The college football all-star season is getting underway this weekend. The East-West Shrine Game will be played on Saturday, January 21 in St. Petersburg, Florida. Kickoff is scheduled for 4 p.m. and the game will be broadcast by NFL Network. Penn State safety Nick Sukay will be the lone representative in the game from Penn State, although he is listed as a linebacker on the East roster.
We reached out to our friends at Optimum Scouting on the Bloguin network for some thoughts on Penn State’s players participating in some of the games. Eric Galko, Director of Scouting, was kind enough to share his thoughts on each Nittany Lion playing in the Shrine Game and Senior Bowl.
Optimum Scouting: Nick Sukay
Sukay, a safety in college, came back this season from a torn pectoral muscle in 2010 (in which he missed the entire season), but returned this year as a consistent, versatile safety in the Penn State secondary. He lacks great fluidity and ability to pick up receivers in deep coverage, two things crucial for a free safety/strong safety in-betweener at the NFL level. However, he’s listed as a linebacker on the Shrine Game roster, so he could be looking to make a position switch. As a linebacker, he has the wrap-up ability and short area zoning ability to be an adequate Cover 2 linebacker, but listed at only around 220, he’ll need to show he has the strength, size, and ability to sift through traffic to be an NFL linebacker.
Sounds pretty fair, and it will be interesting to see if Sukay is making that position switch to linebacker. We certainly have seen the good and bad of Sukay over the past couple of years so this opportunity in the Shrine Game should be a good opportunity for him to make a name for himself and see how he compares against some other top college football players.
While the Shrine Game is one of the top all-star games in college football, there is one game being played Monday night in Tucson, Arizona. The Casino Del Sol All-Star Game will see three Nittany Lions take the field. Safety Drew Astorino, running back Stephfon Green, and offensive lineman Quinn Barham are on the East roster for the game. The game will air at 6 p.m. local time and will be televised on Fox Sports Arizona and its affiliates. Fox Sports Pacific will carry it on Comcast Digital Cable channel 722.
The Senior Bowl, which is the most notable of the college football all-star games, will be played next weekend in Mobile, Alabama. Galko forwarded us some scouting reports on Penn State’s players participating in that game as well. Check back tomorrow for his scouting reports on Devon Still, Jack Crawford, D’Anton Lynn and Johnnie Troutman.
Be sure to visit Optimum Scouting for complete coverage of the East-West Shrine Game and more scouting analysis leading up to the NFL Draft. Follow Optimum Scouting on Twitter.
Hype this up on BallHyped.
Follow Nittany Lion’s Den on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
