The Penn State football injury report 'is not great' right now, but that's not as bad as it sounds; here's why

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State football will hold its third preseason practice on Saturday afternoon outside of the Lasch Building and Holuba Hall. The first two did not feature every Nittany Lion, which is to be expected. Health is an ongoing storyline during every camp. However, things are not quite where head coach James Franklin would want them to be. But, it won’t be that way for long, he said here at Beaver Stadium during the team’s local media day.

“The injury list is not great right now. But, after today’s practice, it’ll change things, because what happens is, you got a number of guys we played late in the season,” Franklin said. “As everybody knows, the longest season in Penn State football history. Played late into the season. And, we had some injuries that required some surgeries and things like that at the end of the season. And, [those players] are going to be considered limited until we’ve had a padded practice to show that they’re able to do that. So some of these guys are limited up there.”

More: Live updates from Penn State coach James Franklin’s media day news conference

College teams must hold three practices without pads before they can put them on. Franklin did not reveal who is unavailable at the moment. Some of the players who missed spring ball for various reasons include tackle Anthony Donkoh, linebacker Tony Rojas, defensive tackle Alozn Ford, and tighr en Andrew Rappleyea, among other. But, Franklin feels good that whoever isn’t on the field right now will be before long.

“They’re ready to go,” Franklin said. “And I think if you ask them, they can play in the game right now. But our trainers and doctors, you know, smart, we hold them in a limited category until they actually go out and do it. So if that is an upper body extremities issue, you know, we got to get through the first day of hitting to clear them back to full go. So the list is a little bit longer than I probably would like, but nothing that we’re concerned about, and nothing that you guys, I think, aren’t already aware of.”

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One injury fans are aware of was reported by BWI’s Sean Fitz on Saturday morning. Receiver Kaden Saunders will miss significant time with a long-term injury. Read more about that here. Penn State is also without defensive end Max Granville. The sophomore suffered a long-term injury earlier this year.