There are few players in the Penn State camp who doubt the ability of Anthony Morelli to step in and lead the Nittany Lion offense beyond what it accomplished during last season\u2019s 12-1 march, even though the junior quarterback has never made a start and has attempted only 33 passes in his two-year career.
\nAt the head of that list is Morelli himself.
\nAs the focal point of Penn State\u2019s annual Media Day at Beaver Stadium on Saturday Aug. 12, Morelli looked and sounded like he\u2019s ready to take over for departed starter Michael Robinson, whose play-making ability in 2005 helped to resurrect the Nittany Lion\u2019s program with a Big Ten championship and Orange Bowl victory. He confidently addressed hundreds of questions from the throng of reporters that descended on Happy Valley – smiling, reflecting, answering directly with eye-to-eye contact – while his teammates backed him up with praise for his leadership, work ethic and natural ability.
\n\u201cAnthony looks great,\u201d said sophomore Derrick Williams, who as a freshman sensation rejuvenated the Lions\u201a offense with his electric open field abilities. \u201cHe can deliver the ball on time and throw from anywhere on the field.\u201d
\n\u201cThe biggest thing is his hunger to be a winner,\u201d said Deon Butler, who led Penn State receivers last season as a redshirt freshman with 37 receptions for 691 yards. \u201cHe\u2019s going to do his all to win. His arm strength, his ability to read defenses, that comes next, but the biggest thing he possesses is heart and a willingness to win.\u201d
\nBefore coming to Penn State as one of the nation\u2019s top quarterback prospects in 2004, success was all Morelli knew. One of the most heavily recruited players in his high school class, he threw for over 5,000 yards in his career at Penn Hills before committing to the Nittany Lions.
\nHe arrived on campus as a pro-style quarterback with a cannon arm, but bided his time for two seasons behind Zac Mills and Robinson. And while his insertion as the starter seemed eminent at times when the Lions\u201a offense struggled – with Internet message boards often clamoring for him to either receive more playing time or take a redshirt – Morelli was little used in his first two seasons. Even in the 2004 Wisconsin game when the Lions, playing without Mills, saw Robinson taken from the field in a stretcher, the coaches went with third string quarterback Chris Ganter rather than play Morelli.
\nNow the job is all his – Joe Paterno included him in a small group of players who were a lock at their positions – and Morelli is excited for his era at Penn State to begin.
\n\u201cEverything is progressing as I thought,\u201d Morelli said. \u201cWe\u2019ve only had three practices plus the spring, but so far, so good.\u201d
\nMorelli will give the Lions offense a different look than it had from last season, when Robinson used his athleticism and game-breaking ability to carve something from nothing and make even the mundane plays look spectacular. Morelli is much more of a drop-back pocket passer who will use quick reads and a speedy release to find the open target.
\n\u201cWith my ability to drop back and throw the ball – that\u2019s what a quarterback is supposed to do,\u201d Morelli said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I do best, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to be doing this year.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s something his talented receivers can appreciate. Along with Butler, Penn State also returns Williams, back from a broken arm that kept him out of the final five games of last season, as well as Jordan Norwood and Terrell Golden.
\nCombined that group caught 100 passes in 2005 for 1,632 yards and 11 touchdowns. That affords Penn State the luxury of using four-wide-receiver packages that can spread the defense and make Morelli\u2019s job like shooting ducks in a pond.
\n\u201cIf you ask him, he probably wants (four wide receivers) every down. He wants to throw the ball,\u201d Butler said. \u201cHe\u2019ll handle that well. He\u2019s come a long way as far as leadership and taking command and knowing where someone is supposed to be.\u201d
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t have to worry about throwing the deep ball to put points on the board with these guys,\u201d Morelli said. \u201cYou can just give them the ball and they make plays. They can take a little pass and turn it into a big gain, so I\u2019m looking forward to that.\u201d
\nStill, even with an abundance of talent around him, mastering his job will be a process for Morelli, according to receivers coach Mike McQueary, who himself took over a talented offense in 1997 and was forced to start basically from scratch, with little big-game experience.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the first year where he\u2019s going to play a lot of football and speaking from experience, that can be an adjustment at times,\u201d said McQueary. \u201cWe certainly are looking forward to having a good offense, but I wouldn\u2019t want to say we\u2019re going to have a more prolific offense than last year. Mike Robinson was awfully good at the helm for us in a lot of different ways. Anthony\u2019s his own guy. He\u2019s certainly going to be a good football player, and we\u2019ll just let him grow into that.\u201d
\nWilliams said that the work the receivers put in with Morelli over the offseason will allow them to develop quickly as a unit.
\n\u201cAnthony and us as a receiving corps worked out grueling nights just trying to work on timing and working seven-on-seven just with placement of the ball,\u201d said Williams. \u201cSo I think Anthony\u2019s going to be great at that.\u201d
\nIn his press conference, Paterno agreed that Morelli could give the Lions offense a dimension it lacked under Robinson.
\n\u201cMorelli\u2019s a bright kid. He\u2019s got a lot of confidence and he\u2019s been a leader. He\u2019s not going to do some of the things Michael Robinson could do, but he will do some things Robinson couldn\u2019t do,\u201d Paterno said. \u201cHe\u2019s probably got a better release and a stronger arm.\u201d
\nAll he lacks is meaningful experience, which he\u2019ll get plenty of without delay. After opening the season at home against Akron on September 2, Penn State travels to South Bend to face No. 3 Notre Dame on September 9, and two weeks later faces Ohio State in Columbus.
\nFor his part, Morelli likes that kind of challenge, but his responses to questions about some of Penn State\u2019s top-name opponents were tempered with the kind of even-keel answers one might look for in a starting quarterback.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll probably get some respect if we do good against one of those teams,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we just have to worry about Akron first. We have them at home and they won their conference last year. We don\u2019t want to overlook them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are few players in the Penn State camp who doubt the ability of Anthony Morelli to step in and lead the Nittany Lion offense beyond what it accomplished during last season\u2019s 12-1 march, even though the junior quarterback has never made a start and has attempted only 33 passes in his two-year career. At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}