Blue White Illustrated

NEXT MAN UP C O V E R S T O R Y ey, Manny. Ever call a defense before? "Nah, never." Too bad, defensive coordinator Brent Pry told him. At this point, there's no other choice. "People were going down," sophomore Manny Bowen recalled in the moments after Penn State's 29-26 overtime victory against Min- nesota in early October. "They didn't have any- body look to. They looked to me. I said, I got you, Coach. I got you." It was just Bowen and Pry in a two-man hud- dle late in the fourth quarter, scratching up sim- plified schemes on a whiteboard using base defensive looks, all on the fly. The situation was so bad – a position unit so depleted by injury – that Bowen didn't even have another middle linebacker to lean on, someone else who at least had done it before. "Nobody was down there," Bowen said. "The only person I had was Coach Pry, and we were sitting down there trying to draw up plays be- fore our defense goes out on the field. 'This is what you do here. This is what you do there.' And before you know it, we're going out there on defense." There were about 2 minutes remaining in a game that was tied, 20-20. Minnesota was on the Nittany Lions' 17-yard line and poised for the go-ahead score. With the game on the line, and maybe even the direction of the season, Jake Cooper went down with a shoulder injury – the team's seventh injury at linebacker since the Blue-White Game in April. On the preseason depth chart, Cooper would have been listed as the fifth-string middle line- backer. So it was Bowen who was now thrust into action because those ahead of him – Jason Cabinda, Nyeem Wartman-White and Brandon Bell – were all in casts or on crutches, while Brandon Smith was helped off the field shortly before Cooper with concussionlike symp- toms. The situation had gone from bad to worse and then quickly to catastrophic. But when Bowen stared Pry in the eyes during that injury timeout and said, "I got you, Coach," he meant it. On the next play – his first ever at MLB aside from a few plays at Barnegat (N.J.) High – Bowen ap- peared exactly as you would ex- pect a first-timer to look: completely lost. As Gophers quar- FOOTBALL 2016 | H Manny Bowen and Cam Brown lead a contingent of young linebackers who are helping the Lions overcome a staggering wave of injuries

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