After Spring Practice, Penn State Football Faces an 'Interesting' Offseason

Coach James Franklin says the Nittany Lions are in "great shape" regarding scholarships. Still, the roster will change as the Transfer Portal opens.

Penn State coach James Franklin guides the Nittany Lions during the 2024 Blue-White Game at Beaver Stadium. / Matthew O'Haren-USA TODAY Sports

The quaint five weeks of spring football practice are over, meaning Penn State returns to the real work of the offseason: roster management. When the NCAA Transfer Portal opens Tuesday for 15 chaotic days, the Nittany Lions will be in a unique position. Depending on outside estimates, Penn State might have to reduce its roster by 12-14 scholarship players to reach the NCAA's allowable limit of 85. And that's assuming Penn State doesn't add any new transfers to the four who enrolled in January.

Of course, Penn State coach James Franklin won't address the exact number of scholarship players currently on his roster. The number ranges from 97-99, depending on who's counting and who they're counting. Asked before the Blue-White Game about his scholarship numbers, Franklin was upbeat, actually.

"We’re in great shape," Franklin said. "Don’t see any of those things [being] an issue, and our math’s different than yours."

One player likely to enter his name into the portal is receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith. Penn State's top returning receiver, who also has started the most games on the roster, did not play in the Blue-White Game and was not with the team on the field. Franklin's post-game comment regarding Lambert-Smith seemed to indicate the receiver isn't part of the team's plans. That became official Monday, when Lambert-Smith announced his intention to enter the portal.

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Without Lambert-Smith, Penn State still has 14 scholarship receivers, including three in the 2024 recruiting class. That's a position where more attrition, and addition, could be forthcoming.

The Nittany Lions also currently roster five scholarship running backs, four of whom have freshman eligibility. Another freshman back, Corey Smith from Milwaukee, is scheduled to arrive this summer. Running back is another position that could see movement.

The offensive line could see change, particularly with six tackles having freshman eligibility. And the defensive line, with five senior tackles, is positioned for streamlining as well.

"As we know with what's going on with college football," Franklin said, "this could be an interesting couple of weeks for everybody in college football.

So what will the process look like? Franklin said that the position coaches will meet with their players beginning Monday, and then Franklin will conduct half-hour meetings with each player. He expected the process to take about three weeks.

"When I say 'interesting couple weeks in college football,' there’s a lot of a lot of reasons why that

that's interesting," Franklin said. "For me, that's what these meetings are going to be about. The individual meetings with our position coaches. The meetings with me. We've had some conversations with some guys already. But at the end of the day, you never really know until it happens. I think we got pretty good relationships where guys, for the most part, have been very transparent and honest with us and we do the same thing with them.

"One of the things that I think is really important is, I'm still a big believer in transformational

relationships, and college football being transformational. I'm worried that college football is becoming more and more transactional. That has to be in both directions. That's something that I've talked to our guys all the time about. To be honest with you, 99 percent of the time, what's good for the individual is good for the team, and vice versa. So that's the good thing that I feel good about as head coach. I can have these conversations and be honest, because the reality is more times than not, maybe not in the short term, maybe not at the time that they want it to be in their schedule in their mind, more times than not it is."

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Further, Franklin said that he will include Penn State's Leadership Council in decisions about roster management.

"We'll We’ll ask them what they think we need and have them take ownership in those decisions as well and be comfortable with those decisions as well," Franklin said. "You guys have heard me say this a ton of times over the last 10 years. For me to make the best decisions for our program, I want to hear from all the players and staff and coaches and that's including decisions like this. But it's a challenging time in college football. It's challenging time for head coaches to make these types of decisions and the impact that has on on your roster and a lot of different ways and a lot of different implications."

AllPennState is the place for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network. Publisher Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn State for more than 20 years, tracking three coaching staffs, three Big Ten titles and a catalog of great stories. Follow him on Twitter @MarkWogenrich.