Blue White Illustrated

6-6 finish seemed a foregone conclu- sion. But when redshirt freshman wide re- ceiver Eugene Lewis caught a 59-yard touchdown pass from Christian Hack- enberg early in the fourth quarter, Penn State took a 31-14 lead. His catch fol- lowed the most dominant quarter of play the Nittany Lions put together in 2013. They seized control of the game in the third quarter, breaking a 14-14 half- time tie with a 10-play, 67-yard drive that ended on Jesse James' 7-yard touchdown catch. Sam Ficken later added a 28-yard =eld goal, and Lewis's catch – his second TD reception of the game – gave the Nittany Lions the cush- ion they needed to withstand a late Badgers rally. It was Hackenberg's best game of the season, as he completed 21 of 30 passes for 339 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. The performance earned him Athlon National Freshman of the Week honors, and it showed to me that if he stays healthy, he has the po- tential to become Penn State's career passing leader and =rst =rst-team All- America quarterback since Kerry Collins. But he wasn't the only standout in the victory. Allen Robinson, Adam Brene- man, Zach Zwinak, C.J. Olaniyan, Mike Hull and Brandon Bell, among others, made huge contributions. On the =nal day of their season, the Nittany Lions gave their fans reason to believe that the program's rebirth may not be nearly as far o? as everyone thought when the NCAA imposed its sanctions in July 2012. MOMENT TO FORGET Penn State was sky high a@er a 43-40 overtime victory against Michigan, but it only took seven days and a humiliating 63-14 loss to Ohio State for perspectives on the sea- son to abruptly change. The Nittany Li- ons allowed the Buckeyes to accumulate 686 yards of total o?ense and 32 =rst downs. Ohio State's 63 points were the most scored against the Lions since Nov. 25, 1899, when the semi-pro Duquesne Athletic Club routed Penn State's >edg- ling football team by a score of 64-5. I don't think I'm ever going to forget last year's Ohio State game, although I am going to try. ■ MATT HERB MAGAZINE EDITOR MOMENT TO REMEMBER It o?ered no visuals, at least not the kind that be- come lodged in the mind, the kind that the Michigan and Wisconsin games of- fered in abundance. But there was no more consequential moment for Penn State athletics than the one that oc- curred on Sept. 24 when the NCAA an- nounced it was rolling back its scholar- ship penalties. The changes to the consent decree have since gone a long way toward level- ing the playing =eld, allowing the Nit- tany Lions to recruit on par with their rivals, and not just for players. When it came time to seek out a new coach, ath- letic director Dave Joyner could have brought in someone with Penn State connections who would have no doubt satis=ed many fans and kept the pro- gram moving forward – a Mike Munchak or an Al Golden, to cite the two most ob- vious examples. But those names weren't at the top of Penn State's wish list. So instead of pursuing someone from within the Nittany Lion family, Joyner made the boldest move imagina- ble, signing James Franklin to a six-year contract worth at least $25.5 million. Would Franklin and his cadre of Van- derbilt assistants have packed up and re- located to Penn State if the school had still been subject to the terms of the original consent decree? It's an open question, even with =ve members of the new sta? – including Franklin himself – boasting Pennsylvania ties. There is one certainty, however: The Nittany Lions' new coaches understand and appreciate that they have arrived at an opportune moment. Said linebackers coach Brent Pry, "Here we are, going back home to work together at Penn State, and going at the right time. And this behemoth of a program that we grew up admiring and loving and respecting – we're gonna have a part in returning it to its glory." MOMENT TO FORGET Two come readily to mind, and like many of Penn State's most forgettable moments, they both involve Ohio State. The =rst: that dismal 63-14 meltdown at the Horseshoe in which it was clear from the Buckeyes' =rst =ve plays (four of which produced =rst downs) that they would be able to move the ball at will. The second: a 99- 82 loss in the quarter=nals of the Big Ten women's basketball tournament in which the top-seeded Lady Lions al- lowed the eighth-seeded Bucks to score a tourney-record 58 =rst-half points. ■ TIM OWEN ASSISTANT EDITOR MOMENT TO REMEMBER My =rst visit to the great state of Oklahoma will be hard to forget. Whether it was the beef brisket sandwich that awaited my arrival, the Bricktown ale house with 212 beers on tap, or simply the kind people of Oklahoma City – this was an experience that couldn't have gone much better. And I haven't even mentioned the obvi- ous. The Penn State wrestling team es- caped with its fourth consecutive nation- al championship following a dramatic =- nal round that le@ fans biting their nails and me working in the Chesapeake Ener- gy Arena until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Penn State had just become only the third program in college wrestling history to win four in a row, and that was only one of the storylines. David Taylor and Ed Ruth – legends who were only redshirt freshmen when I =rst started covering the team for BWI – also capped their unprecedented careers by winning individual NCAA titles. Sixth-year senior James English, who had been hampered by injuries through- out his career, =nished the tournament as an All-American, and then he was