At 11:28 p.m. last Saturday night, Grant Haley’s dream came true.
His 60-yard return of a blocked field goal – which propelled Penn State past No. 2 Ohio State and into the Top 25 for the first time in 1,756 days – came to him early last week.
“I told Billy Fessler and Tom Pancoast; I don’t know why it came to me, it was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (before the game),” Haley said.
“I told them,” Haley said of his revelation shared with the fourth-string quarterback and back-up tight end, “that I’m going to make a play to win this game.”
Haley said he grabbed hold of the idea days before he actually clutched the errant football, which caused Beaver Stadium to erupt to a heavy-metal rock concert and sand-blasting decibel level of 113, according to Penn State Football Radio Network vet Roger Corey. (Physical pain begins at 125, unless you’re an Ohio State fan; that starts 12 db sooner.)
“I was praying to God every single day. And it happened to go that way,” he said later Saturday night. “For me, right now, I’m at a loss for words. I just put in other people’s brains. Then it actually happened. It was just almost a miracle.”
A dream. A vision. A scoop. A score. A touchdown. A victory.
Haley’s score and Penn State’s subsequent 24-21 upset of the second-ranked Buckeyes became official at 11:44 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2016 — 16 minutes after Grant Haley of Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Penn State alumnae Carla Neal-Haley and Pitt graduate Leon Haley Jr., raced into the north end zone of Beaver Stadium, just ahead of Ohio State holder (and punter) Cameron Johnston.
It was not just Haley’s dream.
It was James Franklin’s. And most of the #107 (give or take a few #1k in red) in Beaver Stadium. As well as Penn State’s 658,000 alumni and tens of thousands members of the Nittany Nation, watching, listening and following along on the Web from coast to coast and around the world.
The dream came to life may have come 5.9 miles to the west of the geographic center of the center of Pennsylvania. (Which is located here, also on Penn State property.) But it certainly came at the heart of The Pennsylvania State University. The WhiteOut at Beaver Stadium.
SATURDAY NIGHT
“In London. Phone is blowing up. Can’t believe I’m not there,” texted Shannon Furman, a PSU grad who works with MRob at NFL Network and produced “Hey, Rookie!” with Hack, at 12:10 a.m. “I’ve never been so happy to be on Twitter.”
“Those are the nights I miss,” Jay Natoli, a key performer on the original cast of GoPSUSports.com, now living in Portland, Ore., Tweeted to me at 1:26 a.m. on Sunday.
“I did not want to leave the stands afterward,” Jon Nese, who is all things meteorology and athletics and students at Penn State, texted me at 1:57 a.m. on Sunday. “What a view. What a win.”
SUNDAY
“I had 348 text messages after the game…” said Franklin. “I basically texted back: ‘Thank you,’ ‘Thanks brother,’ ‘Appreciate it,’ and I copied and pasted that to everybody, men, women, coaches, neighbors, cousins, everybody… I got home at like 2:30, by the time getting out of the stadium, getting home and laid into bed talking to my wife till 3:30.
“I enjoyed it till 3:30 (a.m.). Went to sleep, woke up early, went back into the office and watched the tape with the defensive staff, then came back home for brunch with recruits. Enjoyed it there with them. My basement had gotten flooded. It was an interesting week last week. There was a lot of things going on. That rain, basement got flooded and we had recruits coming. It’s never a dull moment.”
On Sunday, Penn State was voted in The Associated Press’ Top 25 for the first time since Week 15 of the 2011 season, when they took a No. 22 ranking into the TicketCity Bowl.
Senior linebacker Brandon Bell, who came to Penn State in the fall of 2013, under sanctions and scrutiny, found out about the poll via text Sunday afternoon. “I hadn’t seen it yet,” said Bell, the coolest cucumber on the team – and I mean that in a good way. “I had people outside of football at home texting me before I even noticed it. My friends, group chat, ‘Oh, you’re Top 25,’ and I was just like, ‘Cool, cool.’”
