STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Sitting in his office overlooking Penn State's practice fields hours before the team's first spring workout, offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne grabs a stack of papers from his desk. Each page displays the heading "Meeting Notes."
While serving as Kansas State's tight ends coach in 2009 and 2010, Rahne painstakingly prepared notes from each position meeting he led. Before each practice, he'd turn them in to head coach Bill Snyder, college football's most successful stickler.
"I told myself it was stupid and crazy and I never wanted to do it," Rahne said.
He paused.
"I still do it every day."
Rahne soon realized Snyder's rationale: Practices are scripted down to the second, so why shouldn't meetings require the same level of care?
"That's what's made him great: the attention to detail and the organization and never being satisfied," said Rahne, who also adopted Snyder's practice of handwriting letters. "Unless you're organized, you're going to forget something. And that's the thing that's going to come back and beat you by one point."
One point separated Penn State from Ohio State in October. The following week, three points separated Penn State from Michigan State, a loss that effectively ended the Nittany Lions' chances of defending their Big Ten title. Penn State led the FBS in average point differential at 24.6, but it couldn't chase down the points that mattered most in the games that mattered most.
Still, the Lions are 20-3 in their past 23 contests, the program's best stretch since a 20-3 surge between 1993 and 1995. The offense has been the biggest reason why, providing not only production but entertainment, pace and big plays. Rahne's task is to help the record-setting unit sustain and, ultimately, close the small but difficult gap separating Penn State from the College Football Playoff.
This spring, the biggest question is whether the offense keeps rolling without two key figures: Joe Moorhead, arguably the nation's most impactful coordinator hire in the past two seasons, who left to lead Mississippi State's program; and Saquon Barkley, the All-America running back who cemented himself as a program great and will be one of the first names -- perhaps the first -- called April 26 at the NFL draft. Penn State also loses tight end Mike Gesicki, another possible first-round pick, and receiving yards leader DaeSean Hamilton.
Rahne, a 37-year-old former Cornell quarterback, begins his first coordinator stint after splitting the past four seasons coaching Penn State's tight ends and quarterbacks. Head coach James Franklin wanted continuity with the scheme and promoted Rahne, who first worked for him as a graduate assistant at Kansas State in 2006. Although Rahne most recently coached PSU's tight ends, he also recruited every quarterback on the roster, including Trace McSorley, who has 7,184 pass yards and 57 touchdowns in the past two seasons.
"I've always had Ricky viewed as a guy who could progress into this role eventually," Franklin said. "If the timing was right and the program was in the right place, and he continued to grow the way I thought he would, it just made sense.
"He's too smart, too hardworking, not to be successful."
Franklin isn't looking for a Moorhead clone. Don't try to be Joe, he told Rahne after promoting him. Rahne will bring his own style, but he also witnessed firsthand how the offense spiked under Moorhead: 31 or more points in 18 of the past 20 games, including 11 games with more than 40 points; 85 plays of 20 yards or longer last season, including 15 of 40 yards or longer; eight players accounting for multiple touchdowns last season.
"We've got a pretty good foundation," Franklin said.
A philosophical or psychological overhaul is not needed.
"We've got to maintain our attack attitude," Rahne said. "That's been the mentality of this offense for the last two years, and it's going to stay the same. I can't be afraid to make mistakes. Quite frankly, they're going to happen. I made one in the bowl game, a bad call that led to a turnover. I can't be afraid to go back to that play. It was a well-designed scheme. It was just called at a stupid time, so I've got to be still attacking."
Rahne called offensive plays Dec. 30 in the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl (he did the same two years earlier in the TaxSlayer Bowl following an offensive coordinator change). Penn State faced a Washington team with the Pac-12's top defense, a unit that led the nation against the run and ranked fifth in total defense allowed and sixth in scoring.
Rahne didn't call a perfect game. PSU committed three turnovers, the last two with multiple-touchdown leads, but finished with 35 points, 545 yards and 25 first downs in a 7-point win.
