Penn State coach James Franklin almost never gives an opening statement when addressing media after a Wednesday practice.
He does for his weekly press conference, postgame pressers and most other availabilities, but Wednesdays, it’s straight to questions.
But he makes exceptions sometimes.
Last season, he gave an opening statement to address the medical retirement of Landon Tengwall and later in the year, he addressed some national media taking a quote from the previous days presser out of context. This past Wednesday, he did it because he forgot to mention somebody when talking about Penn State’s receivers in Monday’s presser.
When asked about the receivers in general, he mentioned Anthony Ivey, Tyler Johnson, Mehki Flowers and true freshman Tyseer Denmark.
He also talked about Liam Clifford, Kaden Saunders and Julian Fleming, who he was directly asked about.
But he didn’t mention Omari Evans.
Was this noticeable? Probably not. Although Evans is a player that could end up starting for Penn State this season, it’s not likely that most people who watched Franklin’s presser read much into Evans not being mentioned. He showed promise at the end of last season and there had been no reports of any health problems.
But it’s better safe than sorry, and Franklin made sure to clarify that, yes, they plan on Evans having a big year.
“He’s had a really good camp, and he’s made a huge stride,” Franklin said. “Omari’s the guy I think everybody’s excited for to come out and play well early on and gain confidence, and then literally, he’s one of these guys that his career could just take off. You talk about speed, size, athleticism, intelligence. He’s got all the things that you’re looking for. We’d go out and recruit him every single year.”
Evans ended his sophomore season with forgettable numbers: four catches for 94 yards and a touchdown.
But one specific play that happened in the regular-season finale got people talking.
A 60-yard bomb from QB Drew Allar accounted for more than half of Evans’ receiving yardage.
Another 25-yards took place the previous week against Rutgers, again on a single reception.
So do break that down, Evans had five receiving yards in the 10 regular-season games before OC Mike Yurcich’s firing and 85 in the two games after.
How much did these things correlate? Who knows. But the hiring of first-year OC Andy Kotelnicki has a lot of people excited, and the ability of him helping to “unlock” Evans is a reason why.
“I think when he first got here, he was a really good athlete and maybe a little bit of a track guy who’s really growing into football and understanding what it takes at this level,” Franklin said. “But he’s a guy that I think there’s a lot of excitement within the program that he’s ready. A few big catches and a few big plays, and he could be a guy we’re talking about very different at the end of the season than maybe the conversations that are going on right now. We believe that will happen.”
