Offensively, the quarterback is often the most talked about player on the team, as is the case with Penn State and Drew Allar this season.
Defensively, it doesn’t quite work that way.
Kobe King is Penn State’s MIKE linebacker.
Since Penn State runs a 3-4, he’s the only MIKE linebacker in the defense, which makes him the unofficial QB. Coach James Franklin affirmed this in his first weekly presser of 2024 this past Monday, saying that the MIKE (King) is the one responsible for Penn State’s in-helmet communication.
College Football is now following what the NFL has been doing in signaling via headset, not via hands (unofficially the “Connor Stalions rule.”)
Allar is the one who has the headset for offense, and the defense’s QB has it for that unit.
So how has the adjustment been going thus far?
“I would definitely say it’s something new, obviously, but just with hearing the MIC in my helmet, it’s kind of a little weird a little bit, but also a little… it’s fun. You have a mic in your helmet. It’s kind of unreal a little bit.”
King also feels having the MIC in his headset will prepare him for the NFL, where there’s a good chance he’ll be after this season.
“I would say it’s like prep for the next level, really, or you know, just for higher levels of football,” he said. “Guys have to look at me when I get the call.”
What do those calls sound like from defensive coordinator Tom Allen?
“Sometimes it’s too loud,” King said, “sometimes it’s like raspy and I can’t hear, but most of the time, coach (Allen) makes sure it’s effective.
King knows he’s the one responsible for getting the play in for the rest of Penn State’s defense.
“Getting the call, just relating it to my guys,” he said, “it’s more of like an urgency thing because we have to get the call out and make sure everyone gets it. If everyone doesn’t get it, that’s on me. So I know I have to make sure everybody got the call. But that’s just really it. It’s just kind of a bigger role that I have to play with the mic in my head.”
Penn State’s beat reporters have already noticed Allen, who’s in his first season at DC, frequently loses his voice by the end of practice.
So, of course, the players notice that, too.
“Sometimes his voice is a little raspy because he loses it,” King said. “He’s got the mic so close to his mouth sometimes that I’m hearing everything that he says. … It’s always good communication.”
This is King’s third season as a MIKE linebacker and he broke down the evolution of that.
“I kind of got a grasp of what it felt like to play the defense as a MIKE linebacker,” King said. “For my second year I understood what to do within the scheme, how to command the defense, how to use my voice and project myself in a certain extent, but I think this year the comfort level is off the roof right now.”
“I’m to the point where I’m having full blown conversations where I was on the field,” he said. “I think my communication has to be that effective. I would say me just being comfortable, me knowing what I have to do, and know guys respecting me and me being able to use my voice the way I can this year.”
When asked about King, Coach James Franklin made a baseball analogy.
“In baseball, you kind of want to be strong up the middle, right?” Franklin said Wednesday. “Your catcher, your pitcher, shortstop, second baseman, center fielder… we feel like we’re built in a similar way. And that’s probably, you know, in a lot of ways, run by Kobe specifically in the front seven. So we’re very pleased with him.”
Franklin also said King— whose brother, Kalen, played at Penn State for three seasons before declaring for the NFL Draft this past winter— “understands the culture around here.”
“He’s just kind of that vet that you would love to have at MIKE linebacker every year,” Franklin said.
Life without Kalen as a teammate has been another big change for Kobe.
“It’s a little weird, but it’s also a little fun,” Kobe said. “I have to cultivate something new since my brother isn’t here with me. … It’s good for both of us.”
“I know he’s not gonna be out there, but we got a number 4 who is gonna be out (A.J. Harris) there and he looks like my brother sometimes.”
For Penn State to be close to where it was defensively last season, where it finished the year No. 2 in total defense, it has to have a strong leader.
King fits the mold.
“He’s kind of seen it all,” Franklin said. “I think he can command the defensive front.”
