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How Penn State’s 2016 Big Ten title proves Michigan has a path
Even now, more than three
years
later,
Trace
McSorley
remembers the feeling perfectly:
“Quite frankly, honestly, being
embarrassed.”
Through four games, Penn
State sat at 2-2, fresh off a 49-10
dismantling at Michigan Stadium.
This wasn’t what the Nittany
Lions expected to be, what the
2016 season was supposed to
bring.
“It was a bad loss, ugly loss all
around,” McSorley told The Daily
this week. “We didn’t want to have
that happen again, just that feeling
that we had after that game.”
Outside
the
program,
frustration rose to a fever pitch.
The
third
paragraph
in
PennLive’s
story
from
the
Michigan game read: “And with
the Lions in their third year with
James Franklin, the talent gap
between Penn State and Michigan,
Ohio State and Michigan State
appears to be widening.”
Flip a few of those names around
and you have the same eulogies
currently being written about
the 2019 Wolverines. Attribute
McSorley’s quote to Jim Harbaugh
or Shea Patterson after Michigan’s
35-14 loss to Wisconsin two weeks
ago and no one would bat an eye.
There’s a kicker, though.
Three months later, McSorley
stood on a podium in Lucas Oil
Stadium,
draped
in
confetti,
triumphantly raising the Big Ten
championship trophy over his
head.
Celebrating a few feet behind
him, with the rest of the Nittany
Lions’ coaching staff, was then-
Penn State wide receivers coach
Josh Gattis.
So when Gattis gathered the
Wolverines together after the
Wisconsin game, he had a story to
tell.
“I shared with them — as
coaches, this is something a lot
of us have been through before,”
Gattis said. “I know I’ve been
through it in my career.
“… Our players came together
and we went on to win the Big
Ten championship that year. So
sometimes, adversity is something
that you never want to use to
bond your guys together, but it’s
something that forms a bond,
because when you go through the
pressure situations, it only makes
you tighter.”
McSorley’s
recollection
matches Gattis’. There was no
magic
schematic
change
or
rallying cry that righted the ship.
“It was just coming out and playing
better,” McSorley says now.
The issue, then, is how to do
that. For Penn State, the one
tangible thing McSorley can put
his finger on is players-only film
sessions held by the team’s senior
leaders on off days.
Those film sessions aren’t what
fixed the Nittany Lions’ season,
but they speak to a bigger part of
the fabric of that team.
“Our senior leaders and captains
were able to able to make sure we
righted the ship,” McSorley said.
“But it was kind of an all-around
thing. The leaders get everything
going and get everyone to buy in,
but we needed to have all the other
guys willing and able to buy in and
know what we were trying to go
and work for and how we were
going to be able to fix it.
“So it’s kind of an all-around
team effort, but I think the leaders
and seniors and captains that we
had on that team were the ones
who spearheaded it and were able
to get everyone going the right
way.”
All these years later, the same
message
reverberates
around
Schembechler Hall.
THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor
KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily
Josh Gattis was in a similar situation to this year as a Penn State coach in 2016.
See PAGE 8B