Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/629829
A T T H E 2 0 1 6 N I T T A N Y L I O N S MAGIC MIKE Jason Cabinda is comfortable at PSU's middle linebacker spot, but will he stay there in 2016? A sked to reflect on his 2015 season, Penn State linebacker Jason Cabinda doesn't offer platitudes about being ready for anything and everything. No next man up. No always be prepared. The Nittany Lion sophomore readily acknowledges that the season did not go as he had expected it would. "If you had asked me at the beginning of the year if I was going to be controlling the defense and playing Mike, I would have been like, 'No way.' I was over at weakside," Cabinda said. "It's not even like I was playing at the second Mike or something like that." Coming off a true freshman season in which he appeared in eight games, compiling 17 tackles and half a tackle for loss, the New Jersey native was looking to secure the start- ing weakside linebacker position for 2015. It was an objec- tive that had guided all of his off-season preparation. Following the departure of Mike Hull, the Nittany Lions' leading tackler with 140 stops in 2014, Nyeem Wartman- White was set to move to the inside linebacker spot, flanked by Cabinda and Brandon Bell. Yet, before the end of the first half of the first game of the season at Temple, Wartman-White had been lost for the year with an ACL injury. Quickly, Cabinda's reality changed dramatically. Going back to the drawing board in the days following the loss to the Owls, Penn State's coaching staff put Cabinda in the middle. The move expanded his responsibili- ties exponentially. Suddenly, he was directing the likes of Anthony Zettel and Austin Johnson, veteran, ac- complished stars who were lining up in front of him. It was a role for which he was not entirely prepared. "It was tough at first. You could tell the first couple of | CRUNCH TIME Cabinda (40) and Bell team up to drop Georgia re- ceiver Terry God- win in the TaxSlay- er Bowl. Photo by Steve Manuel