Thanks to the Mid-Atlantic tour many of us got courtesy of the Lady Lions, I, too, didn't get see Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's spring press conference.
Not that I had to. Right away, someone else asked the same thing I had been cooking up, the obvious question: What changes would be made this spring?
"We only have a half hour" was Paterno's poignant response, dismissing it all, knowing there wasn't a time frame long enough to address all the questions about this team.
Well, this column probably isn't long enough to address all the questions either, but I've attempted to condense them to five.
So, here (in order) are the top five question marks for the 2004 Penn State football team.
1) The bad hands team?
How can a rag-tag bunch of receivers, one who switched from the defensive side of the ball and another who couldn't seem to run the right routes, fix the problems of last season's ineffective committee? It can't be a joke, because no one seems to find it funny.
Penn State's receivers last season, on the other hand, were laughable -- and it's up to the aforementioned Gio Vendemia and Terrance Phillips, along with Gerald Smith, to change that.
Fortunately, very little could make things worse than the disaster Tony Johnson spearheaded last season. The wide outs will drop some passes and miss some big plays this fall, but as long as the occurrences are not quite as frequent as Johnson's on-field guffs last year, that's understandable. But please guys, save yourself and the team the trouble: don't fake an injury or get arrested.
2) Another defense in line?
For the second consecutive year, the roster for the Blue-White game will be without three defensive linemen from the previous fall. But unlike their NFL-bound predecessors -- Anthony Adams, Michael Haynes and Jimmy Kennedy -- this year's group of MIAs -- Lavon Chisley, Ed Johnson and Matthew Rice -- will not have the luxury of wondering what to do with vast sums of money from their newly inked pro contracts.
Instead they will be on the sidelines, wondering how much cash their legal concerns will cost them. Johnson and Rice are suspended from the team by Judicial Affairs for the spring and summer for their roles in a fight at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion in February. Chisley is not practicing while he appeals the charges Judicial Affairs brought against him.
As if the second-worst run defense in the Big Ten needed to get any thinner.
This may be the one unit to exceed expectations, however. Rising senior Derek Wake and junior Tamba Hali are finally playing the positions they should have played for their whole careers -- defensive end -- and should provide a solid pass rush.
3) Linebacking corpses?
A little over a week ago, I was quite the source of humor for the Penn State message boards when a spelling mistake on my part implied that the Lions' linebackers are dead bodies, rather than a group of people with a common occupation.
Perhaps it was, as so many of you pointed out, an error of the subconscious because 2003's linebacking corps -- not corpse -- was buried alive in nearly every game last season. The upside could be there to make things better -- but the experience sure isn't. Three sophomores are expected to start, and two of them are transplants from the offensive backfield.
The Lions do have Paul Posluszny, though, a super-athletic true sophomore, who became a fan favorite at the end of last year. Certainly no one would call him a deadbeat at strong-side linebacker. At least not intentionally.
4) Dazed and QB confusion?
The let's-use-two-quarterbacks-in-all-different-positions free-for-all has been tough for Penn State fans to watch recently. Mostly because neither Zack Mills nor Michael Robinson has been effective on a consistent basis.
Mills never got to show the playmaking abilities of his freshman year because he got hit every time he threw the ball and his receivers dropped passes. Robinson, with his athleticism, was able to make things happen in some games, but showed his inexperience in others.
Both quarterbacks will be used in some respect again come fall. But provided someone in the quarterback carousel is completing passes, fans shouldn't complain.
Unless Penn State keeps using the formation in which both signal callers stay in the game and Mills has to block as a wide receiver.
That's something no one should have to watch.
5) An offensive line?
You'd swear opposing defenses swung around red capes the way Penn State's offensive line matadored a bull rush in 2003.
With three-and-outs all too common last year, the Lions ran a conference low 793 plays in 2003 for a yards-per-play average of 4.7, second worst -- and that's assuming one considers league-worst Indiana an actual Big Ten football program.
So those are the five question marks. Pretty imposing, aren't they?
Even with all these questions, hope is eternal at Penn State these days -- especially in the spring. Fans still seem to be buzzing about their Nits being only "two years away from making a run at a championship."It's the same buzz I've heard every spring I've been in college.
Which means it's time to realize something: With all these question marks, this will not be a great team. Not this year and not in two years.
But one, last (slightly more optimistic) question mark: Can this be a good team? I'm tempted to answer, "yes."But I won't.
Because that's one question that only the players themselves can answer.