carried o? the mat by head coach Cael Sander- son, who couldn't have been any happier thwarted in its bid to chip away at a 49- point deficit. Were the Buckeyes eyeing the national polls? Were they looking to make a statement in front of a national TV audience? Were they eager to im- press the scoreboard watchers in whose hands their postseason hopes largely rested? To a lot of Penn State fans, it didn't much matter. In their minds, Meyer had just made the turn from troublesome nemesis into full-fledged Sith lord. There's probably no turning back. And yet, the debate over Ohio State's take-no-prisoners approach didn't linger long before it was overtaken by a much more pertinent question: What will it take for the Lions to raise their game to Ohio State's level? Better re- cruits? New coaches? Sanction relief? As it happened, the program got all three this past year, but until James Franklin's contingent of blue-chippers starts going head-to-head with the league's reigning powers, that question will remain unanswered. This coming fall, Penn State will face both the Buck- eyes and the team that beat them in the Big Ten Championship Game last De- cember, Michigan State, so it will have a chance to show what, if any, progress has been made. But given the depth is- sues that the sanctions created prior to the NCAA's decision to backtrack, this clearly won't be a short-term project. Any meaningful assessment of Penn State's new direction will have to wait a few years. Remove the NCAA's two big-money sports from the equation, and it was an unreservedly great year for Penn State athletics. The school won three na- tional championships – women's vol- leyball, wrestling and fencing – raising its total to 15 since March 2007, which is tied with USC for the most in the na- tion during that seven-year span. Moreover, its eight Big Ten champi- onships tied a school record for the most in one year. Factor in the long- awaited opening of the Pegula Arena, the men's hockey team's upset victory over Michigan at the Big Ten tourna- ment and the women's basketball team's return to the Sweet 16, and you have the makings of a pretty exciting season overall. Here's a closer look at some of the year's most memorable moments (and some forgettable ones, too) as recounted by BWI writers. NATE BAUER WEBSITE EDITOR MOMENT TO REMEMBER House of Pain's "Jump Around" is instantly rec- ognizable, a classic hit from the late '90s with a four-note horn introduc- tion sharply declaring its arrival. Fit- ting, then, that the song marked a sem- inal moment in the Nittany Lions' coming out party to cap the 2013 sea- son. In the Big Ten – and maybe nation- wide, for that matter – the song has be- come an iconic part of Wisconsin's football program. It's played between the third and fourth quarters at Camp Randall Stadium, where it never fails to get the crowd hopping. Yet on Nov. 30, in what would turn out to be Bill O'Brien's =nal game as head coach, the song took on an entirely di?erent meaning. Having struggled to a 6-5 record, the banged-up Nittany Lions were expected to lose handily to a Badgers squad that was eying a BCS invitation and hadn't lost at home all season. Bookmakers es- tablished the Nittany Lions as 24-point underdogs when betting lines opened. Much to their delight, however, the Nit- tany Lions owned the game's storyline by smacking the Badgers square in the nose with a 79-yard touchdown drive in the opening two minutes. Though the teams would trade leads and eventually take a 14-14 tie to hal@ime, Penn State was not =nished, leaping to a 24-14 lead. Then came the end of the third quar- ter. Huddled tightly at mid=eld away from their own sideline, with the public address man cueing up the bewildered senior day crowd for "Jump Around," Penn State players triumphantly twisted the knife. First a few, then all the Nittany Lions started bouncing, co-opting Wis- consin's signature anthem into an un- mistakable gesture of de=ance aimed at the home crowd, their opponent, and anyone else who had predicted a blowout loss. For a program burdened by the weight of NCAA sanctions designed to ensure failure, the moment was an unforget- table display of solidarity, and one Penn State fans aren't likely to forget anytime soon. MOMENT TO FORGET In a season filled with both triumph and despair, no game epitomized both ends of the emotional spectrum more than the men's basketball team's loss to Prince- ton in December at Rec Hall. The Nit- tany Lions were leading by 20 points with 8:29 left to play in regulation and were teaming up with the "Return to Rec" crowd to create an atmosphere that felt more like a party than a college hoops game. But the Tigers steadily clawed back, and the Lions fell apart in an 81-79 overtime defeat. This is one moment that Patrick Chambers and his returning players will be determined to put fully behind them as they move into the 2014-15 season. ■ PHIL GROSZ BWI PUBLISHER MOMENT TO REMEMBER On the field of play, the moment to remember for me is the Nittany Lions' season- ending 31-24 victory over Wisconsin, a game that was more lopsided than the final score would have you believe. It appeared going into the game against the No. 14 Badgers that Penn State did- n't have a ghost of a chance of finishing the 2013 season with a winning record. The Lions' frustrating 23-20 overtime loss to Nebraska the week before had dropped them to 6-5 overall, and they were 24-point underdogs in Madison. A

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