Blue White Illustrated

T H E 2 0 1 5 S E A S O N THE STORM CALM BEFORE Linebacker Jason Cabinda keeps his cool amid the chaos | T here's been a lot of talk around Penn State lately about red lights, yellow lights and green lights, and no, it has nothing to do with traffic signals or the construction on Atherton Street. James Franklin announced a couple weeks before the season opener that four true freshmen had been given the "green light" to begin playing in their first year on campus. A small number were given a "red," meaning they'll spend their first year at Penn State on the scout team as they redshirt in preparation for next season. The rest – just over a dozen total – are what the head coach considers "yellow." "They're guys who we'll try to redshirt," he said, "unless things change." While most members of the freshman class were not on the field for the opener against Temple, it doesn't mean that their chance to contribute at some point this season has passed them by. As last year illustrated, things can change fast. Case in point: Jason Cabinda. Cabinda started his freshman season with a yellow light. That lasted until just the fifth game of the season when the coaches called him and let him know he was being thrust into the depth chart out of necessity. "I remember the phone call vividly," Cabinda said. It was at 9 on the Friday morning before the Northwestern game. Cabinda looked down at his cellphone and saw Brent Pry's name flash across the screen. Nyeem Wart- man-White, then the starter at Will, had broken his right hand a week earlier and would have to miss the game against the Wildcats. Pry, Penn State's linebackers coach, had no choice but to shake up his rotation. It meant burning a redshirt, but Cabinda was more than willing. "I'm ready to go," he told Pry that morning. "Let's do it." Of the three true freshman LBs on the roster at the time, Pry viewed Cabinda as the most game-ready. "There were two things that made the difference for him," Pry recalled. "Jason had a lot of maturity. [If] it was just the wherewithal of being a college student, he just handled it. Secondly, the football part came easy to him. He's a guy who is very conscientious in walk-throughs and he learned it and got a grasp of it." That was Cabinda's goal for his redshirt year, after all. Having seen fellow freshmen such as Grant Haley and Mike Gesicki play from day one, Cabinda aimed to model his preparation after his classmates and also the veterans at his position. If he were going to turn that yellow light into a green, Cabinda figured he'd better train like a green. "As a freshman you want to play, espe- cially when you have other guys in your class who are greens," he said. "You want to be in their position. You want to go from the jump, but at the same time I knew I wasn't 100 percent ready just yet. When you are in those types of situations, you just have to have the right attitude, so I just stayed positive about it. I just kept telling myself that I'm going to play. Prepare as if you're going to play, and if you do redshirt, guess what, when you do play next year you'll feel like a veter- an." When his name was finally called that week, Cabinda responded. He didn't start. Instead, Mike Hull took over Wartman's spot at Will; Gary Wooten filled in at Mike. But Cabinda enjoyed a strong debut, coming on in relief and racking up a sea- son-high eight tackles. He eventually made his first career start vs. Illinois in the second-to-last game of the regular season and was later named an honorable mention Big Ten All-Freshman selection.

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