STATE COLLEGE
The obvious question got fielded deftly by Sam Ficken, the senior kicker who has had a roller-coaster ride of a career for a team that has had a roller-coaster ride of a three years.
Penn State is going bowling again. Its most convincing win in weeks, a 30-13 thumping of Temple, assured that. Penn State is in a position it hasn’t been in since the 2011 season, and it can actually celebrate it for the first time since 2010. This program rocked by scandal and hamstrung by sanctions turned a corner Saturday. An inevitable corner, perhaps. But one few thought it would reach before the 2016 season, in a best-case scenario.
So, how did it feel to be going back to the postseason? To be just like everybody else?
Did anybody really believe this was possible heading into the third year of a four-season bowl ban?
“There was a lot of speculation out there, but we were
trying to focus on what we could control,” Ficken said. “At that point in time, it was winning football games. Now, we’re at the point where we are bowl-eligible, so there’s a lot of excitement.”
But the obvious question isn’t the one that tells the meaning of the win over the Owls at Beaver Stadium the best.
Because there was a day — July 23, 2012, to be exact — where none of this exactly seemed possible. And there were players talking about going back to the postseason who remember that day the way they remember their worst nightmares. Players who, finally, earned something they were once promised they’d never get.
Sam, back then, did you ever think a day like this would come? Could come?
“There’d probably have been a lot of doubt, given everything that happened that year,” he said.
As he started his post-game press conference, Penn State head coach James Franklin thanked the 49 players on the Penn State roster who did what so few around the nation thought anybody would on that summer day in 2012. They stayed at Penn State.
They were free agents once those sanctions were handed out, and none of them accepted the sure-bet offer.
They were kids who grew up dreaming of playing for conference championships and big-time bowl bids in college, and none of them were ever going to get to live that dream.
Mike Hull could have gone back to Pittsburgh. He could have been a Panther, and he might have put Pitt’s defense over the top. He has talked often since about starting out on a drive back across the state to talk about that with the coaching staff in the Steel City. Starting out, then turning back.
Bill Belton had a chance to leave, too. And he stayed.
A lot of guys who contributed to the win Saturday did. Face it: There were rumors swirling for about a year that this could be a possibility this season, that the bowl ban could be rescinded. But this was a day most special for those 49, who were never guaranteed this would come.
“It does mean something a little more special, the fact that we had 49 seniors (players on the roster in addition to players committed in the 2012 recruiting class) that stayed around this program when this university and this community and this football program needed them the most,” Franklin said. “The fact we’re going to send them out the right way and continue our season and keep our family together for a month or so after the regular season ends is special.”
Like Ficken, Hull and offensive lineman Miles Dieffenbach were in the players’ lounge in the Lasch Building on July 23 when NCAA president Mark Emmert announced the sanctions. There were five televisions in that room, Ficken recalled, and all of them were tuned into the same thing.
A lot of anger. A lot of words exchanged. A lot of unhappy people. A lot of confused players.
The sanctions were announced, and within moments, the room cleared out, like a movie theater during the closing credits.
Where they headed when the left, not many were sure.
The always optimistic Dieffenbach wasn’t one of them, he insisted. While so many of the Nittany Lions’ younger players were dedicating this bowl trip to those 49 who stuck around, Penn State’s senior left guard wanted to make sure everyone knew there were more than just 49 in the beginning. There were Michael Mauti and Michael Zordich and Matt McGloin, guys who knew they had to act if a day like Saturday would come as soon as possible.
“We just had a bunch of tough guys who wanted to stick around,” Dieffenbach said. “Those guys will forever be remembered here with the 2012 team. We had guys with great leadership that helped the team stick together. Now, to finally get an opportunity to go to a bowl game, I couldn’t be happier for our guys. Past, or present.”
Maybe fans will be happy because Penn State stuck it to the NCAA.
Maybe the coaching staff will be happy because going back to the postseason, and the exposure it will give the program, will be a boon to recruiting.
But there are players on this team who are happy because they defied the odds. Every one of them. In all likelihood, they will do something they were told they’d never do, through no fault of their own.
And hey, it’s not the Rose Bowl or the College Football Playoff. It won’t even be close to that. But to Penn State, it’s everything.
“In 2012, we knew we were going to have just 12 games to make the most of our opportunities,” Hull said. “Now, it’s a great feeling just to be able to go to a bowl game, to be excited because you don’t know where you’re going to go or what’s going to happen. That’s really the biggest difference.”
(Collins covers Penn State football for Times-Shamrock. Follow him on Twitter @psubst)