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H.S. Football: Dallas-Valley View moved to Saturday night

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Mets’ deGrom gets Cy with record-low wins; Snell takes AL

<p>Miles Sanders has taken his blockers to a couple different places around town. But their favorite spot to eat is Otto&#8217;s, a modern-style German pub on the edge of town.</p><p>And Penn State&#8217;s running back has been known to pick up the check.</p><p>&#8220;I sacrifice my stipend for them,&#8221; Sanders said with a laugh. &#8220;I just like taking them out to eat. They love to eat, so I take them out.&#8221;</p><p>There was plenty for Sanders to smile about this past Saturday, when he ran for 159 yards and topped 1,000 on the season.</p><p>Now Penn State&#8217;s offensive line has a chance to show its appreciation with games against Rutgers on Saturday and Maryland the following week to close out the regular season.</p><p>The man gaining increasing notoriety up front for the Nittany Lions is Lake-Lehman&#8217;s own Connor McGovern.</p><p>On Monday, the junior was named to Pro Football Focus&#8217; national offensive team of the week as the No. 2 rated guard in the country.</p><p>The more significant news came Wednesday when McGovern appeared at No. 1 on the list of draft-eligible guards from long-time ESPN guru Mel Kiper Jr.</p><p>It&#8217;s rare for an offensive lineman to head to the NFL after just three seasons of college ball. But then again, it&#8217;s just as rare for an offensive lineman to start &#8212; and succeed &#8212; as a true freshman, as McGovern did for the Lions in 2016.</p><p>Kiper also listed Sanders, a junior, as his No. 6 draft-eligible running back and senior Amani Oruwariye as his No. 6 cornerback. Sanders deferred draft talk on Wednesday, saying &#8220;I&#8217;m just focused on playing football. Never really crossed my mind.&#8221;</p><p>Of this crop of guards, Kiper wrote, &#8220;There&#8217;s no (Notre Dame 2018 top-6 selection) Quenton Nelson among these guys. McGovern is a three-year starter who could still return to school.&#8221;</p><p>Kiper added the caveat that, &#8220;These aren&#8217;t detailed scouting reports. I still have a lot of work to do on these prospects, and what they do from now until January matters a lot.&#8221;</p><p>So McGovern and his fellow linemen still have plenty of work to do themselves.</p><p>As a unit, the run blocking has generally been better than the pass blocking. Quarterback Trace McSorley has been pressured more than most of his Big Ten counterparts, and James Franklin is still looking for some improvement there.</p><p>&#8220;I think the two areas that we need to be better at is protecting the quarterback more consistently &#8212; which we&#8217;re not doing right now well enough &#8212; and consistently catching the ball,&#8221; the Penn State coach said. &#8220;If we do those two things at a little bit better rate each week, our offense will explode. And that&#8217;s been kind of the theme all year long.&#8221;</p><p>&#8221;I think we&#8217;ve done pretty well compared to years past,&#8221; said Steven Gonzalez, who mans the other guard spot. &#8220;We&#8217;ve had our rough moments, obviously. No game&#8217;s going to be perfect, especially in the Big Ten with the amount of talent that we have, and that we face. But I think we&#8217;ve done really well.&#8221;</p><p>Franklin has hinted that the offensive line has been dealing with injuries in recent weeks, though he would not go into details.</p><p>That could be the reason that he flipped tackles Ryan Bates and Will Fries against the Badgers, with Bates moving to the right side and Fries to the left.</p><p>&#8220;This is one of these questions that you guys ask me that I&#8217;d love to just answer completely,&#8221; Franklin said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s not the right thing to do for our program (or) from a competitive advantage against Rutgers. But mainly, based on a lot of information, we just felt like the best opportunity for both Ryan and Will to play their best football and give us the best opportunity to protect our quarterback consistently would be to move Will to left tackle and Ryan to right tackle.</p><p>&#8220;A lot of it stemmed about Bates making sure that he was comfortable with it and OK with it.&#8221;</p><p>It was an alignment the Lions previously used when Bates was returning from a lower-body injury at the end of the 2017 season. Bates had been at left tackle for much of last season but played the right side in the Fiesta Bowl as the Lions set a program record for total offense in the game.</p><p>&#8220;I think it affected Will mostly, getting his confidence back a lot,&#8221; Sanders said Saturday.</p><p>Franklin, however, did not seem enamored with the results when discussing them on Tuesday.</p><p>&#8220;Probably did not pan out as well as we would have liked,&#8221; Franklin said. &#8220;But we&#8217;ll obviously look at it again this week and see what we think is in our best interests moving forward.&#8221;</p><p>Senior Chasz Wright has also been in the mix at times, starting at right tackle ahead of Fries in a few games this season.</p><p>Regardless, 2018 has been an overall improvement for the line, which had been one of the team&#8217;s biggest question marks in the post-sanctions era.</p><p>&#8220;I think we just improved as an offensive line,&#8221; Gonzalez said. &#8220;I think we needed to gain a little bit more chemistry and cohesiveness with each other, and that&#8217;s what we got. &#8230; There&#8217;s a little bit more cohesiveness in getting used to each other and the scheme. And we feel really comfortable where we are at right now.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Penn State guard Connor McGovern (right) has been receiving some national attention as of late, including on some pundits&#8217; draft boards. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_AP18314740296431-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Penn State guard Connor McGovern (right) has been receiving some national attention as of late, including on some pundits&#8217; draft boards. </caption0><photoCredit0>Chris Knight | AP photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_AP18310000114631-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Penn State flipped Will Fries (71) from right tackle to left tackle last week against Wisconsin, though the switch may prove to be temporary, according to coach James Franklin. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_AP18310000114631-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Penn State flipped Will Fries (71) from right tackle to left tackle last week against Wisconsin, though the switch may prove to be temporary, according to coach James Franklin. </caption1><photoCredit1>Paul Sancya | AP file photo </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_AP18307776832951-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Penn State offensive linemen Ryan Bates (52), Steven Gonzalez (74), Michal Menet (second from right) and Connor McGovern (66) have all started every game for the Nittany Lions in 2018. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_AP18307776832951-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>Penn State offensive linemen Ryan Bates (52), Steven Gonzalez (74), Michal Menet (second from right) and Connor McGovern (66) have all started every game for the Nittany Lions in 2018. </caption2><photoCredit2>Paul Sancya | AP file photo </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Lehman&#8217;s McGoverntops Mel Kiper&#8217;s board</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Lions’ O-line looks to finish strong; McGovern rated Mel Kiper’s No. 1 draft-eligible guard