Highly hyped Penn State finally finding the right mix of young and old

STATE COLLEGE — He was the only one hanging out in Beaver Stadium with colored hair.

You couldn't miss redshirt sophomore safety Ayron Monroe and his green dreadlocks during Saturday's annual media day.

Guys like backup tailback Mark Allen showed off their singing voices while waiting for interviews. The offensive linemen howled at each other like only college teammates can.

It was a break in another grueling preseason camp for these Nittany Lions, now suddenly full of expectations with their Big Ten title and cache of national stars.

And guys like Monroe are one symbol of how far head coach James Franklin's team has progressed in less than four years. The eclectic and talented defensive back will be gunning for an empty starting spot but may simply provide key support and backup — a luxury Penn State hasn't truly had in years, not even during last year's Rose Bowl run.

There seems to be the right mix of youth and experience now, of free-spirit personality combined with a serious hunger to prove themselves.

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Take Monroe, who apparently intended to dye his hair a Penn State blue.

"He's our special guy," fellow safety Nick Scott said with a grin.

"I wanted blue, but it's hard because of the gold undertones," Monroe said. "I just like having color in my hair, for no reason. I'm just feeling it."

For sure, this is a start of a most special preseason for the kind of possibilities being talked about. Penn State's No. 6 preseason ranking is its highest since 1999 and tailback Saquon Barkley is the program's first early leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy in at least 20 years.

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As expected, he and big-play quarterback Trace McSorley garnered much of the attention from teammates, coaches and reporters on Saturday. 

"I think the thing that our team respects the most about Saquon is how he has handled the success, really from Day 1," Franklin said. "There was buzz since that hurdle (against) Buffalo ... and he's handled it really well, better than I would have ever handled it at that age.

"Even when we do the (team) poster give out and he's getting assaulted on the street, it doesn't really faze him. He has great interactions with every person he comes in contact with, and then he gets on the bus, and the players give him a hard time, and he just kind of stays true to who he is."

Smooth? Barkley deflected the first media question about the Heisman Trophy as deftly as dodging USC defenders and breezed from there.

Talk of McSorley produced some surprising emotion from offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead, known for his low-key, behind-the-scenes persona.

"His next step? Well, that brings up an interesting topic," Moorhead said. "Frankly, this is a gross mischaracterization ... that Trace just drops back and picks the deepest receiver and chucks the ball up and hopes the guy makes the play. That's, in a lot of ways, ridiculous at best and, quite frankly, asinine at worst.

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"Our offense is designed to stretch defenses horizontally and vertically and create mismatches by a number of personnel. So the things that we did throwing the ball down the field, they didn't happen by chance, they happened by choice."

This day featured lots of promotion for those youngsters who could be first-time contributors, from defensive ends Shaka Toney and Yetur Gross-Matos to defensive backs Johnny Sutherland and Tariq Castro-Fields.

But the missing link in seasons past has been depth and experience that are finally forming in significant quantities.

Just look to senior offensive linemen Andrew Nelson and Brendan Mahon, both of whom missed significant parts of last season to injury. Both of their careers seemed to be in doubt.

Now, both are set on returning and could be key cogs in the team's best offensive line in years. Both could mean even more.

"We've put a lot of hard work in this team to bring it up from the ground in tough times," he said. "We came back because we wanted to be those leaders of this team that got it to the very top again. It's something we committed here to do."