Blue White Illustrated

to leave Toronto to get a shot. He needed an American prep school, and just before his junior year, he and his mom heard of one near Buffalo, N.Y., that was taking international students. Better yet, it was less than a two-hour drive from home. "The first six weeks, I was down there every weekend," McCoy said. Gradually, she realized that her son had found a new home – not just at St. Francis High School, but with the family of one of his friends. "They took him as their child," she TYLER FERGUSON Patrick Mansell said. "They loved him so much." Lynch played only four games his junior season because of a finger injury that needed surgery, but he still rushed for more than 800 yards. By his senior year, he was a three-star prospect. He rushed for 2,131 yards and 25 touchdowns in his final season and was named the New York Gatorade Player of the Year for 2011. When her son had left for Buffalo, McCoy had dragged out the old blue jacket, given it to him and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if you ended up going to vealed that he was transferring. He had been told by O'Brien that Ferguson and freshman recruit Christian Hackenberg would battle for the starting position in August, and that he was the odd man out. Rather than settle for a backup role, he decided to take advantage of the NCAA's transfer waiver in hope of finding a better fit somewhere else. All of which makes Ferguson the leading contender for the starting job, at least for now. "Only because he's been here and he's been through 15 spring practices," O'Brien said, "and countless meetings." Hackenberg will arrive with the rest of the freshmen in late June. The five-star prospect has been given strength and conditioning information and a basic playbook and has been able to talk to the coaching staff on the phone since signing his letter of intent in February. But now that summer is almost here, the usual prohibitions apply: Players can only work with the strength coaches and must organize their own unsupervised passing drills. Neither the strength coaches nor the position coaches can watch those drills, but players are well aware of how important they are. O'Brien said he expects Hack- Penn State?" He wasn't highly recruited by the Nittany Lions, and he originally chose Boston College. But after O'Brien took over, the staff made contact with Lynch, who decided to play for the first "big football" school he had ever heard of. And then came the NCAA sanctions. "People told him, 'You've got to get out of there.' " McCoy said. "But he said, 'Mom, I'm not leaving.' " Like most high-school hotshots, he came to Penn State wanting to play right away. And when Silas Redd trans- enberg "to jump right into that." He added that the freshman will have a bit of catching up to do once he settles in at Penn State. "You would obviously say that Tyler would be a little bit ahead of him right now going into training camp," O'Brien said. "But the job will be between those two guys." Neither Ferguson nor Bench appeared in the media room following the Blue-White Game, nor did quarterbacks coach Charlie Fisher. With the team's two most buzzed-about players absent, their teammates were forced to do the talking for them. Receiver Allen Robinson said he's tried to spend time with Ferguson in the film room to help him get acclimated to Penn State football. He said other players have reached out to the native Californian as he looks to establish himself on campus, including veteran offensive linemen Howle and Urschel. "As a team, we've tried to take him under our wing," Robinson said. "We know how hard it can be for someone who's far from home, especially coming in January. He's definitely gotten acclimated with the team. … We're just doing some small things to help him get caught up with where we left off last fall. I think he's done a good job of picking that up."

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