Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/741084
T he tweet was an enigmatic one, a hashtag and three simple letters em- anating from the account of Penn State true freshman Shane Simmons. Posted at 6:10 p.m. on a Monday, just two days after the Nittany Lions' thrilling 29- 26 overtime victory against visiting Min- nesota, the message said simply: "#LBU." The tweet garnered 42 retweets and 255 "likes" from his more than 5,100 follow- ers. Given the lack of context, as well as the brutal rash of injuries that had befallen the linebacker corps, the natural assump- tion was that Simmons, who had been re- cruited as a defensive end and was listed there on the roster, was about to change positions. And why not? In the Minnesota game, the Nittany Lions' starting linebackers were true freshman Cam Brown, walk-on redshirt junior Brandon Smith and true sophomore Manny Bowen. Before facing the Gophers, those three players had made a com- bined four starts, three of them by Bowen in the three games that preceded Minnesota's visit to Beaver Sta- dium. The other start belonged to Smith, who had received it a week earlier at Michigan. So Franklin felt he needed to address the tweet and its fallout, quashing all specu- lation at his weekly news conference as the team prepared for its homecoming date with Maryland. "I know one of our young players tweeted something out today, and people were buzzing about that, saying, 'Is Shane Simmons playing linebacker?' … There was a flurry of retweets and ques- tions and things like that," Franklin said. "Shane Simmons is a 245-pound defen- sive end on the scout team [who is] doing a great job. So I wouldn't worry about that." Lighthearted as Franklin's approach was, the fact that he needed to address the prospect of Simmons moving to line- backer was a sobering reality check. Within the first three games of the sea- son, Penn State's perilously thin group of linebackers was put to the test by a rash of serious injuries. The first casualty was junior Jason Cabinda. He had led the Nit- tany Lions with 11 tackles in their opener against Kent State, but when he didn't appear in the media room after the game, it was the first sign that something was amiss. The next week at Pitt, Cabinda could be seen on the sideline with his arm in a cast. The injury was a tough loss for the Nittany Lions, as his 15 career starts led the linebacker corps. | BIG HITTER Bell started Penn State's first two games but was knocked out of action against Pitt and didn't play in the team's next four games. Photos by Steve Manuel BATTLE OF ATTRITION Nittany Lions cope with injuries to an already-thin linebacker corps