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P O S T S E A S O N P R E V I E W >> P E N N S T A T E though no one knew it at the time, one of the key elements in the Nittany Lions' football reconstruction project had just fallen into place. Nearly five years have passed since McSorley made that decision. In ad- dition to going 31-8 as a starting quarterback, he's picked up a degree in accounting and has also taken some broadcast journalism classes so that he can stay around the game in some capacity for as long as possible – if not as a player, then maybe as a com- mentator or coach. Looking back on his Penn State ca- reer, the accomplishment that fills him with the most pride is the pro- gram's return to national prominence. It's easy to forget given the team's re- cent successes that when McSorley arrived in 2014, the Lions were banned from playing in bowl games. There was speculation that even when the NCAA's ban elapsed, the team would need years, maybe decades, to break out of the glut of December bowls named after auto parts stores and lawnmower manu- facturers and whatever Belk is. But as it turned out, their next stop after the TaxSlayer Bowl in 2016 was the Rose. "I think that's probably what I'm most proud of," McSorley said, "how far this team has come over those five years from where we started to where we're going to be finishing up this year, and all the things we've been able to accomplish over my time." Had anyone dared to suggest in the second quarter of the 2016 TaxSlayer Bowl that Penn State was about to take a rocket ride back to the top of the Big Ten, they would likely have been buried under an avalanche of Twitter mockery. But as it turned out, McSorley was only a few short months away from silencing all those doubters. And to hear his head coach tell it, there was never anything sur- prising about his success. "I couldn't be more impressed," Franklin said. "But I'm not surprised by it. I'm not shocked by it whatso- ever. He's built for this." ■ J ames Franklin may be an eternal opti- mist, but even he was expecting to strike out with Koa Farmer. Considering how badly the four-star prospect's trip to State College had gone, it seemed in- evitable. Farmer, a Southern California native, had known Franklin from the coach's previous tenure at Vanderbilt. When Franklin was hired by Penn State in Jan- uary 2014, he began pursuing some of the elite prospects with whom he had developed relationships, frantically working to complete a recruiting class that was still far from finished when Bill O'Brien had left for the Houston Texans a few weeks earlier. Farmer had been committed to Cal for more than a year but was feeling restless after a coaching change, and Franklin persuaded him to board a cross-country flight in late Jan- uary to take an official visit to PSU. Things were looking up. But Farmer's arrival in Philadelphia coincided with a heavy snowfall, and his connecting flight to University Park was canceled. Forced to improvise, he and his parents got a car at the airport and began driving. They eventually got to Penn State, but as the snow kept falling, so did Franklin's hopes. "I was like, there's no way in heck we're getting this kid," the coach re- called. "But then he said yes." Despite the travel difficulties, Farmer did indeed accept a spot in Penn State's Class of 2014. After bouncing back and forth between safety and linebacker his first few years on campus, he found a permanent home at outside linebacker, earning 25 starts the past two seasons and finishing the 2018 regular season as Penn State's seventh-leading tackler with 51 stops. Along the way, he helped groom rising star Micah Parsons for a much bigger role beginning next season – an example of the leadership that he's shown since the early days of his college career. "He's maximized his Penn State expe- rience," Franklin said. "He's got a really strong group of friends that he came in with, and he's done unbelievably well academically. He's had great support from Mom and Dad. They've made the sacrifice coming from California to sup- port him whenever they can." On senior day against Maryland last month, Farmer was one of 21 players to whom Penn State bid farewell. Of that group, nine were scholarship players in Franklin's first recruiting class. Two of those players – quarterback Trace McSor- ley and cornerback Amani Oruwariye – had originally planned on joining Franklin at Vanderbilt. Five others – running backs Mark Allen, Johnathan Thomas and Nick Scott, receiver DeAndre Thompkins and offensive lineman Chasz Wright – had been recruited by O'Brien. Farmer and defensive end Torrence Brown joined the class in the final days of the recruiting cycle after having previously been com- mitted to other schools. "These guys hold a special place with me, because a lot of those guys were ei- ther committed to Penn State when I got the job or were committed to me at Van- derbilt and came with us," Franklin said. "So it's an interesting group. Next year will be the first year where the entire class is guys who we recruited. This is the last class that is kind of a split. … It's been kind of a neat mix of the old and the new, and these guys have been the glue that's held this thing together." One of the players who helped bridge the transition between the O'Brien and Franklin coaching eras was Scott. The 5- foot-11, 200-pound athlete from Fair- fax, Va., had been one of the first players Lions' senior class lauded for role in reviving program |

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