Blue White Illustrated

S P R I N G W R A P U P Matt McGloin and his fellow quarterbacks embrace a new set of expectations AIMING HIGH B 16 MATT HERB | M A T T@B L U EWH I T E O N L I N E . C O M ill O'Brien seems to be a pretty headstrong guy, and we know that Matt McGloin is a pretty head- strong guy. So when will these two headstrong guys start clashing over the operation of Penn State's offense? From the sound of it, any day now. "We talked about that once," McGloin said. "He was saying, 'When are we gonna start fighting?' I said, 'Listen, once I'm comfortable with the system, we're gonna be fighting every day. So get ready.' " Coming from McGloin, that's no idle threat. The senior quarterback may have bantered his way through a Q&A session with a three-deep throng of reporters fol- lowing the offense's 77-65 loss to the de- fense in the Blue-White Game April 21. But his career to date has given us no rea- son to doubt his willingness to speak truth to power, or at least to get stuff off his chest. The West Scranton Gunslinger was an outspoken guy even before he took that rocket ride from foreign-team obscurity to the starting lineup a few years ago. He wasn't afraid to question the previous coaching staff when he thought the occa- J U N E 1 , 2 0 1 2 sion called for it. Nor did he back down from a confrontation with teammate Cur- tis Drake prior to the TicketCity Bowl this past December. Of course, McGloin's bravado hasn't al- ways served him well. Cooler heads may not always prevail, especially in a game like football that crackles with raw emo- tion. But there is something to be said for restraint. The scuffle with Drake, for in- stance, left him with a concussion that forced him to sit out the TicketCity Bowl last January, all but dooming Penn State's chances against Houston. It was a dismal end to a season in which McGloin once again won the starting job away from his more heavily recruited rival, Rob Bold- en. These days, the TicketCity Bowl feels like something from a different era. Which, in fact, it is. McGloin was his usual confident self after the Nittany Li- ons' spring scrimmage, shrugging off his detractors with that familiar haters- gonna-hate dismissal. "I'm probably going to be looked at as the underdog again for some odd reason," he said. "But I don't pay too much attention to it. It's a com- petition, and some people are going to

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