you're watching Fox 56 news first at 10 Penn State opens the football season on the road at the end of the month and several former local high school players are helping to lead the Lions to a big 10 championship and maybe a playoff birth Fox 56 Sports director Bob ID was at media day Saturday and tells us how those guys are making out former Ohio State receiver Julian Fleming is getting high praise from coaches and his teammates as he enters his first season with Penn State the former five-star standout from Southern Columbia has seen firsthand what a championship team looks like and he's tried to bring that work ethic to the Lions I I would say I'd say solid you know he's he's he's been he's been solid he's been um I think they've all been good at times it's still obviously a small uh number of practices and number of plays to to truly evaluate and I got to play with a lot of great receivers I got to play with a lot of first round receivers got to play with a lot of future Hall of Fame receivers so um just you know being able to take pieces from every single one of their games and uh you know the work ethic and everything that they did outside of just you know practice itself I think being able to bring some of those aspects here has been a really really good thing for a specific example we have a machine um that shoots footballs um for catching and that was something that they did at Julian school and they brought it here and the receivers were working 24/7 all summer on stuff like that so when we weren't throwing routes on air which we did all the time this summer they were getting catches from you know the machines that we have and and just different stuff like that flaming bolst is a receiving room that played below expectations last season scoring only 10 touchdowns Liam Clifford and Kaden Saunders returned for the Lions and with Fleming in the room they've seen Improvement obviously there's still some steps that need to be taken there for that entire room obviously that's a big been a big question mark uh for the media and some of the fans I think I think the coaching staff and I think the players um have a I would say a good amount of confidence in what that room has the ability to do and the amount of work that they've put in with Bo and Drew all summer both very very competitive they're um you know outside life aligns very very much with a competitive mindset and a championship mindset so I'm very happy to see what they what they do throughout camp and approaching the season with a new defensive coordinator and a new defensive look where do that put our local guys like North School kills Tyler and Dom DeLuca from Wyoming area I mean coach Allen is a great defensive coordinator I love learning from him love Lear learning his schemes and uh uh it's not really just changing a lot I mean defenses can't really change that much just learn different different words and that's really it what's your role in in that uh it might change a little bit you still going to play outside you inside where are you going to do you know what you're going to do yet I'm still going to play outside I'm still going to play inside too so I'm I'm learning both positions the more I learn it's going to help me more down the field throughout my years here I've gained a lot of experience and I've learned from from a lot of great football players um guys like Jesse Letta Ellis Brooks Brandon Smith the list goes on and on even Curtis Jacobs we came in together and he's in the league now so um I've learned a lot so now just being able to display my knowledge to the younger kids and even guys my you know my same age and just really share the knowledge so when we're on the field together uh we could just play it to our best of our ability Bob ID Fox 56 Sports