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Four honored for their service at the 2016 YMCA Leadership Dinner

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Marco Estrada, Jose Bautista lead Blue Jays' rout of Rangers

<p>The excuses are there if Sean Spencer wants them.</p><p>Three line starters gone to the NFL draft. A smaller margin for error because of injuries across the defense. Having to face a couple of the country&#8217;s top running games.</p><p>Penn State&#8217;s defensive line coach doesn&#8217;t want to hear it.</p><p>&#8220;I tell our guys that no one cares about our injury situation,&#8221; Spencer said Thursday. &#8220;The expectation is to go out there as if the team were completely intact. We can&#8217;t be the Achilles&#8217; heel at all.&#8221;</p><p>When Spencer came aboard with James Franklin&#8217;s staff two years ago, he oversaw what was the nation&#8217;s top-rated run defense for most of the 2014 season. Though those numbers dropped in 2015, the Nittany Lions compensated by having one of the very best pass rushes in the country with Carl Nassib leading the country in sacks and tackles for loss.</p><p>Nassib is gone this year, as are highly productive tackles Austin Johnson and Anthony Zettel. Couple that with injuries to all three starting linebackers and it&#8217;s not a surprise that the Lions enter Saturday&#8217;s game with Maryland ranked 69th in total defense (403.8 yards per game and 105th against the run (216.6 ypg).</p><p>With the Terrapins entering the game as the country&#8217;s No. 6 rushing offense (300 ypg), Spencer wants his unit focused on fundamentals.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not about making plays, it&#8217;s about being gap accountable,&#8221; Spencer said. &#8220;I mean, you want them to be explosive and make plays, but if we shore up our gaps and we&#8217;re doing a great job of reading our keys, then it&#8217;s going to make it a lot easier for the young linebackers.</p><p>&#8220;In the past, if you got out of a gap, Nyeem (Wartman-White) or Jason Cabinda or (Brandon) Bell might make up for it. Not now. We have to be even more gap-accountable.&#8221;</p><p>On the pass rush, Penn State&#8217;s 12 sacks are tied for 48th in the country. But seven of those 12 came in the first week against Kent State. The Lions went nearly two full weeks in between sacks &#8212; one late in the fourth quarter against Temple, none against Michigan and then nothing until the end of the Minnesota game when the unit came up with two in the fourth quarter and overtime.</p><p>The caveat, of course, is that teams like Pitt and Michigan were able to run the ball so effectively that throwing anything other than quick, short passes wasn&#8217;t necessary.</p><p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s been streaky,&#8221; Franklin said of his pass rush. &#8220;We get them and then we kind of go on dry spots. I do think &#8230; us being a little bit more consistent in stopping the run would help us there.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see us be a little bit more effective late in the game, I had made a couple recommendations that we weren&#8217;t getting there (against Minnesota), so let&#8217;s drop eight and rush three. And we were able to get pressure rushing three for whatever reason and then drop eight in coverage which helped us a few times, it really did.&#8221;</p><p>That was the case when senior Evan Schwan who picked up his first career sack on Minnesota&#8217;s final drive of regulation.</p><p>Schwan is the lineman who has missed the most time this season because of injury. But the unit&#8217;s performance has also been heavily affected by losses in the back seven &#8212; Bell, Cabinda, Wartman-White and defensive backs Grant Haley, Malik Golden, Christian Campbell and Amani Oruwariye are all major contributors who been hurt.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not the only team in the country with an injury or two,&#8221; Spencer said. &#8220;Obviously ours is a little bit over the top. But no one cares. It&#8217;s moreso that our guys have to prep as if they&#8217;re all starters. The expectation is the same.</p><p>&#8220;You may scratch your head and say, &#8216;Why us?&#8217; But we&#8217;ve gotta move on.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Barbour doubles down</strong></p><p>Sandy Barbour said it last Thursday when asked about James Franklin&#8217;s job security and she reiterated it this Thursday &#8212; Franklin isn&#8217;t going anywhere this year.</p><p>In an interview with ESPN.com, Penn State&#8217;s athletic director said that she would not consider a coaching change regardless of what happens this season because of the still-lingering effects of NCAA sanctions on the program.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no doubt in my mind that James is going to be our football coach long term,&#8221; Barbour said, noting that the team has had few academic or disciplinary issues in Franklin&#8217;s two-plus years at the helm.</p><p>To those fans who were expecting a faster rise from the ashes of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, Barbour preached patience.</p><p>&#8220;They need to take it as a body of work,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Are we showing progress? Where are we at the end of the season in terms of our development in a new offensive scheme? Where are we in the development of a really young defense? Where are we with the development of our student-athletes, the identity of the program.</p><p>&#8220;Those are the things our fans need to be looking at.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Penn State defensive line coach Sean Spencer (left) is focused on his unit&#8217;s fundamentals with so many injuries in the back seven. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/web1_spencer_1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Penn State defensive line coach Sean Spencer (left) is focused on his unit&#8217;s fundamentals with so many injuries in the back seven. </caption0><photoCredit0>Abby Drey | AP photo, Centre Daily Times </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>UP NEXT</strong></p><p>Maryland at Penn State</p><p>Noon, Saturday, BTN</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Penn State’s defensive line looks for improvement vs. Maryland