Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1254482
P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> the table. When you talk to him off the field, he's kind of calm, very collected. I'm excited to see him flip that switch when he gets on the field, have a little dog [mentality] come out of him. Ke- Andre, he wants it. He has something different in him. There might be some sort of different motivation for him. You can tell he wants it, and he's will- ing to put the work in to reach that goal. We talk about the process. He wants the process. He wants the hard stuff, he wants to get coached. He has the mentality of hating to lose, which is what I love. Everybody loves to win, but who hates to lose? … They've both been doing a great job, and I'm excited to see what they're going to do come this fall camp." The youth of the room is one of the reasons why Stubblefield isn't putting too much stock in what happened in the 2018 and '19, seasons in which the receivers struggled with dropped passes and an overall decline in pro- ductivity. After leading the Big Ten in passing offense in 2017, the Lions fell to seventh the following year and eighth last fall. The receivers have frequently been cited as Penn State's biggest question mark heading into the 2020 season, but as far as Stubblefield is concerned, their past difficulties aren't relevant to what the team wants to do going for- ward. "The players in the room right now, they didn't really play last year," he said. "I do think a lot of the attention to this room as underachieving – a lot of these guys in the room didn't play. Whatever is said about last year's team, which had a phenomenal year, this is 2020, and we have guys in this room who need to be ready to take the next step in their careers and just pro- duce, flat-out produce. I'm not talking to J.D. and saying, 'J.D., your route against Michigan really wasn't [right].' I'm not saying that to him because he didn't play. There are a lot of young guys, after being here a year, two years, they have to be ready to make a big play." ■ ANCHORMAN Menet, who opted to return after think- ing about leaving early for the NFL Draft, is getting ready for his third season as Penn State's starting cen- ter. Photo by Steve Manuel