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Lottery Numbers for Thursday, Nov. 17

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Cubs’ Kris Bryant, Angels’ Mike Trout named MLB MVPs

<p>Penn State ended the Indiana game with an offensive line comprised of five guys who were originally guards.</p><p>Well, except for the guys who were defensive tackles before they were guards.</p><p>The Lions&#8217; depth up front has been pretty well smashed to pieces over the past month. In that time, there&#8217;s been just one constant &#8212; Brian Gaia in the middle.</p><p>Penn State&#8217;s captain on offense is one of those guys who first moved over from defense, starting two years at guard before taking over at center in 2016.</p><p>His play there has improved to the point where he was recognized this week as the top-performing center in the country by Pro Football Focus for last week&#8217;s games.</p><p>According to the website, &#8220;Penn State&#8217;s season seems to have turned around in lockstep with Gaia&#8217;s who put together his fourth straight strong game and he&#8217;s making his first Team of the Week appearance. He was strong at the point of attack in the run game, making a number of key blocks and losing few while surrendering only one pressure on the day.&#8221;</p><p>Most importantly, though, is how he has helped a unit that has had to work in new faces week after week.</p><p>On Saturday, he will likely have true freshman Connor McGovern on his right side and possibly redshirt freshman Steven Gonzalez making his first career start on his left.</p><p>The tackles are set to be two guys who have been forced to move from guard in Ryan Bates and Chasz Wright. And it&#8217;s been largely up to Gaia to keep them in rhythm during games.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s done a great job for us,&#8221; Nittany Lions coach James Franklin said. &#8220;Leadership of the younger players, mentality, organizing film sessions and all those things. He&#8217;s been really good. With us, having a true freshman and redshirt freshman starting on either side of him, I don&#8217;t think you can do that without Brian Gaia at center as a senior (who&#8217;s) played as much football as he has.</p><p>&#8220;I think you&#8217;d have a hard time having a true freshman or redshirt freshman at both guards without that type of leadership on the inside.&#8221;</p><p>Not one for long speeches, Gaia said he tries to keep things simple when helping out his young teammates.</p><p>&#8220;Extra film. On-the-field coaching. Just extra stuff,&#8221; Gaia said. &#8220;If they do something and they seem kinda unsure about it, make sure you pull them off when you get out. Coach &#8216;em up.&#8221;</p><p>It&#8217;s taken some time, of course, but Gaia has seen a difference in players like McGovern and Bates since the beginning of the season.</p><p>&#8220;(There were) looks that maybe in the beginning of the year &#8212; in camp or maybe the first four games or so &#8212; that they were probably dumbfounded by. And now they&#8217;re the ones calling it out. I don&#8217;t always have to be the guy calling it out.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re seeing them take some of the load, some of the responsibility.&#8221;</p><p>Things got especially tough out at Indiana when an injury to Paris Palmer left the Lions dangerously thin at tackle.</p><p>Bates, who had started all 10 games at left guard, had taken his first significant reps at left tackle in practice just last week. Now it&#8217;s his spot to hold on, potentially for the rest of the season, depending on the health of the injured Brendan Mahon.</p><p>&#8220;Mahon, that&#8217;s yet to be determined,&#8221; Franklin said Thursday on his weekly radio show. &#8220;But Bates has done a tremendous job. He has tackle feet and tackle athleticism, he just doesn&#8217;t have the length of a typical tackle.&#8221;</p><p>That left Gonzalez and senior Derek Dowrey to split reps at left guard when Bates moved. Both players were in the game for the final two drives when McGovern exited the game with an injury.</p><p>One bit of good news came this week, though, as the Lake-Lehman grad returned to practice as he looks to make seventh consecutive start at right guard.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s gonna bounce back from whatever happened,&#8221; Gaia said. &#8216;He&#8217;s out there getting the reps and getting ready mentally.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Lake-Lehman&#8217;s Connor McGovern (66) returned to practice this week after missing the end of the Indiana game. He and Ryan Bates (52) have followed the lead of senior center Brian Gaia for much of the season. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_OL-practice.jpg</photo0><caption0>Lake-Lehman&#8217;s Connor McGovern (66) returned to practice this week after missing the end of the Indiana game. He and Ryan Bates (52) have followed the lead of senior center Brian Gaia for much of the season. </caption0><photoCredit0>Joe Hermitt | AP photo, PennLive.com </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta></subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>UP NEXT</strong></p><p>Penn State at Rutgers</p><p>8 p.m., Saturday, BTN</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><videoMeta><p><table style="border:none;width:98%;" class="mceItemTable"><tbody><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoID:</td><td id="videoid" style="width:50em;font-size:90%;"> b5iJKquAxlc</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoType:</td><td id="videotype" style="font-size:90%;"> YOUTUBE</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">URL:</td><td id="url" style="font-size:90%;"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5iJKquAxlc</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Embed String:</td><td id="videoembedstring" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Caption:</td><td id="videocaption" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Credit:</td><td id="videocredit" style="font-size:90%;"> Penn State Athletics</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Position:</td><td id="videoposition" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p style="margin-top:10px;font-size:70%;color:#555;">(use the &#8220;for files&#8230;&#8221; link above to associate attached files with this source)</p></videoMeta></div>

Nittany Lions’ line pulling together with help of senior captain Brian Gaia