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O F F - S E A S O N R E P O R T coaches to evaluate the work that is being done. When Menet was asked re- cently about getting feedback, he ad- mitted that "it's pretty tough because of the situation." But even though some schools are going to be reopening earlier than others, everyone is coping with the loss of sev- eral months of on-campus training. The schools that do the best job of keeping players active and engaged are going to be well-positioned whenever football re- sumes. To borrow another famous quote, one that's been attributed to Vince Lom- bardi, Joe Paterno, Bob Knight and Field- ing Yost, among others, the will to win is not nearly so important as the will to prepare to win. Franklin said that because all activities since the start of the lockdown have been voluntary, there is likely to be a bigger disparity than usual in players' fitness levels once they get back on cam- pus. "I think what you're going to see when they return is that the gap between the guys who are really self-driven and motivated and the guys who need the structure and discipline of the program is going to widen," he said. "I think that's naturally just going to happen. ... Fortunately for us, we've got so many guys who are driven and motivated." Fries is one of those guys. Unable to practice with his teammates, he has been competing against himself, writing down his workout numbers and chal- lenging himself to surpass them next time. Said Fries, "When you go back and look at what you did last week, you try to beat those numbers. OK, I did this work- out last week, what can I do this week to get bigger and stronger? Same thing with conditioning. I did 10 sprints to finish last week? Let's do 12. That inner competition is how I've been gauging progress on my own." That's a useful lifehack for any athlete, but a bit of external encouragement can also go a long way. One of the keys to preventing players from falling behind is to make sure that their relationships en- courage accountability. Menet said Penn State has had that kind of culture in place since before he arrived in 2016. "We're going to be really hardworking, we're going to be self-accountable and we're going to hold each other account- able," he said. "That goes from top to bottom. If a freshman walks on campus and sees me doing something I shouldn't – which he wouldn't, because I pride myself on not doing that – he would 100 percent have the right to step up and say something to me. I think that's the biggest thing for us. We all want to work hard and get better each and every day. That's always been our mentality since I got here." These past few months of forced isola- tion may end up having a few tangible benefits for players. Menet said that he's gotten better at the sort of visualization techniques that Franklin was extolling even before the pandemic hit. Even though he's not doing walk-throughs with his teammates, he can picture where everyone is supposed to be and how defenders will attack him, and those mental reps can't help but build a sense of awareness and anticipation that will improve his game. "I do it pretty much every day," Menet said, "just run- ning through plays, that kind of stuff. It's definitely the biggest positive that I've gained from this." For now, the season itself requires some of those same visualization tech- niques. It still exists, but in a more ab- stract form than usual. As of this writing, the Nittany Lions were still set to open at home on Sept. 5 against Kent State, but the status of that game is as cloudy as everything else right now. The Lions may also be wondering about their matchup against San Jose State in late September. The California State Univer- sity system announced in May that it would conduct most of its classes re- motely in the fall, raising questions about whether its schools would be able to field athletic teams. Fries and Menet both said they haven't thought much about the possibility that the season won't happen, and it's proba- bly for the best that they and their team- mates aren't dwelling on worst-case scenarios. After all, the Nittany Lions want to emerge from the shutdown in the best possible shape, and that means preparing for any contingency, including the possibility that the season will take place roughly as scheduled this fall. "My opinion honestly really doesn't matter for this," Menet said. "There are tons of health care professionals, people who do this stuff for a living, who are going to be the ones who make the deci- sion about when it's safest for everybody to get back. It definitely would be a little bit weird playing under some of the cir- cumstances [that have been proposed], but I think at the end of the day, we all just want to play football, and we're waiting till somebody gives us the OK to do that." Added Fries, "There's nothing I can do about it. It's out of my control, and all I can do is keep preparing for whatever the next opportunity is. I think at some point, with the guidance and safety of health officials, we'll be back. I'm look- ing forward to it, whenever that time comes." ■

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