"It was a big confidence boost," McSorley said. "There were questions: How is the offense going to be without Coach Moorhead? For us to come in and have success against a team like Washington, who is tough against every single team, it's kind of a testament to our program. When we had guys go out with injuries or whatever, there was a next-man-up mentality. That was exemplified perfectly in the bowl game. Our leader on offense had taken another job, a great opportunity, and he wasn't with us anymore, and it was the next man up."
McSorley hears questions about the 2018 offense and bristles. The constant mentions of what Penn State lost strike a nerve with the All-Big Ten quarterback. "You're taking shots at our team," McSorley said.
He's quick to defend the men who still surround him: wide receiver Juwan Johnson, who had 54 receptions, including the game winner on the final play at Iowa; running back Miles Sanders, who averaged 6.2 yards per carry in limited work; wideout DeAndre Thompkins, who averaged 15.8 yards per reception; four returning starters on the line -- and Rahne.
"Coach Rahne's going to call games with a chip on his shoulder," McSorley said. "That excites me and motivates me."
McSorley is the biggest reason why PSU's offense could keep rolling, but not the only one. The Lions finally have numbers along their line, the group most affected by scholarship losses from the NCAA sanctions. Line coach Matt Limegrover can bench underperforming players, even ones with starting experience, because he feels good enough about the subs.
There will be no sole replacement for Barkley, who led the Lions in rushing, tied for second in receptions (54), and returned nearly half of the kickoffs, averaging 28.4 yards per runback with two touchdowns. The plus side is PSU should resume a healthy rotation. Barkley logged 186 more carries than any other running back in 2017.
"I wanted to give our team the best chance to win," Franklin said, "and I wanted to give Saquon the best chance to win the Heisman, so I wasn't taking him off the field. ... That caused a lot of issues with our other running backs. At the end of the day, everybody kind of understood it, but it's still hard to deal with. Now we're in a situation where those guys are really hungry to show what they could do."
Among the hungriest is Sanders, a more decorated recruit than Barkley -- ESPN pegged him as the nation's No. 3 running back and No. 43 overall player (No. 1 in Pennsylvania) in the 2016 class -- but a back with just 56 carries in his first two seasons. Sitting next to Sanders in the locker room after Penn State's Fiesta Bowl win, Barkley anointed his protégé, telling him: "Save me some records." But Sanders will face competition from veteran Mark Allen, speedster Journey Brown and incoming freshman Ricky Slade, ESPN's No. 2 running back in the 2018 class.
After the game, a moment with #PennState's Saquon Barkley and Miles Sanders. 'Save me some records.' pic.twitter.com/adeKEgmbdq
— Mark Wogenrich (@MarkWogenrich) December 31, 2017
"His records are crazy, though. He's just a natural freak athlete," Sanders said of Barkley. "He has that mentality that he's the best player on the field. That's what I have to know when it's my turn this year, just be that best person every time you touch the ball."
Sanders saw how Barkley, with his 102 receptions in three seasons, impacted the passing game and wants to grow in that area, too. Between the bowl game and winter workouts, he would join the receivers and tight ends as they caught passes from McSorley and the other quarterbacks.
After adding 20 pounds in the previous offseason, Sanders toned up this past winter and began the spring at around 215 with 8 percent body fat.
"I got faster over the winter," Sanders said. "Ended up running a 4.4, so I feel more explosive. I'd never ran it at this weight."
Explosive remains a buzzword around here, because Penn State offensive players and coaches know what it looks like. To sustain it, they must not become others, but better, more driven and more detailed versions of themselves. For Sanders, it's improving route running. For McSorley, it's becoming even more accurate. For Rahne, it's neglecting nothing in his preparation, not even the meeting notes that no one will ever see.
The Lions are chasing a precious few points in a precious few games. This fall, they'll find out whether they can catch them.