Bell admitted that he never dreamed a Top 25 ranking or a bowl trip would happen again, at least not while he was at Penn State.
“I’d probably say I wouldn‘t — to be honest,” said Bell, whose 19 tackles, one sack and one TFL were a nightmare for Ohio State. “Even looking at colleges when I was going through the recruiting process, I wasn’t looking like, ‘Oh, I want to go to the highest-ranked team type of thing. When I saw Penn State, and obviously those things that happened, I personally wasn’t thinking like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be there (in the Top 25).’
“If you ask my dad (Eric), he wasn’t shy in saying it. He told everybody we were going to make it to a bowl game, and going to make it into the rankings. My dad doesn’t know football like that. But he had that mind-set in his head that Penn State would make it back.”
Junior linebacker Jason Cabinda, who came to Penn State in the fall of 2014, under lessened sanctions but continued scrutiny, found out about the poll on Twitter on Sunday afternoon.
“I just found out from Twitter that the poll had come out and ranked us at No. 24,” said Cabinda, whose 12 tackles, one sack and two TFLs were a nightmare for Ohio State. “For me, it just reminds me of why I came here. I wanted to help the team get back to where it needed to be. We’re not there yet; taking this thing one week at a time. But for me, I think it’s huge and it’s good to see and know kind of where this program is going and what direction we’re heading in.”
MONDAY
On Monday, I talked with my daughter Courtney, a sophomore ChemE major at Penn State, and asked her what the buzz about The Upset was on campus.
“There were five kids at my THON committee meeting on Sunday who said Saturday was the best day of their lives,” said Courtney, a no-nonsense townie with a deep yet quiet affection for Penn State.
“Really?!” I said.
“Really,” she said.
Later in the day, Haley and teammate Marcus Allen, who blocked the Ohio State field goal attempt that Haley turned into six points and a touchdown, teamed up (again) to be named the Big Ten Conference’s Co-Special Teams Players of the Week — explained this way in the most antiseptic fashion possible by the league office:
- Allen and Haley teamed up for what proved to be the decisive play in Penn State’s win over Ohio State
- Allen blocked a 45-yard field goal attempt with just over five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, marking his first career bock
- Haley recovered the ball and returned it 60 yards for his second career touchdown
- Both claim their first career Special Teams Player of the Week honors.
TUESDAY
“We kicked their butt. We finally kicked Ohio State’s butt,” said a still-happy Penn State veteran football player when I saw him walking along College Ave. on Tuesday.
I laughed. “You really don’t like those guys?”
“Well, I did talk with J.T. Barrett after the game. He seemed like a nice guy.”
WEDNESDAY
Early Wednesday afternoon, Franklin got a standing ovation at the State College Quarterback Club, he and the group now BFF’s after a rocky start.
On Wednesday night at the Nittany Lion Inn, I saw Anne Riley, whose late and legendary father Ridge once ran the Penn State Alumni Association. He also created “The Football Letter” and penned the seminal “The Road to No. 1.”
“What would have Ridge have said about that game?” I wondered.
You should know that Anne is a legend in her own right, as a former English teacher at State College High School who understands literature and writing and context and historic Penn State football games with equal parts depth, breadth, precision and passion.
Anne answered quickly, as if she already thought about it. Which she no doubt had.
“Too much material,” said Anne.
THURSDAY
After practice, Franklin hustled from Holuba Hall, where his team has just finished its final preparations for Saturday’s game at Purdue, to LettermanS Grill for his weekly radio program.
“It’s amazing,” Franklin said, ”how many people sent me emails or text messages or direct messages on Twitter, who said, ‘I always believed in you from the beginning. I was your guy from the beginning!’
“Really?” Franklin laughed, along with the audience. “Let me scroll back from to four emails before. Your tone was a little different.”
Franklin laughed again, genuinely. So did the LettermanS regulars. They knew.
Which is…
“Reality is wrong,” that great poet and philosopher Tupac Shakur once said. “Dreams are for real.”
