Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/703041
football. Ten years later, Paul Posluszny won the Bednarik Award back-to-back, and they are still the only two players to win the award two consecutive years. I'm proud of that." Consummate team players Vanderlinden left Northwestern for the head coaching job at Maryland in 1997, and he brought Fitzgerald to College Park the following year as a graduate assistant. Fitzgerald went on to become Northwest- ern's head coach in 2006, and he is now the second-longest-tenured active coach in the Big Ten, trailing only Iowa's Kirk Ferentz. Despite rebuilding Maryland's decrepit football program, Vanderlinden was ousted after four years, but the timing was right when Paterno asked him to come to Penn State. That opened up a whole new world for Vanderlinden. One of his Penn State trademarks was his six-headsets system on game day. "I was in the press box, talking to [de- fensive coordinator] Tom Bradley on the sideline," Vanderlinden explained. "Then I had six headsets on the sideline for the players so I could make corrections and wouldn't have to do it individually. I would talk over the [defensive] series with Bradley. The players would come off the field, get a drink, sit down on the bench, put on the headsets, and I was able to go through the previous series and any adjustments. Not always were there big adjustments, but at times there were, things that were hurting us: Here's what the offense is do- ing. Here's what we need to do. Here's what we need to be tuned into. Here are the problems we're having. Here's the an- swer to the problem. So, I could make that correction one time. And then I could hear what they had to say, too, what their observations were. They're all really sharp football players and they would contribute to the conversation in a positive way. We could get all of that done in one conver- sation instead of me saying, 'Let me talk to Sean. Let me talk to Paul. Let me talk to Tim.' Oftentimes you wouldn't have time to talk to them individually." Vanderlinden laughs lightly when asked what he remembers about some of his players. "They were all fun guys to coach because they were all so passionate," he said. "Different generations, but passionate and into Penn State and doing everything they could to help Penn State be successful. They ran the show. They were smart. Those were the consummate team players." He tells the story of Lee, who, like North- western's Fitzgerald, was not considered an elite recruit coming out of Upper St. Clair High in suburban Pittsburgh. "Sean was recruited by Tom Bradley, but we hadn't made the decision on whether to offer him, and I went to watch him play one night," Vanderlinden recalled. "Beau- tiful night for football in western Pa., and Sean, as a free safety, made 15-20 tackles, returned punts and also ran for about 170 yards as the starting tailback. I can re- member saying, 'How can we not recruit this kid?' He was the ultimate football player." The coaches decided to redshirt Lee in 2005, but as the Nittany Lions rebounded from two losing years and began to rise in the national rankings, they altered their plan. "It didn't appear we had backups we could win with if we lost one of our starters [at linebacker]," Vanderlinden said. "After the third or fourth game of the season, we were undefeated but didn't feel we had a player behind Paul that we could win with if Paul were to be injured. We brought up Sean, who was a freshman, from the scout team and gave him a week to see if he could execute the game plan. We wanted to see if he was fundamentally sound and physical enough to go into a game and play well enough to do our part defensively to win the game. "Not only did he learn it, but he earned two nicknames. One was 'The Waterboy,' because he was hitting everything that moved [as in the Adam Sandler movie of the same name], tackling it to the ground. The other name was 'Fast Forward' because he only had one speed, and that was full speed. And after about three days of prac- tice, I said, 'Sean, you're doing remarkable. But you're going to hurt somebody or hurt yourself.' It just became so obvious that not only was he ready but he was really going to be good. I felt bad when we had to burn his redshirt in the fourth quarter of the Orange Bowl when Paul hurt his knee, but Sean went in and played about 35-40 plays and helped us beat Florida State. Later, with his injuries, Sean got that redshirt year back, so it was well worth it." Vanderlinden uses an anecdote about Mauti as an example of the talent of his linebackers and the advantages of his six-headset system: "We're playing Tem- ple down in Philly [in 2011] and we're struggling to score points. We're behind midway through the fourth quarter, some- thing like 10-7, and they had hurt us on a deep crossing pass route earlier in the game. It was really the [middle] 'backer position that would defend this route, but Glenn Carson ran into the official on the play. So, I get on the six headsets and we discuss the problem. Mike, now know- ing the problem and understanding the concepts, flips, turns and runs underneath the crossing route and intercepts the pass. "That was just one of the great plays made by these guys through the years. We got the ball on about the 40 and con- verted two fourth downs, went in and scored and took the lead [with 2:43 left] and won the game. That play by Mauti, going beyond what his responsibility was to make that interception, was just re- markable. I have so many of those type of stories about the guys through the years that helped us be successful." A positive experience If there is one word that is the secret to his success as a linebacker guru, it is details, and that goes back to his high school days with McCartney, who is still a close friend. "Bill used to say 'Greatness is the achieved through the discipline of attend- ing to details,' " Vanderlinden said. "It's the little things, coaching fundamentals and technique: how you take out a block and how you get off a block and [teaching] tackling fundamentals. 2 0 1 6 P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L