5 ‘side roots’ to keep Penn State’s more hyper-minded fans engaged

It’s one final game after 37 days without one. For serious Penn State fans battling withdrawal symptoms and getting by on recruiting news, Jan. 1 can’t come soon enough.

With a victory over Kentucky in the Citrus Bowl (1 p.m., ABC), the Nittany Lions would secure a third straight 10-win season and possibly a third straight AP Poll top 10 finish.

Maybe, as NFL coach Herm Edwards famously expressed 16 years ago, playing to win the game should be enough. Some fans need a little more, though. Like degenerate gamblers down to the last game on the slate, some will need a little side action to keep things interesting.

Here are 5 “side roots” to spice up our last look at the Lions for 8 months. If you’re clever/sick enough, I’m sure you could put odds on these and place wagers. I’ll just list them from most likely to least likely. Here we go:

Parsons finishes as team-leading tackler

True freshman linebacker Micah Parsons enters the bowl game with a team-high 69 total tackles, 3 ahead of fellow LB Jan Johnson. The 5-star recruit from Harrisburg steadily improved as the season progressed.

His first game with double-digit tackles would start the new year off right.

Sanders cracks PSU’s top 10

Miles Sanders needs 107 rushing yards to take over 10th place on the list of PSU’s best single-season rushing efforts. The redshirt junior has topped that number five times this season, including two of the past three games. At 1,223 yards, he enters the Citrus Bowl ranked 14th on the list.

If he somehow matches his best output (200 yards vs. Illinois), Sanders would climb to the sixth spot, just below Saquon Barkley’s 2016 effort.

[table “” not found /]

Gross-Matos reaches double-digits in sacks

Yetur Gross-Matos needs 2 sacks to reach 10 for the season. He’d be the 14th PSU player since 1975 to reach double digits. With 20 tackles for loss this season, he’s 4 away from tying the school’s second-best season since 1975 in that category.

That’s not bad for a sophomore defensive end just starting to tap his potential. With Gross-Matos and Parsons leading the way, Penn State’s defensive front seven — a shaky, untested group to start this season — should excel in 2019.

Kentucky likes to run early and often. If the Wildcats fall behind and are forced to throw, Gross-Matos could have a monster finish to his already impressive season.

Juwan Johnson catches TD pass

It’s hard to figure to what extend Johnson’s bafflingly bad season was the cause or the effect of PSU’s passing game woes. The 6-4, 225-pound redshirt junior suffered from “the dropsies” as much as anyone on the roster before missing a large chunk of the latter part of the season with an ankle injury.

Still, he is the same guy who hauled in 54 passes for 701 yards just a season ago.

This season, he has 23 catches for 339 yards. Since the calendar flipped to October, he’s had 6 receptions — never more than 2 in a game.

For Johnson, it’s a tough call on whether to return for a shot at a redemptive senior season or declare for the NFL Draft. Penn State’s receivers room is crowded with young talent.

Either way, Johnson probably has as much riding on this bowl game as anyone on the Lions’ roster. His top skill is being able to snare the high ball like a basketball power forward going up for a rebound. He’s struggled to secure the more routine passes, particularly those at shoulder level.

A couple routine grabs and at least one of the spectacular variety would certainly brighten the outlook for Johnson’s future, wherever that might be. He has only 2 career TDs, so reaching the end zone would certainly be icing on the cake.

McSorley reaches 10,000 passing yards

Senior quarterback Trace McSorley needs to match his best passing game of this season just to finish within 1,000 yards of his junior year passing yards total.

To reach 10,000 career passing yards, he’ll need to do even more. What seemed a sure thing when this season opened has become an extreme long shot.

To hit 10K, McSorley needs 346 passing yards, a number he’s reached three times in his career, most recently 17 games ago.

Even if coach James Franklin and OC Ricky Rahne were to design a game plan geared to chasing the mark, it’d still be an extremely tall order against Kentucky’s defense.