Falling to Georgia Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, 24-17, the Nittany Lions wrapped up their 2015 season on a four-game losing streak and finished 7-6 overall for the year.
A game in which the Nittany Lions responded from a 24-3 deficit all the way to give themselves an opportunity to tie the game on the final possession with backup quarterback Trace McSorley leading the charge, head coach James Franklin expressed his fondness for the group and pride in its resiliency afterward.
The postgame comments of the Nittany Lions’ leader wound up taking a backseat to the long-awaited revelations from both quarterback Christian Hackenberg and defensive tackle Austin Johnson that they’d both forgo their final seasons of eligibility at Penn State to pursue careers in the NFL, however.
Given the impact of each player during their respective careers as Nittany Lions, the considerable attention paid to their announcements should have come as little surprise, and that the solid performance of McSorley in his first meaningful game action came in close second also was warranted.
None of which means that there weren’t plenty of other news and notes items that actually accumulated throughout the game and postgame that were also worthy of mention. So let’s get right into some of those details here, along with a little more color for the Hackenberg and Johnson news to wrap it up:
- Though the most substantial, Hackenberg and Johnson are not the only Nittany Lions with decisions to make following the 2015 season. In fact, there are likely even more who will have choices to ponder in the coming days and weeks, but Geno Lewis was one who acknowledged specifically following the game that there are some decisions he’ll have to weigh heavily as he moves forward.
Having graduated, Lewis has the option of either returning for his final season at Penn State, pursuing an opportunity as a graduate transfer at another program, or seeking out a career in professional football. And though he came down with three receptions for 53 yards and a sparkling touchdown grab on Saturday afternoon, Lewis’ contributions through the course of the 2015 season have been considerably less than his redshirt sophomore campaign just a year ago.
“I'm going to talk to my family and my coaching staff and everything about that and see what's best for me,” said Lewis. “I couldn't really tell you anything right now, but I'll know things in the next couple of days.”
Lewis finished the season with 17 catches for 196 yards and three touchdowns, down from his production as the team’s second-leading receiver in 2014 with 55 receptions for 751 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Should he play out his final season of eligibility with the Nittany Lions, he’ll be competing with Chris Godwin (who eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving for the season Saturday - the third in Penn State history), DaeSean Hamilton, Saeed Blacknall, Brandon Polk, and true freshmen tandem Juwan Johnson and Irvin Charles, among others.
- Among Penn State’s integral senior class, many will now transition into training for opportunities to play professional football.
Coming off a breakout redshirt junior season, Nittany Lion defensive tackle Anthony Zettel had a somewhat diminished impact this season as both Johnson and defensive end Carl Nassib leapt into the national spotlight for their performances. Speaking with reporters following the game, Zettel announced that he has accepted an invitation to participate in the East/West Shrine Game, and is hoping for an invitation to the Senior Bowl being held later this month.
“Either game I'm going to give it everything I have,” he said.
But, first thing’s first.
Headed to San Diego to train, Zettel is going to focus first on restoring his health that has at times been banged up and bruised through the 2015 season.
“I’m going to go get my body right, get 100 percent again and then I'll start training for the combine,” he said. “I have a lot of things to work on. A big thing for me, I want to get my body fat percent down. I want to get my flexibility a lot better. As a defensive lineman, it will help me play lower, so I think there's a lot of things I can do.”
- Although McSorley appeared to have some trouble initially in his rescue mission Saturday afternoon, the redshirt freshman quarterback recused himself nicely in completing 14 of 27 passes for 142 yards and two touchdowns to go along with his seven carries for 31 yards on the ground.
Frustrated to have to exit the game himself, Hackenberg and many of his Nittany Lion teammates expressed confidence afterward in the performance McSorley put on.
“I thought you saw after he banged out the first one, it was like he settled in and kind of got back into that mode,” said Hackenberg. “Everyone kind of understands what that is. For him to be able to stick it and then get more confidence to start seeing things and how they operated was really rewarding for me, sitting there and watching him do it. It was cool.”
