Offensive Preview: Spread HD needs to throttle down to basics

This is painful to say. Penn State, at least initially, should throttle down its offense in 2009.

It took years to alter Joe Paterno's prodigious past. Athleticism and speed prompted a move to a wide-open, free-wheeling, creative-like-clockwork offense that produced dynamic results in 2008.

Although Penn State's season ended in defeat against USC at the Rose Bowl, the Nittany Lions offense scored 506 points and averaged just under 39 points a game last season behind the right arm and able legs of quarterback Daryll Clark.

Clark threw 19 touchdowns to just six interceptions and the Nits actually passed for more yards (3160) than they ran for (2676) during a season that saw five players -- including Clark -- rush for more than 100 yards.

So, the cupboard is not bare in the backfield. Clark returns after a brilliant season, and can line up with an extra chip on his shoulder thanks to Ohio State's Terrelle Pryor being selected the preseason Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. He is a year older, which brings a bit more assertiveness to a passing game that will need to mature over the course of the season.

Evan Royster and Stephfon Green are both back and complement each other extremely well. Royster is shifty, if not fast, who excels between the tackles and with tremendous field awareness and vision. He doesn't run around or past everybody, he just finds holes and attacks them with authority. The paramount stat is just 30 negative yards, a remarkable number in a season that concluded with 1,236 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Green battled injuries and a tendency to bounce every run to the perimeter -- a no-no in Paterno's offensive Bible. He grew as the season wore on and showcased his lightning speed during a 69-yard jaunt late in the season. Green toted the rock 105 times for 578 yards and four touchdowns and appears ready to take on a sidekick role his season, appearing frequently as a breather back and a third-down option.

Brent Carter averaged 5.9 yards per carry and is also back, as is sophomore Brandon Beachum, who the coaches love for his tenacity and raw athletic talent. As the numbers show -- and they rarely lie -- Penn State is stacked at running back and quarterback, but questions remain.

Who will block for the talented backs? Who will the talented quarterback throw to?

Derrick Williams, Deon Butler Jordan Norwood and three-fifths of the offensive line are gone to the NFL and graduation. Penn State's top returning wide receivers are tall possession type Brent Brackett and junior Graham Zug, who totaled 24 catches combined last season -- just seven more than the running back Royster.

Brackett reminds coaches of former walk-on Ethan Kilmer, who was a lanky track star at Shippensburg and made a solid transition to wideout and excelled as a senior at Penn State. But Kilmer was better suited working against safeties and nickel backs, and the same may be true for Brackett, meaning some unproven names need to surface.

Likely targets include sophomores Derek Moye and Chaz Powell. Moye has the frame of Brackett -- 6-foot-5 -- but holds state high school titles in the 200- and 400-meter races, signifying his ability to stretch the field. Powell is a multi-talented athlete who was groomed as a defensive back, but is currently listed as a wide receiver and has practiced at that position this spring.

The key to cohesion in the running game and the time necessary to develop chemistry with young, unproven receivers is the play of an offensive line that returns Dennis Landolt and Stefen Wisniewski, both playing different positions this season at tackle and center respectively.

Some of the names are the same; others are different, but Penn State's ability to replicate the eye-popping 2008 numbers may rest with a more patient, pragmatic approach that uses Royster's strengths off tackle, Green's speed off the edge and Quarless racking up catches and yards off play-action pass.

I hope to see, and really should see, less Spread HD -- at least early in the season -- as a spread formation thins an offensive line's ability to share blocking assignments and leaves Clark blind off the edge. Expect more traditional single and I-form sets with some three- and four-wideout formations thrown in.

In short, except a mixture of caution and experimentation as the Penn State coaching staff feels out a new group with new faces in some key roles. How those new faces progress will likely be the key to Penn State's offensive and season-long success.