Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/752868
FOOTBALL 2016 DREAM LIVING THE t all seemed so unreal. The blocked punt. The blocked /eld goal. The scoop-and-score. The defensive stand. Over its /nal 12 minutes, Penn State's game against Ohio State became a kalei- doscopic dreamscape, as an apparent loss to the Buckeyes, the No. 2 team in the country and the No. 1 team on the enemies list of diehard Penn State fans throughout the commonwealth, was transformed into a moment of exulta- tion. The Nittany Lions hadn't beaten Ohio State since 2011 and hadn't beaten a top-/ve opponent since 1999, and not only did they end both of those skids on this historic night, they did so in the most dramatic way possible, rallying from a two-touchdown de/cit in the fourth quarter. A2erward, fans poured onto the Beaver Stadium /eld to celebrate. They posed for sel/es, jumped into the arms of players, ran in circles, shouted, high- /ved and pogoed spastically, as if trying to dislodge some lingering feeling of disbelief from their heads. Had this re- ally just happened? It had. But while the Nittany Lions had been 18-point underdogs at home going into the game and had seemed headed for defeat midway through the fourth quar- ter, there was one place where the out- come didn't catch anyone by surprise. That place: the Penn State locker room. A2er the game, Jason Cabinda was asked if he could have imagined this scene a month earlier. Back then, the Lions were being run over by elite teams like Michigan and were looking shaky at times even in victory. His answer: "Ab- solutely." "Brandon Bell said a2er the game, 'I don't want to see any of that crying stu1, because this isn't a 0uke.' This wasn't a 0uke win," Cabinda said, refer- ring to his fellow linebacker. "This is who we are and who we will continue to be." Those were words that Penn State fans have been longing to hear. Since the start of the James Franklin era in January 2014 and the repeal of the bowl ban nine months later, they've been hungry for signs that the program is ready to do more than just manage the fallout from the NCAA sanctions. Di1erent people have held di1erent views about what is reasonable to expect under the circum- stances, and that's understandable given I After four supremely challenging seasons, the Nittany Lions return to national prominence with a six-game winning streak. Is the program's recent success a sign of things to come?