Blue White Illustrated

iors who were honored before Penn State's regular-season finale against Rut- gers. He accepted his bouquet and his ovation, then went out and made seven tackles as the Nittany Lions shrugged off a slow start to put away the Scarlet Knights, 27-6. That group of honorees included only seven of the 25 scholarship players who had signed with Penn State in February 2015. In addition to Brown, an experi- enced outside linebacker who received third-team All-Big Ten recognition ear- lier this month, Penn State saluted tight end Nick Bowers, guard Steven Gonzalez, cornerback John Reid, safety Garrett Tay- lor, defensive tackle Robert Windsor and quarterback Jake Zembiec. The other honorees included a number of players who had arrived as walk-ons (receivers Dan Chisena and Colton Maxwell, running back Nick Eury, line- backer Jan Johnson, offensive lineman Hunter Kelly, quarterback Michael Shus- ter and kicker Justin Tobin). It included a graduate transfer (receiver Weston Carr). And it included a Class of 2016 recruit who hadn't redshirted at any point in his career (punter Blake Gillikin). The group did not include the 18 play- ers in the Class of 2015 who had left the team before the start of the current sea- son. Some of those players opted to enter the NFL before using up their college el- igibility. Others ran into academic or dis- ciplinary problems. One player – juco transfer offensive lineman Paris Palmer – arrived with only two seasons of eligi- bility. Another – linebacker Jake Cooper – exhausted his eligibility in four years, and still another – defensive end Ryan Buchholz – had to give up the sport for health reasons. But most of the attrition was the result of transfers, with 10 players leaving for other schools. Some of those players, such as Oregon-bound receiver Juwan Johnson and Mississippi State-bound quarterback Tommy Stevens, resurfaced at other Power Five schools. Other play- ers, such as Brandon Polk (James Madi- son), Irvin Charles (IUP) and Andre Robinson (Delaware), opted to downsize in search of more playing time. One fact of life at high-level programs like Penn State's is that even four- and five-star prospects often have to exhibit considerable patience while waiting for their chance to get on the field. That was the case for Taylor. A four-star defensive back from Richmond, Va., he made his biggest impact on special teams his first two active seasons as he transitioned from cornerback to safety. It wasn't until his redshirt junior season that he became a starter in the secondary. Others have had similar experiences, and those can be sobering realizations for players who ex- pected to shoot right to the top of the depth chart. "I think a lot of young guys come in and they expect it to be like a night-and-day thing where you see the results immedi- ately," Taylor said. "But it's a lot of hard work and it takes a lot of time. I think a lot of guys can get lost in that process, and some guys can give up easily, so I think having the patience to see it through and stick to your process, stick to your plan, [is important]. That's the hardest thing about it, because you're not going to see the results right away. For me, it's been going on five years now, so it's hard and it takes patience. I think if you have the dis- cipline and the dedication to see that through, it's worth it." The players in the Class of 2015 not only had to show patience to get the in- dividual results they wanted, they also had to give the program time to get back on its feet. When the class signed its letters of in- tent in February 2015, the Nittany Lions were less than three years removed from the imposition of major NCAA sanc- tions. James Franklin had gone 7-6 in his first season, with an overtime victory over Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl – a victory made possible by the NCAA's decision to cut short the team's postseason ban. The comeback win over the Eagles sent Penn State into the off- season with a gust of momentum, but there were no assurances at that point that the program was headed back to the top of the Big Ten. As Franklin said re- cently of his fifth-year seniors, "They committed to Penn State at a time when maybe it wasn't as easy of a decision to commit to Penn State." Every college choice is, to one degree or another, a leap of faith. There are no as- surances of individual or team success. But at some programs, the odds are better than at others, and Penn State at the time was working to re-establish itself as one of those programs where the odds of team success were pretty good. Over the next couple of years, they did that. They settled for another 7-6 finish in 2015 but began seeing signs of progress that year, thanks partly to the emergence of the Class of 2015's marquee recruit, Saquon Barkley. The following year, everything came to- gether, as the Lions went 11-3, won the Big Ten championship and played in the Rose Bowl. Since that breakthrough sea- son, they've been one of the country's more consistently successful teams, put- ting together a combined record of 30-8 in 2017, '18 and '19, with a Fiesta Bowl victory over Washington and a matchup against Memphis in the Cotton Bowl coming up on Dec. 28. Penn State's 41-11 record during the past four seasons makes this year's senior class PSU's winningest since the 1997 graduating class went 41- 8. Only seven 2015 recruits were on hand for all of those 41 victories, and Franklin has a special appreciation for them. Some, like Gonzalez, found success early on and became fixtures in the starting lineup; others had to overcome any num- ber of challenges. Bowers, in particular, had to show fortitude, as he fought back from a series of injuries that delayed his debut until a visit to Northwestern in No- vember 2017. The Kittanning, Pa., native stuck it out and enjoyed a healthy senior season. He goes into the Cotton Bowl as Penn State's fourth-leading receiver with 214 yards and three touchdowns on 10 catches. "Bowers is a young man who we were really excited about as a freshman and was doing some great things," Franklin said. "And he gets an injury and he sec- ond-guesses things and he has doubts and concerns and his family does, and we talk and we communicate and we battle P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >>

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