Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/575323
T H E 2 0 1 5 S E A S O N practice, summer workouts and then pre- season camp, he focused on "becoming a more complete player in the pass game." Although he wasn't able to pull in an errant throw by P.J. Walker that came his way late in the Temple game – one of sev- eral missed opportunities that haunted the Lions afterward – he has inspired confidence with his overall progress as a pass defender. Halfway through preseason practice, Cabinda recorded "four or five" interceptions, one of his teammates said, and one of those came against Christian Hackenberg during the first scrimmage inside Beaver Stadium. By the end of camp, Cabinda led all linebackers in INTs. All the hard work that Cabinda put in this past off-season? Pry saw it pay off in earnest. "He improved drastically there," Pry said. "He led our linebacker crew in in- terceptions this camp. He's doing a better job reading quarterbacks, leaning on routes and recognizing route combinations." Cabinda attributes those results to months of preparation. When you've laid the groundwork, when you've studied as much as you can, it begins paying off in the form of confidence, an assuredness in one's capabilities. Cabinda likes to refer to it as a "calm intensity." It's similar to his high school career. Al- though he wasn't a true "box linebacker" like he is now, Cabinda was the Tri-State Player of the Year and led his team to a state championship his senior year. He was one of the most feared players in the league, but oftentimes he did it with a smile on his face while offering a helping hand to the opponent between plays or, say, a quarterback after he sacked him. He didn't need to be yelling and screaming, mean-mugging other players. Instead, it was a calmness all the way until the ball is snapped. Then once again once the play is finished. Now with one full collegiate season under his belt – half of it spent as a yellow light, the other as a green – he's taking a similar, calm but intense approach into his first season as starter. "When I played in high school as a running back, once I was truly comfortable, it was a very calm intensity, meaning before plays I was never panicky or nervous," Cabinda said, adding that now, "I think you need that, especially for defense even more so than on offense. On offense you're always trying to make guys miss. On defense you need to be calm, don't bite, but you need the intensity. "That's the way I've always looked at defense: a calm intensity – relaxed, but intense." Which isn't a bad description for Cabin- da's style of play. It matches his personality pretty well, too. ■ roy Reeder's Beaver Stadium debut was a long time coming. As a three-star recruit from Wilm- ington, Del., Reeder visited Penn State on multiple occasions in high school, most notably for the White Out games vs. Ohio State and Michigan in 2012 and '13, re- spectively. He watched those games from the bleachers, and during his first season on the Nittany Lion roster last year, he watched from the sideline as the coaches preserved his first year of eligibility. Then, when Penn State played its home opener against Buffalo on Sept. 12, Reeder made the very first start of his career and finished with seven total tackles. Sure, he'd been in Beaver Stadium many times before, but seeing live action in front of the home fans was a totally different ex- perience. "Even though it was terrible weather, rainy, wasn't quite a sellout, it felt more special than being on the sideline of a sold-out White Out crowd and not play- ing," Reeder said a few days after the game. "It was electric for me. It was absolutely a great first time being out there on the field in Beaver Stadium. It's hard to explain, but you don't get the same kind of rush on the sideline as you do when you're ac- tually out there on the field." For a period during this preseason, how- ever, it was unclear when Reeder would actually be able to make an impact for the Nittany Lions. Despite being a practice-field standout as a true freshman – "We even thought about burning his redshirt and playing him," head coach James Franklin said re- cently – Reeder suffered a setback late this summer. Diagnosed with a bacterial infection, he said he "pretty much had strep [throat] for 23 straight days." The illness lasted into the start of pre- season practice, and Reeder "just wasn't playing the same" as he did in his first Reeder rallies to fill need at LB | Bill Anderson T