Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/541265
LAST WORD T I M O W E N | O W E N . T I M . B W I @ G M A I L . C O M veryone is back, finally. For a football program that was renowned for more than four decades as a model of stability and con- tinuity, the past four years have been anything but at Penn State. There have been five head coaches – some interim, some permanent – while coordinators have come and gone as if through a re- volving door, on defense especially. Af- ter years of learning new names, memo- rizing new playbooks and employing new schemes, at last, there isn't much new anymore at PSU. For the first time since 2011, the coaching staff returns entirely intact. Also, 30 players who have starting ex- perience return to the lineup, and now they've played a full season with the same coaches. It almost feels normal. "You've been through, I guess you can say, live bullets," quarterback Christian Hackenberg said this spring. "I'm really excited about what that experience has done for us in terms of our togetherness and our focus." A year ago, the offensive line in front of Hackenberg was a patchwork of first- year starters; now it boasts eight players who have game experience. An offensive line's greatest asset is experience – and that isn't acquired overnight. Having a full season under their belt, a year of learning each other's calls and signals, it might end up being just one of the aids that year two can provide. "The fear and the butterflies are out of the way now," sophomore guard Bren- dan Mahon said. "I know the areas of my game and I think we all know the areas of each other's games [in which] we need to step up. So, I think just knowing what to expect now, coming into this season vs. last, there's definitely a difference." Hackenberg and his O-linemen shouldn't be the only ones excited. The benefits of familiarity extend beyond player-to-player and coach-to-player interactions. The inner workings of a coaching staff are also heavily depend- ent on it, maybe even more. Continuity certainly helps. Although James Franklin and his staff have been on cam- pus for only one full calendar year, their relationship is as continuous as they get in college football nowadays. "It's really kind of unique," said defensive coordi- nator Bob Shoop. That's especially true of Shoop's de- fensive assistants Sean Spencer and Brent Pry, who have coached together since they joined Franklin at Vanderbilt in 2011. "Brent, Sean and I really work well to- gether," Shoop said. "It's not perfect, but it's how we do it. It's like any staff, any family. We have our quirks and things like that, but we all seem to work through them and we complement each other really, really well. In the end, it al- ways seems to work out." Before Vandy, from 2007 to '10, Shoop spent four seasons at William & Mary, serving as a secondary coach and defen- sive coordinator – four years with mostly the same coaching staff. Never has he spent five seasons with the same coaches – until now. In year two, Shoop believes his de- fense can hit the ground running. With PSU's still-developing offensive line and a quarterback-receiver combo that struggled to stay on the same page last year, the defense might have no other choice. It will be difficult to duplicate the suc- cesses of 2014, but Shoop is confident that the personnel are in place to at least come close. He's also confident that the longevity he and his fellow coaches share will manifest itself on the field. Said Shoop, "I think the relationship piece of the defense is so special to us." Only time will determine how benefi- cial the second year will be. But Shoop knows it's always most difficult in year one. When Shoop looks back on the 2011 season, the coaches' first together at Vanderbilt, he calls it "our hardest year." That's not just because the players were getting used to a new coaching staff. It's also because coaches have to shed pre- vious philosophies and biases before fully buying into new ones. "Players will do whatever you tell them usually because they're the play- ers and you're the coach," Shoop said. "But getting on the same page as the coaching staff [is more challenging]. Everybody calls something different. Getting the communication down, the daily routine. So I thought the 2011 sea- son at Vanderbilt was the most chal- lenging from an organizational stand- point. Then we had a little bit of success and everyone bought in." The first year is always the most diffi- cult. Some of the game's best coaches – current and former – had limited success in year one before flipping the script in the second season. Nick Saban, for in- stance, went 7-6 in his debut at Alabama before going 12-2 in year two. Mark D'Antonio went 7-6 at Michigan State before a 9-4 finish the next year. Bobby Bowden: 5-6 in year one at Florida State, 10-2 in year two. Even Joe Paterno began his Penn State career with a 5-5 season before finishing 8-2 the next year. So, at least some history suggests that great strides are made between year one and year two. Penn State is still rebounding from suffocating sanctions, yes, but with some sem- blance of continuity among the coach- ing staff and players, finally, there's reason to buy in. ■ Many happy returns E