Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/144988
CAMERA READY Hackenberg has grown accustomed to media attention, but he isn't paying it much mind going into his first season at Penn State. Rivals tainly he'd love to give a kid with NFL potential a pressure-free year to learn the offense, but because that luxury is nonexistent, and because Hackenberg is that good, the true freshman has an excellent shot at winning the job. For his part, Hackenberg makes no effort to overplay exactly how ready he is. "I've basically been doing the same things I've always been doing: throwing, running, lifting three or four times a week, just trying to be as prepared as I can be physically," he said in May. "As far as the playbook, I'm looking that over, but I really feel like my growth from that standpoint will be once I get up there and start working with coaches and actually taking reps." Ferguson has about half a year on Hackenberg on that front, of course, and the summer arrival knows he can't do anything about that. Instead, he watched a lot of New England Patriot games last fall in an effort to pick up on Tom Brady's cadences, and he fo- cused on learning from and with his competition – fellow freshmen D.J. Crook and Austin Whipple, as well as Ferguson – in conversations during the spring. "I kind of view it as a study group," he said. "You've gotta be a competitor, but you're still teammates. You've got to have each other's backs." Otherwise, he spent his spring throwing – a baseball as a pitcher and infielder for the Fork Union varsity, and passes with some of his old receivers. He said he's now a shade over 6-4 and pushing 225, slightly taller and heavier than he's listed on Penn State's official depth chart. All in all, he figures he's as ready as he can be for college football without having suited up for a single college practice. "I'm confident in what I can do, and I'm just really focused on maximizing my skills, getting up there and letting the coaching staff evaluate me," he said. "It's about trying to put yourself into position to be that guy, and if you're not that guy, working your butt off to be that guy." There is always a chance he won't be ready, or that Ferguson might simply be better, good enough to claim the job in August and hold onto it indefinitely. There's a chance that Hackenberg, having been such an important name and face for Penn State these past 18 months, won't achieve the success that the recruiting geeks have foreseen. He would hardly be the first five-star recruit to fade into the background. It happens all the time. But it's hard to imagine such a scenario. Hackenberg seems too talented and too determined. He's also too important to the story, an integral character in the wildly compelling tale of where Penn State football has been, where it is now, and where it's going. He hasn't been part of the story for all that long, but by now, it's hard to imagine the plot moving forward withI out him.