Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1505736
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 3 17 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M By The Numbers 0 Visits to Oregon by Penn State in the Nittany Lions' 136-year football history. The Lions have faced their soon-to-be Big Ten rivals four times over the years, but never in Eugene. The two teams met for the first time in the 1960 Liberty Bowl, with PSU winning 41-12 in Philadel- phia. Penn State opened with a 17-7 win over the Ducks in Portland three years later but lost to them the following sea- son, 22-14, in State College. The most recent meeting was in the 1995 Rose Bowl, a 38-20 Penn State victory best remem- bered for KI-JANA CARTER'S 83-yard touchdown gallop on the first play from scrimmage. 3 . 2 8 The collective grade-point average for Penn State student-athletes during the 2023 spring semester. It was the best spring GPA in school history, and it was made possible, in part, by another record-breaking performance: 100 student-athletes posted 4.0 GPAs for the semester, 13 of whom have maintained 4.0 cumulative GPAs during their time at Penn State. The women's lacrosse team was Penn State's top-perform- ing squad in the classroom this past spring with a 3.68 GPA. Coming in just behind the Nittany Lion laxers were the wom- en's swimming and diving and women's gymnastics teams, with GPAs of 3.65 and 3.59, respectively. On the men's side, the PSU golf team fared best, with a combined 3.44 GPA. 4 t h Penn State's projected finish in the preseason Big Ten women's volleyball coaches' poll. The Nittany Lions, who went 26-8 overall and 13-7 in conference play in Katie Schumacher-Cawley's first season as head coach, were picked behind Wisconsin, Nebraska and Minnesota. The defending league champion Badgers received 13 of 14 first- place votes. Graduate setter Mac Podraza and senior outside hitter Jess Mruzik both made the preseason All-Big Ten team, with Po- draza one of three unanimous selections. 5 Penn State alumnae who took part in the FIFA Women's World Cup. Headlining that blue-and-white quintet was goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, who was making her third World Cup appearance for the United States. Other former Nit- tany Lions who were on hand for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand were midfielders Raquel Rodriguez (Costa Rica) and Marissa Sheva (Ireland), and forwards Olivia Smith (Canada) and Laura Freigang (Germany). 1 1 t h Junior cornerback Kalen King's ranking among the top 50 players in college football this year, as determined by Pro Football Focus. PFF notes that King led all cornerbacks nationally with a 93.7 grade in single coverage during the 2022 season. Two other Penn State players appear in PFF's top 50, with junior offensive tackle Olumuyiwa Fashanu at No. 14 and ju- nior defensive end Chop Robinson at No. 19. 1 3 p e rce n t Olumuyiwa Fashanu's chance of being the No. 1 overall pick in next year's NFL Draft, according to ESPN analyst Jordan Reid. The junior offensive tackle trails only quarterbacks Caleb Williams of USC (25 percent) and Drake Maye of North Carolina (20 percent) in ESPN's calculations. "Quarterbacks understandably dominate the top of the draft board going into the season," Reid writes, "but if a team that currently has a young signal-caller lands the No. 1 selection and can't move down the board, Fashanu would likely be in consideration." 1 5 t h Penn State's spot in the final standings for the Learfield Directors' Cup. PSU tallied 986 points and ranked third among Big Ten schools, trailing only Ohio State (third overall, 1,170.75 points) and Michigan (11th, 1,045.75). Stanford won the all-sports competition with 1,412 points. PSU's top-scoring teams during the 2022-23 athletic year were the national-championship-winning wrestling squad with 100 points, followed by the men's lacrosse and field hockey squads, which both earned 83 points after reaching the semifinals of their respective NCAA Tournaments. $ 1 0 . 1 m i l l i o n The value of Saquon Barkley's new one-year contract with the New York Giants. Barkley had considered sitting out the season after he wasn't able to reach an agree- ment with the team for a multiyear contract but will instead play the 2023 season under an adjusted franchise tag. He'll have a chance to earn $1 million in additional incentives, but the one-year pact was not what he wanted and could leave him in the same position next summer. "We didn't get a deal done," Barkley told reporters in New York. "Me and my [negotiating] team felt we were in good faith trying to get a deal done. The Giants felt they were in good faith trying to get a deal done. That's life. Sometimes you don't come to an agreement." PHOTO COURTESY PENN STATE ATHLETICS