Penn State’s defense was dealt a blow on Wednesday evening as BWI reports that linebacker Tony Rojas will be out with a “long-term” injury. We’ll hear from James Franklin later tonight after practice, so we’ll see if he confirms the injury.
After an up-and-down sophomore season, it felt like
Rojas was rounding into form this year. It was only through four games, but he had 25 tackles, 2 sacks, and 4.5 TFLs, all the while coming off a strong performance against Oregon where he and Amare Campbell really prevented some big plays from the Ducks’ offense.
To be frank, replacing Rojas won’t be easy. I imagine that Jim Knowles and linebackers coach Dan Connor will elect to go with a by-committee approach over the next few weeks before a trip to Kinnick and then certainly a trip to the Shoe for the Ohio State game. Here were the snap counts for the linebackers up to this point:
So I think it’s likely DeLuca gets an uptick, but that we also see Speca, Wylie, and even the true freshman Tatsch get additional run against the likes of UCLA and Northwestern.
