This is what you do if you’re the head coach after your team scores 22 straight points in the fourth quarter on Saturday to defeat Northwestern 39-28:
One of the biggest comebacks in 126 years of Penn State football just complete, Bill O’Brien rushed through a mass of players, cameramen, celebrants and football lettermen. He had to get to the south end zone.
He fought through the players assembling to sing the alma mater and broke through at the end line of the end zone.
At last, nothing separated O’Brien and 22,000 screaming Penn State students, most of them clad in white and a couple hundred in pink and black. One banner hung down to the left of the tunnel, strategically placed as if it were a movie. It read: “B.O.B. The Re-Builder.”
The coach stopped and looked up at the sea of white. He clapped his hands once, then twice. He thrust his arms high in the air, pumping them once, then twice as well. Words weren’t necessary.
Once, then twice: Thank you. Thank you.
This is what 28 carries for 122 yards and a touchdown looks like if you are 6-foot-1, 232-pound running back Zach Zwinak:
First quarter: 3 yards, -1, 3, 3, 0, 2. Second quarter: 8 yards, 1 (touchdown), 12, 1, 5. Third quarter: 9 yards, 3, 4, 15, 4, 2, 1. Fourth quarter: 6 yards, 0, 3, 7, 1, 2, 6, 3, 16, 2.
This is what you do after completing a school-record 35 passes in 51 attempts for 282 yards and two touchdowns, one of them a 4-yarder on fourth and goal with your team trailing by 11 points in the fourth quarter:
There, in the second row of the crowd, where hundreds of Penn Staters gathered to sing the alma mater, stood quarterback Matt McGloin. Grinning.
His left arm was draped around No. 65, sophomore guard Miles Diffenbach from Pittsburgh. McGloin’s right arm hugged No. 18, redshirt freshman defensive end Deion Barnes from Philadelphia.
This was a team snapshot. Offense, defense. Black, white. Young, old. East, west.
The song complete, McGloin was grabbed by some TV reporters. The interview room couldn’t wait. So the quarterback did two quick stand-ups, his helmet in his left hand and a football in his right, the moments captured just feet away from the end zone where the momentum shifted.
Then McGloin broke free, following the flow of players running to the locker room. He was at the tail end. He stopped at the victory bell, hesitated a moment, then gave it a ring. Then twice more, three in all, unconsciously symbolic of his third memorable victory over Northwestern in three seasons.
This is what it feels like if you injured your left shoulder diving into a pile of players on the 3-yard line just minutes into the game:
The clear plastic ice pack was now filling with melted water. The bag started at his neck, extended down the shoulder and nudged toward the bicep. Safety Stephen Obeng-Agyapong didn’t feel a thing.
That’s what he told the trainers, anyway, after getting hurt early in the opening quarter.
“They taped it up underneath (the shoulder pads) and I went back in,” he said. “There wasn’t any question about that.”
This is how you react if you were a three-year starter at safety and led your team through hell last season, then graduated college under a heavy cloud that was none of your doing:
In his first homecoming game as an alum, Drew Astorino saw his alma mater score 22 points in 8 minutes and 19 seconds to win its fourth consecutive game in an unbelievable fashion. Wearing a pass labeled “Football Letterman” and attached to a lanyard around his neck, he watched the improbable comeback with his buddies, Joe Suhey and Colin Wagner.
Astorino took in the post-game commotion and as the last Penn State player ran off the field, senior Michael Zordich, the former player spied his old teammate. They had been through everything together, A to Z: scout team, wins, losses, practices, scandal, even death.
Here, they said nothing. Instead, Astorino – a punishing tackler who started 40 games in his career — ran up to Zordich and gave him a two-armed slam across the shoulder pads. Thank you.
Zordich pushed him back. You’re welcome.
This is how it feels after your third game in a row running for 94 yards or more and carrying the ball at least 18 times – a sharp contrast to last season, when you had all of three carries:
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.”
“How long will it last?”
“It’s worst right now, after the adrenaline wears off.”
“Has it ever hurt this much?”
“Yeah. Last week.”
Ten minutes later, Zach Zwinak was out the back door of Beaver Stadium, walking slowly along Curtin Road with his family. Very slowly.
Two kids came up to the unlikely football star, dressed in nondescript grey sweats, his backpack strapped on and scraggly red beard punctuating his mountain man appearance. The pip-squeak wanted his white football signed, the young teen requested that his shirt be autographed.
The signatures delivered, Zwinak and his four family members continued their walk. Slowly.
A woman darted out from a tailgate onto the road, just to shake Zwinak’s hand. He smiled, a bit embarrassed, but he obliged. Then came two more kids, about 8 or so, one wearing a blue No. 21 and the other wearing a white No. 14. More autographs.
The happy task completed, Zwinak and his family continued their walk, Beaver Stadium in the background. This is what winning looks like. Again.
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