Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/233832
LIGHT INDUSTRY Curtain Road has been shut down as Penn State begins installation of its new scoreboards. The new video screens will be three times larger than the old ones but are expected to consume less power. Matt Herb exciting players were newcomers. Hackenberg was the most noteworthy example, winning Big Ten Freshman of the Year laurels, but other first- and second-year players firmly established themselves as building blocks for future success, including Adam Breneman, Eugene Lewis, Jordan Lucas, Brandon Bell and Austin Johnson. Fielding a younger team than they did the year before, the Lions didn't win as many games, and during their turn in the national spotlight – a prime time game at Ohio State in October – things went disastrously awry right from the start. But the emergence of those young players, coupled with an influx of talent next season from redshirt freshmen such as offensive tackle Andrew Nelson and defensive end Garrett Sickels points to continued improvement. The NCAA's recent decision to give back many of the scholarships it took away in 2012 doesn't hurt, either. As a university, Penn State easily met the Dec. 31 deadline for implementing the recommendations contained in the Freeh report. The reaction to the report has been highly contentious, but among the changes that were proposed are some that should have been in effect all along, such as Clery Act training for employees. Policies like that will make Penn State a better university in the years to come. If memory serves, that was the point. Better yet, it appears that prospective students and their parents are beginning to view the university in its totality, as they did pre-scandal. Applications were up by 20 percent in 2013 after taking a big dip the previous year. Penn State received nearly 46,000 applications this past year, about the same number it received in 2011 and about 1,000 more than it received in 2010. Those numbers may reflect growing confidence in the national economy, but given that the decline coincided with the darkest period of the scandal, it's also possible to read them as a measure of how the general public perceives Penn State. Those perceptions seem to be improving. Of course, Penn State is a massive institution, and it did continue to flail around awkwardly at times in 2013. For instance, the university was supposed to have named a new president by now, but it had to restart its search when its top choice was accused of padding his pay at Upstate Medical University in New York. The FBI is now reportedly poking around to see whether any laws were broken, and the only good news for PSU is that the whole thing blew up before the school made its hire. Still, with any luck, Penn State will have a new president by June 30. That's when Rodney Erickson is set to step down, and there have been no indications that he wants to prolong his tenure. Who will it be? We're a long way from finding out, but we do know who it won't be. It won't be Gordon Gee or Condolezza Rice, two high-profile names who turned Penn State down when it approached them to gauge their interest. We also know this: On Sept. 6, Penn State's new president will settle into Beaver Stadium's most palatial suite, surrounded perhaps by a group of donors, politicians and other big shots, and will watch a very entertaining football team blaze across the video boards in retina-searing LED glory. Whatever the flaws this place may have – and it has its share – its future is looking I bright. In every sense of the word.