For the teammates hauling in McSorley’s passes en route to the Nittany Lion comeback, the performance was equally impressive. A former high school quarterback himself, Lewis echoed Hackenberg’s sentiments about getting into a rhythm and watching as McSorley seemed to find his sea legs and gain confidence as the game progressed, while DaeSean Hamilton noted that the performance has the potential to pay dividends down the road for the feisty signal-caller.
“It'll be great for Trace having a game like this,” said Hamilton. “He showed tremendous confidence, being able to come in and just do the things that he did coming off the bench, as the second stringer he hasn't been playing that much all year, and coming in and doing as well as he did in the game, it will definitely be a springboard for him and him being able to be a great player.”
For McSorley himself, crushed by a throng of reporters in the bowels of the stadium following the game, he said that he’s taken his cues from Hackenberg in learning how to deal with everything the position entails.
“I’m comfortable with (the attention),” he said following the game. “I mean, it's just business as usual. Being able to watch him and how he handled it, that taught me a lot about how he was able to come out after wins and after losses, the highs, the lows, how he's able to handle himself and be even keeled. That was good for me to just see him do that.”
- Saying he’s gotten feedback that his draft selection could come as early as the first or second round of this spring’s NFL Draft, Johnson offered a few more details as to some of what led into his decision to forgo his final season of eligibility with the Nittany Lions.
Having played alongside Zettel and Nassib this season, both of whom have played their final games as Nittany Lions, Johnson explained that his family reached the conclusion that this would be an appropriate time to wrap up his playing career at Penn State.
“That kind of played a factor into it,” said Johnson. “Just talking with my aunt, talking with my parents and just kind of doing that whole thing and talking to Coach Franklin, having meetings with him and Coach Spence, I think we made a good choice.”
As for Hackenberg, he also provided some clarification as to how the decision-making process played out for him personally. Asked whether or not it was a tough decision to come to, Hackenberg said plainly that it was.
“It was tough. Because you've invested so much into a place and you've invested so much into fixing things and making sure that it's where it needs to be. It was tough,” he said. “But at the end of the day, for once I got to kind of look out for myself and see what I needed to do. I felt that my family and I moving forward, having a couple of conversations, it was what was best to do.”
A game in which the Nittany Lions responded from a 24-3 deficit all the way to give themselves an opportunity to tie the game on the final possession with backup quarterback Trace McSorley leading the charge, head coach James Franklin expressed his fondness for the group and pride in its resiliency afterward.
The postgame comments of the Nittany Lions’ leader wound up taking a backseat to the long-awaited revelations from both quarterback Christian Hackenberg and defensive tackle Austin Johnson that they’d both forgo their final seasons of eligibility at Penn State to pursue careers in the NFL, however.
Given the impact of each player during their respective careers as Nittany Lions, the considerable attention paid to their announcements should have come as little surprise, and that the solid performance of McSorley in his first meaningful game action came in close second also was warranted.
None of which means that there weren’t plenty of other news and notes items that actually accumulated throughout the game and postgame that were also worthy of mention. So let’s get right into some of those details here, along with a little more color for the Hackenberg and Johnson news to wrap it up:
- Though the most substantial, Hackenberg and Johnson are not the only Nittany Lions with decisions to make following the 2015 season. In fact, there are likely even more who will have choices to ponder in the coming days and weeks, but Geno Lewis was one who acknowledged specifically following the game that there are some decisions he’ll have to weigh heavily as he moves forward.
Having graduated, Lewis has the option of either returning for his final season at Penn State, pursuing an opportunity as a graduate transfer at another program, or seeking out a career in professional football. And though he came down with three receptions for 53 yards and a sparkling touchdown grab on Saturday afternoon, Lewis’ contributions through the course of the 2015 season have been considerably less than his redshirt sophomore campaign just a year ago.
“I'm going to talk to my family and my coaching staff and everything about that and see what's best for me,” said Lewis. “I couldn't really tell you anything right now, but I'll know things in the next couple of days.”
