Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/79325
LEARNING CURVE McGloin is eager to take command of O'Brien's new-look passing game. Matt McGloin feels better than ever heading into his final season VOTE OF CONFIDENCE field, the personality who inspires jour- nalists to dust off words like "moxie" – says his confidence level is at "an all- time-high." Said quarterbacks coach Charlie Fish- T er, "That's what I love about Matt Mc- Gloin. He's confident, he's competitive, | hink about this. Matt McGloin – the former walk-on who never doubted he would eventually end up a starter, the quarterback who never lets an interception or two prevent him from throwing down- he's a guy who seems to be able to shrug off a tough play, and you've got to have thick skin at quarterback. … He wants to have the ball in his hands. He wants to make big plays for you." McGloin generally seems to think he has plenty of reasons to be confident, but headed into his final season, he's got a different rationale. Bill O'Brien anointed him the starter on the first day of June, months before preseason practice. He's running what he called "the offense I've always dreamed of playing." And on Aug. 3, Lackawanna County honored him with "Matt McGloin Day." It was a small affair, McGloin joked: "Just my family was there, a couple county commissioners…" He's also spent the off-season learning the new playbook, a task he compared to learning a foreign language because there's so much new terminology. And complexity. "With a playbook like this," he said, "you need to be a 24-hour quarterback." John Beale