Blue White Illustrated

| Players are once again free to leave Penn State without having to sit out a year at their new school. Will the Nittany Lions be able to hold their team together through the next round of "free agency"? Sounds like an impossible task, doesn't it? With no transfer restrictions to keep them on campus and Penn State still facing three more years of postseason ineligibility, players are bound to flee. So goes the conventional wisdom, anyway, and you can understand the thinking behind it. Let's say you're a Penn State player who didn't get the number of snaps or practice reps you thought you were due last season. Are you going to stick around and hope for the best, or are you going to take advantage of the NCAA's transfer waiver and try your luck somewhere else? Let's say you did get the snaps you wanted and ended up having a great season in the Nittany Lions' new schemes. Are you going to be satisfied with the perks Penn State offers – firstclass facilities, an enthusiastic fan following, exciting offensive and defensive game plans, a route to pro football – or are you going to listen to all that whispering in your ear from people telling you that you can have all that and a shot at postseason glory? For Penn State, it's a no-win proposition. Players have an incentive to leave, regardless of whether they're satisfied or disgruntled. But is the choice really as stark as it might seem? Is the turf greener on the other side of the Pennsylvania border? Maybe not. When Silas Redd transferred to USC in August, he described it as "a business decision." And who could blame him for thinking at the time that USC would be a better springboard into pro football than Penn State? But Redd rushed for 817 yards during the Trojans' 7-5 regular season, while his eventual successor with the Nittany Lions, Zach Zwinak, gained 1,000. Watching Penn State's much-improved offensive line open big holes for Zwinak, a little-used fullback under the previous 1 coaching staff, one could only imagine the kind of success Redd might have had if he'd stuck around. It's quite likely his pro stock would be higher had he remained at Penn State. The Lions' other high-profile transfers last summer were kicker Anthony Fera, who departed for Texas, and receiver Justin Brown, an Oklahoma enrollee. Fera missed the start of the season with a groin injury and struggled after returning to action, but Brown started all 12 games for the Sooners. With the regular season complete, he ranks second on the team with 66 catches for 822 yards and four touchdowns and is their leading punt returner with a 13.6yard average and a touchdown on 22 attempts. It's tough to argue with numbers like that, but he would likely have shined in O'Brien's offense, too, just as Allen Robinson did in boosting his receiving totals from three catches for 29 yards in 2011 to 77 catches for 1,013 yards and 11 touchdowns this past year. Of course, the Sooners are getting set to face Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, while Penn State is getting an early start on winter conditioning. But if last season's results indicate anything, it's that Penn State is still a great place for elite players, even with the NCAA cracking down hard. Even though it still has a lot to sell, the coaching staff is definitely not OK with the extended transfer waiver. Of all the penalties the NCAA handed down last July, this is the one that bothers O'Brien and his assistants the most. It ensures that players will be pursued by rival coaches until the start of preseason practice in August. The team's emerging stars – Robinson, defensive end Deion Barnes and offensive tackle Donovan Smith – are sure to be targeted, if they haven't been already. Barnes recently told the Philadelphia Daily News that the so-called Supa Six – himself, Robinson, Smith, tailback Bill Belton, cornerback Adrian Amos and tight end Kyle Carter – are planning to return. "As long as we're still making plays and being nationally known, there's no reason for us to leave," he said. Maybe not, but they have seven more months to field calls and weigh their options. That's a long time. The Nittany Lions listed 110 players on their roster prior to the Wisconsin game, and the law of averages suggests that at least a few of those players will decide that there are better opportunities awaiting them elsewhere or that they don't want to sit out the postseason for the rest of their careers. But one of O'Brien's priorities during his first 10 months on the job was to build relationships with players. He said late in the season that he was confident that the team will not fall apart during the free agency period. "I believe that everybody will be back who's eligible to be back next year," he said. "I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not a genie, but I think they know that they can achieve a lot of their goals here. Can they win a national championship or a Big Ten championship in the next three years? No. We know that. So why tiptoe around it? But they can give themselves an opportunity to get a fantastic degree, they can give themselves the opportunity if they produce on the field to play pro football, they can play, in my opinion, a fun system on both sides of the ball, offense and defense. A defensive system that blitzes and plays man coverage, plays zone coverage, an offensive system that throws it around a little bit and runs the ball, and we have fun in practice. They have that all here." How will Penn State keep fans engaged heading into what figure to be its most challenging years? By cutting the cost of attending games. In October, the athletic administration announced changes to the Seat Transfer and Equity Program, shaving $200 off the required Nittany Lion Club donations required for seats in the eastern and western grandstands. In addition, the school is offering a five-year plan, dubbed the One Team Commitment, in which Nittany Lion Club members will earn bonus points for each year they donate and have their ticket prices capped at 2013 levels. 2

• Cover