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he idea was just to have a little fun. It's a game, right? It's sup- posed to be fun. Trace McSorley and fellow quarter- back Billy Fessler had talked about coming up with a touchdown celebra- tion in hope of injecting a little bit of excitement into spring practice. In- spired by first-year coordinator Joe Moorhead, and maybe subconsciously by their previous experience as multi- sport high school athletes, they impro- vised a skit in which Fessler would pretend to lob a baseball at McSorley, and McSorley would pretend to hit it out of the park. "Coach Moorhead brought a lot of passion, a lot of energy to the team, and I was talking about celebrating success – not going overboard, but having fun with your teammates," McSorley re- called. "So that was kind of our thought process behind doing something. He just tosses up a baseball, and then I just do the baseball swing. "And then it caught on. A little more than expected." Yes, you could say that. These days, a Google image search of McSorley's cele- brations turns up 54,700 results. There are shots of him hugging an assortment of teammates and coaches, hitting imaginary baseballs over fences and performing a basketball-inspired varia- tion on the home run bit in which he and Saquon Barkley do what appear to be layups. McSorley didn't say whether he and Fessler considered the metaphorical implications of the baseball celebra- tion, but it was in perfect sync with the Nittany Lions' new approach to offense under Moorhead. The veteran coach had them swinging for the fences throughout the year. Like a lot of slug- gers before them, they hit for power rather than for average. McSorley aver- aged 16.13 yards per completion, more than half a yard ahead of Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield to lead the Football Bowl Subdivision. But the Lions were one of the worst teams in the country at converting third downs, making only 32.6 percent of their attempts to finish 117th out of 128 teams in the FBS. Those two tendencies came into play in the final moments of the Rose Bowl, as McSorley, facing third-and-long with the score tied, 49-49, hurled a deep pass for Chris Godwin on the sideline. The Lions were hoping that the aggressive call would get them into position to kick a field goal and win the game in the clos- ing seconds. At worst, they thought, they would have to punt, and the game would probably be decided in overtime, since Blake Gillikin had been booming the ball all afternoon. But on what would turn out to be his last play of the season, McSorley was Despite its Rose Bowl loss, PSU's insistence on thinking big has been, and will continue to be, an essential part of the team's success F A S T F O R W A R D >> A N E A R L Y L O O K A T LONGEST YARDS THE T

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