For Paris Palmer, Wednesday was a marvelous night for a moondance.
On Penn State’s practice fields early into the darkness of Thanksgiving Eve, there was an #awesome full and shining moon to the east, providing a bright backdrop to the end of that evening’s Penn State football workout.
It added an air of big-picture serenity and perspective to the proceedings while providing a backdrop to drills as the loud music prompted Palmer – so moved — to bust a move.
Rushing Michigan defensive ends and Hackensacks seemed to be the furthest thing from the offensive tackle’s mind.
To be fair to Palmer, you should know that breaking into dance is not a rarity for Nittany Lions as they rotate in and out of drills and scrimages. Penn State’s players, as we’ve never seen before, often move to music before, during and after practice – and games.
Minutes later, across the field Geno Lewis was running down the sidelines after making a big play, the receiver grinning as he imitated last week’s windmill-fist pump by Michigan State kicker Michael Geiger after his game-winner over Ohio State.
Soon thereafter, when Wednesday’s practice ended, a couple of players literally hopped and skipped off the field as the back-ups stayed to run extra drills and do a bit of scrimmaging.
THANKSGIVING BREAK
The point? This was no fiddling even though some folks think Rome is burning. Nittany Lions, despite being winless since the last day in October, were loose and still spirited. And thus, their practice – like the entire week – had a different look and feel to it.
There were fewer players. Head coach James Franklin gave the ones who were ill, injured or not traveling to Saturday’s game at No. 6 Michigan State the week off to head home.
Practice also hosted fewer Penn State staffers, administrators, hangers-on and media members (closer to 10 beat reporters than the usual 30) who usually attend the tail end of Wednesday practices. No special practice visitors, no film crews. It was football – pure, fun and simple.
Penn State has been on Thanksgiving break all week, with no classes. It’s an odd week, with the campus empty, State College deserted and the team very close to all by its lonesome. Boredom, even with a nationally-televised game with national implications on the horizon, can set in. It creates several consecutive days when the players spend a lot of time playing video games and Franklin spends a lot of time worried they’re staying up too late.
(The practice routine of breakfast, meetings, getting tape and dressed started at 6:15 a.m. Thursday, in part to get the players up and at ’em on a day when most of the other 40,000 or so Penn State undergraduates were at home, sleeping in well past the start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.)
A week like this one can also bring a team together. On Monday, Franklin did just that – and he took them off-campus to do it. On their off-day, he loaded the players up on some buses and took his team bowling. The final score, which was more about the gut than the gutter ball: 65 pizzas and 1,800 chicken wings.
Later than night, Saquon Barkley grabbed a bunch of his freshmen teammates and they headed north on Atherton Street to Champs, to grab even more to eat and to watch the end of the Patriots-Bills game.
“You have to be careful with Thanksgiving,” Franklin said. “School’s out. They’re all worried about where they’re going to go eat and about their families. There’s a bunch of young players on the team so making sure we have a plan and that it doesn’t become a distraction.”
Bowling, wings and a smaller roster aside, Franklin knows the task at hand. Michigan State is 10-1 and if Sparty beats Penn State in East Lansing at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, he heads to the Big Ten Championship game, the gateway to the College Football Playoffs. If Penn State is victorious in an upset, the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game – being played 64 miles away from Spartan Stadium at noon in the Big House in Ann Arbor – goes to the Big Ten title game.
SPARTAN CHANCES
A Penn State upset won’t be easy.
PSU is 7-4 (4-3 in the Big Ten East) and a 10-1/2-point underdog, and in the 2014 regular-season-ender lost 34-10 to Michigan State in Beaver Stadium. The last time the Nittany Lions won in 2015 was on Oct. 31, four weeks ago against Illinois on Homecoming Day.
