Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1276571
what we anticipate might be coming,
pay reductions are probably unavoid-
able."
As the department's revenues are de-
clining, some expenses are rising. One
of the new expenses that schools are
facing is the cost of testing athletes for
COVID, a necessary precaution if ath-
letics of any kind are going to take place
anytime soon. Earlier this summer, the
football, men's and women's basketball,
men's and women's soccer and women's
volleyball teams returned to campus to
begin working out. As of July 29, Penn
State had conducted 466 tests on stu-
dent-athletes. The athletic depart-
ment's protocol for the summer called
for athletes and staff to be tested upon
their arrival in University Park and, if
they leave, to be tested upon their re-
turn. Also, athletes and staff are to be
tested if they exhibit symptoms of
COVID.
The in-season safety protocols will re-
quire even more testing. The NCAA
Sport Science Institute issued guide-
lines in mid-July aimed at helping
schools return to competition. One of
the recommendations was that all ath-
letes in high-contact sports be tested at
some point in the three days leading up
to a game.
On a more hopeful note for Penn
State, the university has gotten some
help handing another unexpected ex-
pense. Barbour said that donors have
stepped up to defray the cost of offering
another year of scholarship aid to senior
student-athletes in the spring sports
whose careers would otherwise have
been cut short by the pandemic. The
NCAA opted to grant those athletes an
extra year of eligibility, and Barbour
said that 20 to 25 Penn State seniors
have chosen to return in 2021. She esti-
mated the cost of that extra scholarship
aid at between $600,000 and
$700,000.
"Obviously, that's not a small feat in
this really, really difficult time," she said.
"But our donors, our passionate Penn
Staters, have stepped up and completely
funded that cost for us and helped out in
our time of need."
■
ver since Penn State upset Ohio
State four years ago, setting up a
Big Ten championship run and a
return to national prominence, the
Nittany Lions' ultimate goal has been
to compete in the College Football
Playo;. That didn't happen in 2016,
even a=er the victory over the Buck-
eyes and a win vs. Wisconsin in the Big
Ten Championship Game. True to their
modern era legacy as all-too-frequent
bridesmaids, the Lions were :=h in the
CFP rankings coming out of the con-
ference title games and were le= to
wonder what it would take to play for
the national championship.
Since 1968, its third season under Joe
Paterno, Penn State has produced :ve
undefeated teams, but only one of
those teams :nished No. 1 in the polls.
That was the 1986 squad, which de-
feated Miami, 14-10, in the Fiesta Bowl
to cap a 12-0 season and claim the pro-
gram's second national title.
That history helps explain why so
many Penn State football fans were
unsurprised when the Nittany Lions
didn't make the four-team CFP :eld
a=er their Big Ten title. PSU also came
close in 2017 and again last season,
going 11-2 both years and :nishing
with top-10 rankings. But if there was
any disappointment over the team's
failure to secure a playo; spot either
year, it was tempered by the realization
that the Lions had only themselves to
blame for coming up short.
In 2017, it appeared that Penn State
was poised to break through. The Nit-
tany Lions were leading Ohio State, 35-
20, early in the fourth quarter of their
visit to Columbus and had just recov-
ered a fumble at the Buckeyes' 42-yard
line. A :eld goal would have given
them a three-score lead with less than
10 minutes to play, and a victory would
have put them in the driver's seat for a
spot in the Big Ten Championship
Game and a shot at the College Foot-
ball Playo;. But instead, Penn State
collapsed in the :nal eight minutes of
the game and ended up losing to the
Buckeyes, 39-38, and playing in the Fi-
esta Bowl against Washington.
Last year, PSU went into its game
against Minnesota on Nov. 9 sporting
an 8-0 record and the No. 4 ranking in
the :rst CFP poll of the season. But the
Lions played their worst game of the
season, losing to the Golden Gophers,
31-26, and falling out of contention for
the playo;.
This year, it's hard to know what to
make of the Lions' playo; chances,
since the pandemic forced the Big Ten in
July to radically alter its plans for the
season. League o