Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1516624
1 4 M A R C H 2 0 2 4 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M "Penn State wrestling is a special thing, and we knew coming in here that one of the major draws was just the people and the sincerity and love of the program. Coach Lorenzo is as good as human beings get, just salt of the earth, hard-working. He's a big part of the reason the program has the sup- port that it has. It's because of the great job he did and the relationships that he built and just the love of the sport that he created. We want to try to add what little bit we can to what he did and, ob- viously, Coach Fritz, Coach Sunderland and everyone before them, but it means a lot to us." — Wrestling coach Cael Sander- son, saluting his three predeces- sors — Rich Lorenzo, John Fritz and Troy Sunderland — following Penn State's 1,000th victory as a program "We have younger guys who are will- ing to listen and want to get better. If you have that within the guys, it's eas- ier to bring them along. All around the building, the guys are working harder. The young kids are looking at them, and that's making them work harder. That's pushing us to a different level." — Junior safety Kevin Winston Jr. on the competition this offseason in Penn State's secondary "I was scared, I'm not going to lie. I talked to my mom every day about it, stressing about it. She told me that this was the first grown-man decision that I had to make. This is my future. I want to become successful, and I don't want anything to go wrong. I was thinking negatively about it for so long. There was so much flying in my direction. She told me, 'You've got to do this for yourself. Any decision you make, I'm going to be proud of you.' Once I heard that, it was OK, I knew what I really wanted to do." — Redshirt freshman linebacker Kaveion Keys, recalling his decision to flip his verbal commitment from North Carolina to Penn State in De- cember 2022 "At the end of the day, whether it's high school or the transfer portal, we don't make promises. Guys are going to have to come in here and compete and earn jobs. We're not making promises and offers to guys that they are going to come in here and start. They have to earn it." — James Franklin on recruiting "Franklin's tenure in State College has featured a lot of winning. He picked up where Bill O'Brien left off in compiling four 11-win seasons. However, in the Nittany Lions' most prominent games under Franklin, there hasn't been a lot of winning. With the College Football Playoff expanding from four to 12, Penn State has a great opportunity to break through with both Michigan and Or- egon not on the schedule and Ohio State coming to Beaver Stadium in 2024. It just needs to find a way to close out against the better teams on the sched- ule." — E S P N . c o m w r i t e r B l a k e Baumgartner, who included James Franklin on his list of coaches with "the most to prove in 2024" along- side Alabama's Kalen DeBoer, North Carolina's Mack Brown, Florida's Billy Napier, USC's Lincoln Riley and Ohio State's Ryan Day They Said It Heading into the final weeks of the regular season, first-year coach Mike Rhoades had led the Nittany Lion men's bas- ketball team to a 14-14 record and a 8-9 mark in Big Ten play. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL "We got beat today by a team with a culture. It's a well-established culture, as we all know. It's probably the best in the Big Ten. That's what we've got to get to someday. That's what we've got to emulate. "We had some fight in the second half. Not enough. Too far behind. Throughout this year, we've showed that we have some really good bas - ketball in us. It's won us some games in the Big Ten. We're not an easy out. But we're not good enough to beat programs with real culture, great cul- ture. That's where we've got to fight to get to, and today was an example of that." — Men's basketball coach Mike Rhoades, following Penn State's 80- 72 loss to Michigan State on Feb. 14 at the Bryce Jordan Center