Blue White Illustrated

To help keep his legs fresh, Chris God- win has been tooling around campus on a tiny motorized scooter. The two- wheeled, self-balancing scooter resem- bles a miniature Segway, only without the handle. To the uncoordinated, nonathletic masses, it might look like an injury waiting to happen. But to Godwin, who earlier this season rode it onto the stage of the Beaver Stadium media room, there's nothing dangerous about it. "Honestly, it only took me about 20 to 30 minutes to really get it down pat," he said. "From there, it just takes a little bit of practice, just using it and getting com- fortable with it. It doesn't take long at all." In that respect, it's a lot like Godwin's introduction to college football. He's only in his second season at Penn State, but the 6-foot-1, 208-pound sophomore is already Christian Hackenberg's most reliable pass-catching target. Thanks to his penchant for circus catches, Godwin is leading the team with 30 receptions for 493 yards through seven games. He has built on a promising freshman season, in which he emerged as a major contributor late in the year. In Penn State's victory over Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl, he had seven catches for 140 yards, including a 72-yard touchdown catch that ranks as the longest in the program's postseason history. Godwin had another big game last week at Ohio State. He finished with 103 yards on three catches against the Buck- eyes, including a 45-yarder in the first quarter that set up a field goal and a sea- son-long 56-yarder in the third quarter on which he dragged cornerback Eli Apple nearly 20 yards down to the Buck- eyes' 22-yard line. The second of those catches was, God- win said, "a matter of me just making a play. Christian gave me a great ball, and at that point in time it was just up to me to make the 50-50 catch, which I was able to do, and from there I was just try- ing to do whatever I could to get into the end zone. He was holding on pretty good. He's a pretty solid player. So from that point on, it was just up to me to make the play." Godwin may not have sprinter's speed, but he does have the dexterity to win more than his share of jump-ball situa- tions and the power to churn for extra yardage a@er making the catch. "It just comes down to focus, just things that we work on, that the receivers work on every day with Coach [Josh] Gattis," he said. "We do ball drills before and a@er prac- tice, so things like that allow you to be able to make the 50-50 catches when they present themselves." Despite Godwin's success individually, the Nittany Lions' passing game has posted modest numbers this season. Heading into this week's matchup with Maryland, the Lions are 12th in the Big Ten with an average of only 177.4 passing yards per game. That's partially due to the development of the running game and the coaches' understandable desire to get the ball into Saquon Barkley's hands as frequently as possible. But other factors have come into play as well: the team's ongoing pass-protection is- sues, dropped passes and Hackenberg's perplexing tendency to over- or under- throw short passes. For all the problems, though, Godwin said players aren't frustrated, just eager to start fulfilling their potential. "We un- derstand the type of offense that we can be," he said. "It's just up to us to go ahead and execute. We have to continue to work hard in practice each and every week and follow the game plan that our coaching staff puts together and just go from there and execute when it comes to game day. The only people that we can blame for it is ourselves. Like I said, we have to go out and execute and put in the hard work to make it happen." M A T T H E R B | M A T T @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M O C T O B E R 2 1 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13 THE LONG HAUL Chris Godwin emerges as Nittany Lions' primary deep threat DEEP THINKER Godwin reaches out for a deep pass against Army. His 49-yard reception to the Black Knights' 18- yard line set up what would turn out to be the win- ning touchdown. Photo by Steve Manuel

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