Player Spotlight: Will Levis

Story posted December 4, 2020 in CommRadio, Sports by Adam Sheetz

Penn State has had to handle a lot in the 2020 season. The Nittany Lions hired new offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarocca and missed its opportunity to completely learn the new offense in the offseason.

Quarterback Will Levis spoke to the media about the similarities and differences of Ciarocca’s offense to years past.

“There are actually a lot of concepts that are pretty much like the same thing we did last year, so it’s easy for us to make that transition. The biggest thing is that our thought process on certain concepts is just a little different than it was in years past.”

Penn State used Will Levis in a different way this past weekend in its win against Michigan. The Nittany Lions used Levis in power-run situations.

The play is similar to when Tommy Stevens used to run the “Lion” position at Penn State. Levis spoke about his role in that scheme.

“The package we used last week was put in for that week. There are always talks about me going in in certain situations and running whatever but that package from last week was new. We called it the Falcon formation which is now the Falcon package.”

Penn State has had a quarterback battle during the 2020 season. Levis and Sean Clifford have battled on the practice field over the last few weeks, as head coach James Franklin has tried to find the right guy for the Nittany Lions. Levis spoke on the competition this week.

“I think it just goes to show that regardless of your position on the team you just have to stay ready. You never know when your time is going to come and when it does you just have to make sure you are making the most of it. It has not really changed the way we approach practice. We always try to approach practice the same way regardless of the situation, and the past few weeks have not really changed that. In terms of both of us being able to get in there to play and obviously what really matters is getting the win which happened last week and I’m just glad that happened.”

Penn State’s offense began to click in their trip to Ann Arbor, but Levis believes the Nittany Lions’ ceiling is still very high.

“I mean sure, Michigan, we played well, but we still haven’t touched the surface of what our potential is, which is exciting.”

Levis understands that Penn State’s offense began to click at Michigan, and he spoke on what he believes the Lions will need to do to continue their success at Rutgers on Saturday.

“Just continuing to grind, continuing to push and don’t lose any focus. Obviously with the rough start to the season, things like that happen and it can’t make you invest less, it has to make you invest more. So, I think as long as we just stick to our process and stick to what we have been doing throughout the practice schedule over the last few years and trusting our offense and trusting our coaches. We don’t have to do anything more than that and I think it will just come naturally.”

Penn State looks to build on its win at Michigan, as it travels to Rutgers on Saturday.

Adam Sheetz is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email ads360@psu.edu.

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Adam Sheetz

Junior / Broadcast Journalism

Adam Sheetz is a third year student from Reedsville, Pennsylvania majoring in broadcast journalism. He has been a broadcaster for WCHX 105.5 FM in Mifflin County covering high school sports. He has also been a member of CommRadio since his first semester at Penn State, being involved in both the Arts and Sports departments. Adam has extensive experience in a play-by-play setting within CommRadio, covering football, basketball, baseball, softball, soccer and volleyball for the station. He has done written content for CommRadio ranging from Penn State football articles all the way to discussing Disney Channel movies. To contact Adam, email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).