The Penn State injury list was ‘not great’ last week; now, there’s ‘unsual’ good news about it

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State coach James Franklin said last Saturday that his team’s injury list is “not great right now”, but that he was expecting that to change as the Nittany Lions moved into the pads-on portion of his 12th training camp here.

“What happened is, you’ve got a number of guys, we played late in the season, as everybody knows, the longest season in Penn State history, played late into the season and we had some injuries that required some surgeries and things like that at the end of the season, and they are going to be considered limited until we’ve had a padded practice to show that they are able to do that,” Franklin said.

“So some of these guys are limited up there. They are ready to go and I think if you asked them, they could play in a game right now. But our trainers and doctors, you know, smart, we hold them in the limited category until they actually go out and do it. So if they had an upper body extremities issue, we’ve got to get through the first day of hitting to clear them back to full go.”

The pads are now on, and have been for a few days. The team was at Beaver Stadium for practice back on Tuesday. On Thursday, it was working out on the fields that sit between the Lasch Building and Holuba Hall. After the drills ended, Franklin met with the media. And, unsurprisingly, he was asked if things are going to plan on the health front. The good news? Something unusual is going on with the team’s injury report. And yes, that is good news.

More: The ‘S’ Zone: Checking in on Penn State Football’s first week of preseason camp

“Usually you start [camp], you’re in good shape, and [the injury] list grows,” Franklin said. ‘We’re going in the opposite direction. So we’ve made some modifications to our practice. We do that every year based on Andrew Nelson, our sports scientist, recommendations, as well as Chuck Losey and the coaches. So I think that’s helped. We’re out here a little bit shorter. Not much shorter. But we’re out here a little bit shorter, reducing reps a little bit. Not much. Not significant.

“But yeah, so those guys just had to get cleared, and they’ve cleared. So we’re going in the opposite direction, which is good in an unusual way.”

The injury situation, which BWI’s Sean Fitz discussed at length with subscribers inside The Lions Den message board, will continue to evolve over the next 23 days before Nevada rolls into Beaver Stadium. Penn State may not be 100 percent healthy to take on the Wolfpack. But, it looks likely that it will be pretty close to it if things continue to go as planned.