his press conference, Franklin addressed questions surrounding Penn State’s upcoming 2025 season and Penn State’s personnel.
3 Key Penn State Football Takeaways from James Franklin’s Press Conference
Penn State announces starting lineup decisions, “green light” decisions
With the start of the season fast approaching at the end of the week, Penn State’s coaching staff has made decisions on the Nittany Lions’ starting lineup and on a few freshmen who are “green lit” to burn their redshirts.
First, Franklin announced that Antoine Belgrave-Shorter has won the starting safety battle opposite Zakee Wheatley to start the season, beating out King Mack and Dejuan Lane.
Franklin also announced Penn State’s returners for the start of the season. Nick Singleton and King Mack will rotate at kick return. Zion Tracy, Trebor Pena, and Devonte Ross will all return punts for the Nittany Lions.
On the freshmen, James Franklin announced that both defensive end Chaz Coleman and cornerback Daryus Dixson are expected to have the green light to burn their redshirts this season. Franklin noted that other freshmen may enter the conversation to move into green light territory after the Nittany Lions first three games, but Dixson and Coleman are the two standing out the most at the moment.
James Franklin is VERY High on Penn State Offensive Linemen
James Franklin discussed Penn State’s offensive line depth and plan for the 2025 season Monday afternoon.
In one part of the answer, Franklin noted that Penn State may play “6 or 7” offensive linemen on the field at the same time in certain packages.
Under Phil Trautwein, Penn State’s offensive line went from a major weakness to a major strength, with potentially 10 offensive linemen who could see time early in the season for the Nittany Lions. On the offensive line, Franklin said, “It’s a group we take a lot of pride in…we expect them to play at a really high level.”
Franklin followed up noting that Penn State’s offensive line has a chance to be in the conversation for the Joe Moore Award for the Nation’s top offensive line this season. Franklin mentioned that the Joe Moore Award is one of his favorite awards in college football, because of the team aspect of the award.
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Development, Development, Development
Penn State’s non-conference slate is, as nicely as you can possibly say it, extremely weak.
This presents a massive opportunity for the Nittany Lions early in the season, however. As James Franklin put it during his press conference, Penn State wants to “play a lot of guys” early in the season both for development and evaluation.
If Penn State’s starting lineup can take care of business early in games, as expected, the Nittany Lions have the opportunity to really take stock in what they have in younger depth pieces on the 2025 roster.
At key positions like defensive end and wide receiver, this could be extremely important later in the season when Penn State may need to rely on depth pieces during a potential College Football Playoff run.
With the weak schedule to start the season, Penn State fans should have the opportunity to see plenty of players hit the field for the Nittany Lions.
The schedule will also allow Penn State’s coaching staff to continue to adjust the starting lineups and rotations at key positions ahead of Penn State’s Big Ten opener against Oregon in the White Out in late September.
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