Blue White Illustrated

petition in the fall sports that were shut down last year due to the pandemic. It's not easy to play outdoor soccer in the winter months in central Pennsylvania, so the men's and women's soccer teams opened their home seasons in Holuba Hall. In addition, the women's lacrosse squad opened against Rutgers in Hol- uba. As winter gives way to spring, the cold and snow will (hopefully) abate and those teams will be able to return to Jeffrey Field and Panzer Stadium, respectively, on a full-time basis. But the unpredictable weather this time of year will affect their practice and game day needs and could complicate the scheduling process for Holuba Hall. –Matt Herb 5 Will there be a Blue-White Game to wrap up spring drills this year? As of this writing, Penn State hadn't ruled out the possibility of a spring game. While Barbour cautioned a cou- ple of months ago that a hypothetical Blue-White Game might have to be played in a mostly empty Beaver Sta- dium, much like the 2020 season, she was careful to keep all of her options open. "I think it's too early to tell right now in terms of what the conditions are going to be. If it were to be today, we would be limited to about 2,500 in Beaver Stadium," she said in late Janu- ary. "It would be limited to families of players and staff." It's been a couple of months since Barbour made those comments, and the situation has improved. On March 1, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf an- nounced he was rolling back restric- tions on public gatherings. Under the new order, outdoor venues can be filled up to 20 percent of capacity. Beaver Stadium's official capacity is 106,572, which means that about 23,000 fans could attend the Blue-White Game. The question then becomes a finan- cial one. Would Penn State make money off a spring game that is much more lightly attended than usual and would generate less in parking and concessions revenue? If the answer is no, it's hard to imagine the athletic de- partment going forward with a game in a time of austerity. Another question is whether the coaching staff even wants a spring game. The appeal of the Blue-White Game has always been rooted in its history as an unofficial spring reunion weekend for Penn State grads. It's also been a great recruiting opportunity for the coaching staff. But it's not how the staff would conduct practice if left to its own devices. Bill O'Brien was forthright about his desire for a more conventional practice rather than a simulated game with fans and TV cameras. And while Franklin has ex- pressed more enthusiasm for the game than his predecessor did – it would be hard to have less enthusiasm for it than O'Brien had – it's possible that he, too, would prefer to wrap up spring drills with a standard practice session. So if the staff is lukewarm and there's little or no money to be made, will we get a game? Seems iffy. But if we've learned anything over the past year, it's that absolutely noth- ing can be ruled out. It didn't seem as though there was going to be a Big Ten season in 2020 until, suddenly, there was going to be a season. The same imperative that yielded a fall season could conceivably yield a spring game, too. If, for example, the Big Ten Net- work were to decide that it wants some live football programming in April, maybe there will be a push for confer- ence teams to at least have a televised scrimmage, if not an actual game. The only certainty as of early March was that the university was running out of time to make a decision. Could there be a spring game? Sure, anything is possible. Will there be a spring game? To quote one Penn State football insider, "Don't hold your breath." –Matt Herb ■ L eft with a broken back and a concus- sion, Juice Scruggs has had to deal with immense implications from his one-car automobile accident in the spring of 2019. The accident derailed Scruggs' Penn State playing career before it had even started, forcing the second-year offensive lineman to confront the prospect of a long and arduous return to the field. And there was no guarantee that he would be able to return at all. His story, that of a develop- ing four-star prospect, ranked as Rivals.com's No. 19 guard in the Class of 2018, was now defined by his accident, its damaging effects and his quest to over- come them. So when he earned his first snaps of the 2020 season against Maryland on Nov. 7, nearly two full years after he had last seen the field at the end of his true freshman season, there was elation throughout the team, reflecting the combination of tire- less work and modern medicine that had made the moment possible. "Our trainer got up in front of the team and got emotional about it," coach James Franklin said. "That was a serious car ac- cident, so to see that kid battle back and sacrifice and do all the things that he had to do to get back in a position to be able to play, and be able to play at a high level, [has been remarkable]. "It's also amazing what medicine can do now, what doctors and hospitals are able to do now. It's pretty amazing that that >> Scruggs' recovery bodes well for Lions' OL BY NATE BAUER nbauer@bluewhiteonline.com

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