MILFORD, Pa. — Keith Olsommer ended his 4-year career at Penn State in 1996. The burley sure-handed tight end out of North Pocono High-School won 11 games that year, beat Texas in the Fiesta Bowl and set in motion future bowl trips for Joe Paterno coached teams. Now James Franklin begins year 10 as the Nittany Lions leader and already has four (11) win seasons under his belt.
“I think the biggest thing that Penn State faced and that he faced when he came into it was depth at the line positions. And obviously defensively they we're able to fill that pretty quickly and it has taken a while because you have to recruit multiple kids at the offensive line position and I think that they are finally starting to stack those guys up,” said Keith.
In 2024 USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington out of the Pac-12 will join the Big 10 Conference jumping into a 7 year media rights agreement with FOX, CBS AND NBC a deal worth $7 billion dollars.
“It's all about the money. That's what college sports right now is all about who can make the most money with their football programs and the TV revenue that it generates for the conferences. You know when you are looking at these Big 10 schools that are going to be making $96 to $100 million dollars just on their football programs because of the TV contracts that is a huge windfall
for that university,” again said Keith.
At the high-school level now Olsommer has coached a 1/4 century and has seen many changes.
“Biggest change in the last 25 years for high-school football is the way that teams run their offenses. Defenses had to adapt to the way that people do things. When I first started four wide was a rare thing. Now when you go out every single week and you see teams that are four wide and their spread,” added Keith.
Steve Lloyd Newswatch 16 sports Pike County