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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

