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Paterno's first two teams in 1966 and 1967. Whenever fans talk about the best quarterbacks in Penn State history, Kerry Collins and Todd Blackledge usually head the list. Chuck Fusina and John Hufnagel are in the mix as well, and Shuman often is an afterthought. Yet it is doubtful Penn State would have won 12 games, including an exciting 16-9 victory over LSU in the Orange Bowl, if not for Shuman's passing and leadership. Despite not playing as a freshman (they were ineligible at the time) and not playing enough to earn a letter as a sophomore in 1972, Shuman had a marvelous junior season, throwing for 1,375 yards, the thirdbest total in Penn State history at the time, behind Hufnagel (2,039 yards in 1972) and Sherman (1,616 yards in 1967). He also threw 12 touchdown passes that season, and with his 15 the following year (and one in 1972), Shuman set a team record with 28 career scoring passes. Today, one can hardly find Shuman's name in the record book because Penn State's passing offense has changed so much in the past 15 years. But he is still ninth in career touchdown passes, second in career touchdown pass efficiency (7.67), fifth in career passing efficiency (136.68) and 10th in lowest career interception percentage (3.29). It was Hufnagel who kept Shuman on the bench as a sophomore. Hufnagel finished sixth in the Heisman voting in 1972 as he led the Lions to a 10-1 record and a berth in the Sugar Bowl. With Cappelletti sidelined by the flu, the Lions lost that Sugar Bowl game to Oklahoma, 14-0. But nine offensive starters returned the following year, and it was up to Shuman to continue the success Hufnagel had enjoyed after becoming the starting quarterback midway through the 1970 season. However, Shuman was not sharp in spring practice and threw five interceptions in two public scrimmages. And in the preseason, he admitted he was concerned, telling The Daily Collegian, "I don't know how to react to the big game. I can't play unless I'm psyched, and I can't get psyched for practice." Forty years later, Shuman cannot remember having a bad spring or preseason practice. What he does remember is the team's first game against Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif. "I felt absolutely as confident as I could be stepping onto the field that first game out at Stanford because I felt that I was very well prepared," Shuman said recently from his home in Plano, Texas. "I even tell folks today that when I played little league football and through high school I'd get butterflies in my tummy before the games. Then you go on to play college football with 60,000 people or more at most games and I was never nervous and never had a single butterfly. I walked onto the field confident at Stanford that I was going to perform well and the team was going to perform well, and we were going to have a lot of success that day." As a national television audience watched, the Lions dominated Stanford on both sides of the ball, winning 206. Shuman threw for a touchdown and a two-point conversion in completing 11 of 18 passes without an interception and was named by ABC-TV the offensive player of the game. Cappelletti had what would turn out to be his second-worst game of the year, gaining only 76 yards on 26 carries, including a 2-yard touchdown, and fumbling twice. Meanwhile Penn State's defense, a mix of veterans and talented underclassmen, held Stanford to minus-8 yards rushing and sacked their highly touted quarterback Mike Boryla (the nation's fourth-leading passer in 1972) seven times. Stanford barely avoided a shutout with a touchdown in the last two minutes against the Lions' reserves. "I believe it was all due to preparation," Shuman said. "The coaches really had us prepared to go out there on the field and execute and do our best." One of those coaches was Shuman's new quarterbacks coach, Bob Phillips. George Welsh, the offensive backfield coach who helped recruit Shuman out of Pottstown (Pa.) High School, left at the end of the 1972 season to be the head coach at his alma mater, Navy. Phillips, who had been coaching the offensive line and receivers, took over the offensive backs in the spring. "Bob Phillips had a tremendous amount of influence on me throughout the rest of my career," Shuman said. "Bob was like having your dad in State College with you. He was a great guy, always very supportive and always helping to build your confidence." Penn State's overpowering victory over Stanford solidified preseason judgments that the seventh-ranked Lions could contend for the national championship. But after two more relatively easy wins – over Navy and Iowa – many sportswriters figured Penn State would not get past a strong Air Force team in the high altitude of Colorado Springs. Air Force, which had won its first two games, scored first on a field goal, but with the running of Cappelletti, the passing of Shuman and an aggressive defense, the Lions won, 19-9. Cappelletti ran for 187 yards and two touchdowns on 34 carries, and the ABC regional TV announcers were so impressed they mentioned the magic word "Heisman" several times. Shuman threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to his favorite receiver, Gary Hayman, as he completed 12 of 20 passes with one interception. The game would be the turning point of the season. "Like all other games, we went out on the field confident that we were going to do our job, execute and win the ballgame," Shuman said. I don't remember the altitude bothering us at all. We expected to do well and win the ballgame, and we did." The next two games were somewhat embarrassing for traditional Eastern rivals Army and Syracuse. The Lions defeated Army, 54-3, as Cappelletti gained 151 yards on 17 carries, and then smashed Syracuse, 49-6, with Cappelletti on the sideline nursing an injury. It was the next week against a good West Virginia team when the nation's sportswriters began to take Cappelletti seriously as a Heisman Trophy candidate. He scored four touchdowns and gained 130 yards on 24 carries in a 62-14 romp over the visiting Mountaineers. Within a day or two, Penn State's sports information director,

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