Lewis finished the season with 17 catches for 196 yards and three touchdowns, down from his production as the team’s second-leading receiver in 2014 with 55 receptions for 751 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Should he play out his final season of eligibility with the Nittany Lions, he’ll be competing with Chris Godwin (who eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving for the season Saturday - the third in Penn State history), DaeSean Hamilton, Saeed Blacknall, Brandon Polk, and true freshmen tandem Juwan Johnson and Irvin Charles, among others.
- Among Penn State’s integral senior class, many will now transition into training for opportunities to play professional football.
Coming off a breakout redshirt junior season, Nittany Lion defensive tackle Anthony Zettel had a somewhat diminished impact this season as both Johnson and defensive end Carl Nassib leapt into the national spotlight for their performances. Speaking with reporters following the game, Zettel announced that he has accepted an invitation to participate in the East/West Shrine Game, and is hoping for an invitation to the Senior Bowl being held later this month.
“Either game I'm going to give it everything I have,” he said.
But, first thing’s first.
Headed to San Diego to train, Zettel is going to focus first on restoring his health that has at times been banged up and bruised through the 2015 season.
“I’m going to go get my body right, get 100 percent again and then I'll start training for the combine,” he said. “I have a lot of things to work on. A big thing for me, I want to get my body fat percent down. I want to get my flexibility a lot better. As a defensive lineman, it will help me play lower, so I think there's a lot of things I can do.”
- Although McSorley appeared to have some trouble initially in his rescue mission Saturday afternoon, the redshirt freshman quarterback recused himself nicely in completing 14 of 27 passes for 142 yards and two touchdowns to go along with his seven carries for 31 yards on the ground.
Frustrated to have to exit the game himself, Hackenberg and many of his Nittany Lion teammates expressed confidence afterward in the performance McSorley put on.
“I thought you saw after he banged out the first one, it was like he settled in and kind of got back into that mode,” said Hackenberg. “Everyone kind of understands what that is. For him to be able to stick it and then get more confidence to start seeing things and how they operated was really rewarding for me, sitting there and watching him do it. It was cool.”
For the teammates hauling in McSorley’s passes en route to the Nittany Lion comeback, the performance was equally impressive. A former high school quarterback himself, Lewis echoed Hackenberg’s sentiments about getting into a rhythm and watching as McSorley seemed to find his sea legs and gain confidence as the game progressed, while DaeSean Hamilton noted that the performance has the potential to pay dividends down the road for the feisty signal-caller.
“It'll be great for Trace having a game like this,” said Hamilton. “He showed tremendous confidence, being able to come in and just do the things that he did coming off the bench, as the second stringer he hasn't been playing that much all year, and coming in and doing as well as he did in the game, it will definitely be a springboard for him and him being able to be a great player.”
For McSorley himself, crushed by a throng of reporters in the bowels of the stadium following the game, he said that he’s taken his cues from Hackenberg in learning how to deal with everything the position entails.
“I’m comfortable with (the attention),” he said following the game. “I mean, it's just business as usual. Being able to watch him and how he handled it, that taught me a lot about how he was able to come out after wins and after losses, the highs, the lows, how he's able to handle himself and be even keeled. That was good for me to just see him do that.”
- Saying he’s gotten feedback that his draft selection could come as early as the first or second round of this spring’s NFL Draft, Johnson offered a few more details as to some of what led into his decision to forgo his final season of eligibility with the Nittany Lions.
Having played alongside Zettel and Nassib this season, both of whom have played their final games as Nittany Lions, Johnson explained that his family reached the conclusion that this would be an appropriate time to wrap up his playing career at Penn State.
“That kind of played a factor into it,” said Johnson. “Just talking with my aunt, talking with my parents and just kind of doing that whole thing and talking to Coach Franklin, having meetings with him and Coach Spence, I think we made a good choice.”
As for Hackenberg, he also provided some clarification as to how the decision-making process played out for him personally. Asked whether or not it was a tough decision to come to, Hackenberg said plainly that it was.
“It was tough. Because you've invested so much into a place and you've invested so much into fixing things and making sure that it's where it needs to be. It was tough,” he said. “But at the end of the day, for once I got to kind of look out for myself and see what I needed to do. I felt that my family and I moving forward, having a couple of conversations, it was what was best to do.”
