2014 Pump Up Videos

The offseason presses on, and while the news is still slow, the anticipation continues to rise as we are now less than 2 months away from the start of the 2014 Penn State football season!  Everything kicks off on August 30th in Dublin, Ireland against the Golden Knights of Central Florida.  With all of that said, there is a little bit of news to report, so let's get to it.

First, a big congratulations to QB Christian Hackenberg on being named to the Maxwell Award preseason watch list, and CB Jordan Lucas on being named to the Bednarik Award preseason watch list!  Getting on these lists is basically the biggest honor a player can receive in the offseason, so both of these men should be proud.  Clearly their play is getting noticed around the country instead of just in Happy Valley.  Learn more about each award here.

TE Jesse James is also getting some media love these days as the Sporting News decided to add him to their Preseason All-Big Ten First Team.  I'm a little bit surprised to see only one Nittany Lion on the First Team, but in the long run these preseason all-conference teams mean almost nothing.  The biggest thing to see will be if James can live up to this newly discovered hype and make it on the POST season All-Big Ten team.  Good luck to him!

In recruiting news, the Lions picked up an interesting recruit in NJ combination S/WR/LB Manny Bowen.  He's either a high 3-star or a low 4-star player, depending on who you ask.  Either way, he's a great pick up, especially if he pans out at LB over his other positions.  Meanwhile, 2015 QB recruit Brandon Wimbush is "turning heads" at the Elite 11 quarterback competition.  This camp is held annually in Oregon near Nike headquarters and serves as a showcase for the best QB recruits in the nation.  Former 5-star recruit Christian Hackenberg dominated the Elite 11 when he was there just 2 short years ago and from the looks of it, Wimbush is trying to follow in Hack's footsteps.  Is Penn State on its way to becoming the next Quarterback U?  Probably not, but it's great to see the QB play improving at a school with limited history at that position.

Finally, to hold you over for the next 54 days, and to get you excited about the upcoming season, I've compiled a list of the 4 best "pump up" videos floating around the interwebs.  If you're not ready for some football after watching these, then you probably never will be.  Enjoy!

Lion King
We Are
Who We Are
Pump Up 2014

Keep it here all offseason for all the latest news and notes about Penn State football.  Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @PSUOptimus, and as always, go State!

Update from 7/8
Here's more on Brandon Wimbush's impressive performance at the Elite 11, which is part of a group of camps collectively called The Opening.  He'll get to build some chemistry and work out with 3 other Penn State commits from the 2015 recruiting class: DT Adam McLean, RB Saquon Barkley, and WR Juwan Johnson.

Another watch list came out today, this time for the Mackey Award, presented to the nation's best tight end.  With the embarrassment of riches Penn State has at TE, it's no surprise that 2 Lions made it on this watch list: Jesse James and Kyle Carter.  Congrats gentlemen!

Speaking of Kyle Carter, he's part of an extremely talented group of Penn Staters who dubbed themselves the "Supa Six" two years ago when they arrived on campus.  Recently, this video surfaced on YouTube detailing their already storied careers; feel free to introduce yourself to them.