'We Want This'
Penn State players undergo viral swabs daily, have to sweat through gaiters during practice, aren't supposed to see friends who don't play football and are allowed minimal contact with their families in an otherwise Beaver Stadium.
That seemed a willing sacrifice for the Lions as they entered the 2020 season ranked No. 8 in the country with Big Ten title and College Football Playoff intentions. Now they're 0-2 yet still facing those restrictions.
Are they worth it? Receiver Daniel George turned 21 in September but said he willingly skipped the bar scene for a greater good.
"I would choose football over going out, partying and bars and stuff, like any day," George said. "I would choose practice, I would choose meetings, I would choose lifting over parties and stuff like that. And I would definitely say the love of the game is what makes it all worth it. And I would say the same thing for my teammates, that we all have this one-track mind."
This is the space Penn State occupies now, with Maryland set to arrive at Beaver Stadium on Saturday. Coach James Franklin said he saw signs of a rebound from the 38-25 loss to Ohio State when the Lions returned to practice and correction meetings and cold tubs Sunday and Monday.
(This being 2020, though, anything could happen, and the site betonline.ag still gives Penn State a 40-1 chance of winning the conference title. Ohio State is the 1/10 favorite).
Morale still remains high within the program, cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields said, pointing to the number of players at the Lasch Football Building on Tuesday to study game film on their off day.
"I mean, we want this," Castro-Fields said. "It's still our season, and we've still got a lot to accomplish. Guys understand that, and we're going to put in the work."
Morale can be tricky, and overstated, because effort and determination don't entirely hold sway over results. Penn State had a better-than-90-percent chance of beating Indiana 21-20, but a mental mistake, a defensive lapse and an heroic performance by Indiana's offense overwhelmed that.
Ohio State, meanwhile, turned a decade of recruiting advantage into a convincing win, particularly at the line of scrimmage. "Ohio State obviously is very talented," Penn State coach James Franklin said understatedly this week.
So Penn State's season re-begins with a very winnable game against Maryland, followed by matchups with unpredictable Nebraska, Iowa and Michigan.
Penn State is equally unpredictable, which the opener underscored, but does seem to have a unifying thread: Those two games haven't defined the team. Yet.
"In life, you're going to face adversity," defensive tackle PJ Mustipher said. "And this isn't the last time any of us are going to face adversity in our lives. So when adversity does happen, you know, you have, you have two options: You can stop what you're doing, and you can let it affect you or you can use it as motivation and learn from it.
"So that's where we're at right now. Yeah, we're 0-2, but we're not going to let it impact the rest of the season."
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