Blue White Illustrated

SPRING FOOTBALL WRAP | PENN STATE VS. HOUSTON defining, reinventing of the wheel to get this done," Paul Sr. said. "I am a firm believer in that sometimes, we have to get to a point in our lives that we're in a corner and the only thing that's left to do is to come out fighting, come out swinging." Jones told his parents he's now two people – Paul and P.J. "Paul goes ahead and does homework," he ex- plained. "P.J., he's football. Gotta have a split personality, definitely." Paul's the guy who promised his mother he wouldn't attend any parties this semester, the guy who tacked up the syllabus for each class over his bed. P.J.'s the guy who began learning an entirely new offensive system, the guy who claims he can throw the ball 80 yards, although O'Brien refused to believe it, saying that the strongest arm he'd ever seen belonged to Ryan Mallett, who threw it 72 yards. He told Jones to prove it one day, and the ball traveled 70 yards. "We didn't have the best Saturday morning weather," Jones explained, grinning. Jones threw for 113 yards in the Blue-White Game, including a 42-yard completion (the longest of the game) and an 18-yard touchdown pass. He also threw an incompletion that trav- eled 60 yards in the air. But what impressed Ruscitto the most was that when Jones entered the game late in the first quarter, each of his 10 teammates shook his hand or gave him a friendly tap. "I was so happy to see that because right there, I saw that he's a part of that football team," Ruscitto said. "It's a close, tight-knit group, and that lightheartedness Paul has, that's good." Jones said O'Brien has told him he's got a chance to start, and that's all he wants. That, and the feeling he had getting off the bus before the Blue- White Game, finally carrying his shoulder pads and helmet just like everyone else, and waving to his par- ents and siblings as he entered the sta- dium. "I had to remember I was gonna play football – I was gonna start crying," he said after the game. "I'm holding back tears just thinking about it. I was so happy to be able to play again." W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M D Embracing PSU's new weight program, Adam Gress ascends this spring READY FOR LIFTOFF BY NATE BAUER NBAUER@BLUEWHITEONL INE.COM on't be fooled by Adam Gress's modesty. Penn State's unequivocal starter at left tackle since the second week of spring camp, the redshirt junior has managed to transform himself from a margin- al special teams player into, ar- guably, one of the most impor- tant cogs on the Nittany Lions' new offensive line. He knows as GRESS much, but consid- ering the improvements he's still planning to make, Gress is far from ready to acknowledge what he's already accomplished. "I guess things look pretty good for me right now, but it's a day-to- day process," he said after some coaxing. "I still have to have a good summer and come out strong in camp to be starting at the beginning of the season." At this point, there's little rea- son to believe he won't. Of course, prior to the start of spring practice, few people out- side the program had reason to believe he would. Gress hadn't played a lot in his first two sea- sons and wasn't the subject of much off-season chatter as spring drills approached. But then coach Bill O'Brien pointed out just how far Gress had come in winter workouts under the di- rection of the team's new strength and conditioning coach, Craig Fitzgerald. "You can see where Fitz and his assistants and his program have had a direct effect on guys al- ready, like Adam Gress," O'Brien said in late March. "Right now you can see that the offensive tackle for us has had a heck of a winter and has already changed his body. You go from looking one way to looking more like a V- shape, and that's what you're looking for in your linemen." That same day, Fitzgerald told reporters, unprovoked, that Gress had transformed his body into that of an NFL-grade offen- sive lineman. Those compliments weren't lost on Gress. "I guess it was kind of flattering. It was pretty cool to hear," he said. "It was encourag- ing, more than anything, to hear someone say something like that. It just really gave me – I don't want to say the credit I deserve – but [it was] something positive in terms of the gains I've made. That was great to hear." Gress appears to be the biggest beneficiary of the new strength program. He entered the winter at 303 pounds and is now up to 310 while at the same time having re- duced his body fat percentage. "It's an understatement to say that the strength program has helped me," Gress said. "Overall, what Coach Fitz has done with me personally has just helped me become more powerful and stronger overall in all regions of my body. It's hard to specify one. "I don't think it would be right to say that I wouldn't have had this opportunity if Coach Fitz was- n't our strength trainer, but I do think that of all the new changes, that's probably been the biggest part of it, and it's absolutely es- sential in [getting] me where I am right now in the spring." Gress has also benefitted from the arrival of new offensive line coach Mac McWhorter. He said he and McWhorter "see eye to eye on a lot of things, and his coaching style and the techniques that he prefers really just work for me." Teammates have taken notice. "I've seen a lot of improvement in Adam Gress," said defensive end Pete Massaro, who faced Gress in practice throughout the spring. "He's made significant strides in the off-season, and he's a lot stronger. He's emerging as a force at tackle." Following the graduation of last year's starter, Quinn Barham, Gress is looking ahead to the season opener Sept. 1 against Ohio. He's hoping the reward for his hard work in the off-season will be a starting assignment. "I think about that a lot. That's going to cross my mind," he said. "It's nice to think about things like that, but I also have to re- member that this is a day-to-day process, and right now it's only the spring. I've had a really good spring, and I have to continue to keep working hard through the summer and improve myself even more through the summer so that by the end of fall training camp, I'm a better player than I am right now." J U N E 1 , 2 0 1 2 23

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