Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1516624
M A R C H 2 0 2 4 7 3 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M number of outstanding newcomers in his recruiting class. Linebacker Greg Buttle and guard Tom Rafferty would both go on to become first-team All-Americans, and Buttle would finish his career as the program's all-time leading tackler. Nei- ther one saw a single varsity snap in their first year on campus. The following season, however, the coaching staff was forced to relent. After a series of injuries in the backfield, the Lions turned to freshman Duane Taylor in their visit to Syracuse on Oct. 20. Tay- lor didn't start the game, but the first- year tailback scored a touchdown and was part of another scoring play when he fumbled after a 20-yard gain and watched as teammate Dan Natale picked up the loose ball and sprinted the rest of the way for a 92-yard TD. Penn State went on to rout the Orange, 49-6. Making His Case Although he was opposed to fresh- man eligibility, Paterno wasn't about to unilaterally disarm. If Penn State's oppo- nents were going to play their freshmen, he was going to use his own first-year players if he felt they were ready for the physical and mental challenge of seeing action. As noted by historian Lou Prato in his Penn State Football Encyclopedia, tight end Randy Sidler became the first PSU true freshman in 23 years to start a varsity game when he took over for the injured Natale against Army on Oct. 5, 1974. Si- dler had an 18-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter, and Penn State held on for a 21-14 victory. The passing game also got a lift that year from the emergence of freshman re- ceiver Jimmy Cefalo. Hailing from nearby Pittston, Pa., Cefalo had been heavily re- cruited, and he wasted little time showing that the accolades had been well deserved, totaling 472 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns in his first college campaign. By the 1980s, the practice of using true freshmen in key roles was no longer con- troversial, even at Penn State. In 1983, D.J. Dozier led the Nittany Lions in rush- ing with 1,002 yards. Five years later, the Lions' leading passer was a true fresh- man, with Tony Sacca taking over due to injuries at the quarterback position and throwing for 821 yards. Through it all, though, Paterno never wavered in his belief that college football would be better off if freshmen were pro- hibited from seeing action. In his 1989 autobiography, "Paterno By The Book," he laid out his case. "I know I'm in a relatively small mi- nority in urging that," he wrote, "but I think it's wrong to allow a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old kid to check into col- lege and immediately get swallowed up by the kind of football played at Division I-A schools. "At some schools, a freshman plays his first game before he attends his first class. He's surrounded so immediately by ath- letes and gets immersed so fast in a train- ing schedule, he has almost no chance to form friendships with other students, particularly in a school where he is segre- gated in an athletic dorm. "At Penn State, we try to compensate for the freshman's culture shock by put- ting him through mandatory seminars, hoping they'll teach him in a hurry what he really needs a full year of actual expe- rience to learn right. We try to help him understand his responsibility to the team and to himself to present a healthy image to other students who watch him." A big part of Paterno's attempt to de- pressurize the freshman experience at Penn State involved shielding newcomers from media attention. First-year play- ers didn't appear in the media guide, and they were rarely brought up at the team's weekly press conferences, unless they were playing such prominent roles that the topic couldn't be avoided, as was the case with Dozier and Sacca. The program's effort to protect its freshmen began on Day 1. PSU eschewed the signing day press conferences that were customary at other schools, and for many years it declined to even release a list of the team's signees. When Penn State beat reporters set out to write their signing day stories, they would typically call Blue White Illustrated to learn about the freshman class; then-publisher Phil Grosz was a dogged chronicler of verbal commitments and the go-to source for anything recruiting-related. In that respect, this year's quiet sign- ing day was something of a throwback, a reminder of a time when PSU could treat one of the most important events of the football calendar as if it barely existed. No one in the media said or wrote a lot about the official end of the 2024 recruit- ing cycle, and much of Penn State's fan following was preoccupied with basket- ball and wrestling. Joe Paterno probably would have loved it. ■ Decades after freshmen were declared eligible by the NCAA, Joe Paterno was still arguing for their exclusion. "I think it's wrong to allow a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old kid to check into college and immediately get swallowed up by the kind of football played at Division I-A schools," he wrote in his autobiography. PHOTO COURTESY PENN STATE ATHLETICS