In addition, Franklin said that his team is faced with the most injuries it’s had in his two seasons at Penn State, with defensive end and Bednark, Nagurski and Lombardi awards finalist Carl Nassib heading the list. (He’s questionable, but likely – if that makes sense.) Add in some serious fan and media criticism that has followed the past two losses, and you get a sense that the Nittany Lions are circling the wagons. This past week has been perfect for that. Team camaraderie has been key this past week, and was underscored on Thursday when a team Thanksgiving dinner was followed by smaller get-togethers at the houses of Penn State’s assistant coaches.
Franklin was on his heels much of the week, having to read and on a couple of occasions respond to criticism of the program and his 14-10 rein, coming in the context of four sanction war-torn years in Happy Valley.
He bristled on Tuesday when it was suggested at his weekly press conference that Saturday’s game meant much more to the Spartans.
“We’re playing for a lot. We’re playing for a lot on Saturday,” he said. “We’ve got a chance to win eight games in the regular season. We’ve got a chance to go into a bowl (with momentum). We’ve got a chance to continue to do special things on the field and continue to build our program and our culture and the things that we’re doing, so we’re playing for a lot. Trust me, we’re playing for a lot. We played for a lot on Saturday. A lot of people live and die Penn State Football, and it’s very, very important to them, so trust me, my staff and our players feel like we’re playing for a lot on Saturday and feel like that every single Saturday.”
Nine questions later, he was pressed again, this time about his staff.
“Let me say this: I am aware of our challenges, and more so than anybody else that’s looking at it,” Franklin replied. “I know on offense we have some challenges that we need to get cleaned up. I know on defense we’ve got some challenges we need to get cleaned up. I know on special teams we’ve got some challenges we need to get cleaned up. I know there’s academic work that we need to improve on that you guys aren’t aware of. There’s a lot of areas, and there is nobody that’s taking a harder, more detailed look than me.
“But besides that, right now, our focus is on doing everything we possibly can to prepare for Michigan State.”
DANTONIO’S MICHIGAN STATE
Michigan State is 10-1 by the thinnest of margins, beating Michigan in Ann Arbor on a failed and then flailed punt the Spartans returned for a touchdown and a 27-23 victory as time ran out. Then last week in Columbus they beat the Buckeyes in the rain with their No. 2 and No. 3 quarterbacks on Geiger’s field goal that won the game, 17-14, as time ran out. Again.
The Big Ten East is like that. And will be for more than awhile. Michigan State and its coach, Mark Dantoinio, are proof positive of what Franklin hopes to accomplish is possible.
— Michigan State is 34-4 over their last 38 games. In Dantonio’s first 39 games at Michigan State, he was 22-17 (that’s a winning percentage of 56.4%; Franklin is at 58.3% so far at Penn State).
— Sparty was a mess when Dantonio came to town from Cincinnati, the Spartans having gone 39-45 the previous seven seasons under Bobby Williams, Morris Watts and John L. Smith. (Things haven’t been so great at Penn State since the 2009 season, in case you haven’t noticed.)
— Of course, Dantonio didn’t look like a huge savior when he arrived in East Lansing in 2007, with records of 7-5, 4-7 and 7-5 (18-17 overall) in his three seasons as a head coach there. (Franklin fared much better as head coach at Vanderbilt, where he was 24-15.)
— After that slow start, Dantonio has had six double-digit victory seasons out of seven and has won 81% of his games, going 63-15 (11-2, 11-3, 7-6, 13-1, 11-2 and 10-1 so far this season).
SONG AND DANCE
And although Dantonio doesn’t seem like the type, there has certainly plenty of reason for the Michigan State coach to break out into song – and dance.
For Penn State, the 2015 season has hardly been a cakewalk. Saturday will mark 115 days since Franklin and his coaches and players gathered in the Lasch team room on the first Wednesday night of August. Since then, there’s been reason for the Nittany Lions – two-thirds of them freshmen and sophomores — to laugh and learn, celebrate and cry.
Sparty, both a benchmark and a challenge, offers opportunity for all that, and more. But no matter what happens, we’ll always have Paris. Dancing.
