A postseason starter, OG Gonzalez more confident heading into 2017

A year ago, Steven Gonzalez wasn’t even listed on the depth chart.

Although both starting positions opened from the year before, Gonzalez’s name was nowhere to be found on the two-deep released in advance of Penn State’s 2016 season opener. Ahead of the redshirt freshman from Union City, N.J., were a senior, a classmate and two true freshmen. That he wasn’t among the first, however, didn’t discourage him.

Gonzalez kept his head up and bided his time in a reserve and special teams role. Then when November rolled around not only was his name on the depth chart, he was No. 1 at the LG spot. He started three of the season’s final four games there, including for the Big Ten Championship and the Rose Bowl.

Now as he enters his third year with the program, Gonzalez is aiming to parlay that late-season experience into a full-time role in 2017. The lineup for the starting OL is yet to be fixed, but throughout camp Gonzalez has been one of the more consistent presences, and he said at the start that being able to play on such grand stages in his first year of eligibility set himself up for success in winter workouts – where he was one of the strongest Iron Lions – spring practice and now preseason football.

“It was definitely a confidence booster and it gave me a lot of experience coming into spring ball and into camp,” Gonzalez said. “So it definitely helped a lot and it’s helping now with practices.”

It was the first game of the season last year in which Gonzalez made his collegiate debut, but it wasn’t until Nov. 12 at Indiana when he saw his most extensive action. That’s when offensive tackle Paris Palmer went down with an injury. He was PSU’s third OT to be lost for the season and it forced Gonzalez’s classmate Ryan Bates to shift from LG to LT, thus creating an opening for Gonzalez to fill in.

He was further down the line after camp ended last year, but after the Indiana game Gonzalez became a regular. He’s now aiming for that not to be a one-year deal. Rather this preseason, he’s fighting to hold onto his spot atop the depth chart.

“Starting off (2016) as second or third string and as a starter on special teams, I embraced my role and then things happened toward the end of the season,” Gonzalez said. “I ended up starting in the last few games of the year and the Rose Bowl and the Big Ten Championship. It was just an amazing experience, honestly.”

In his first start against Rutgers, his home-state school, he helped the Nittany Lions rack up more than 500 yards of total offense for the fourth time that season. He initially took a backup role the following week against Michigan State, as Derek Dowrey earned the start for Senior Day, but Gonzalez still played the majority of the game.

For the Big Ten Championship, Gonzalez found himself returning to the starting lineup. Due to the back-and-forth nature of his redshirt freshman season, Gonzalez recalls it now as being “a little surreal” and “a little crazy” with how it all worked out.

But it wasn’t as eye-opening as his experience of entering the field in Pasadena, Calif., to play a starter’s role in the Rose Bowl.

“Definitely when we ran out of the tunnel I couldn’t believe I was there,” he added. “It was insane seeing all those people. I was just looking around and was like, Well, it’s time.”

That day he helped running back Saquon Barkley break the Penn State record for rushing yards in a bowl game, with 194, and Trace McSorley tie the school’s bowl record with four touchdown passes.

But in the end, Gonzalez and his teammates fell a few points shy of the win against USC. That, perhaps more than anything else that happened last season, is what is driving Gonzalez now.

“I feel like I did well and as a unit we did well, but things happened and we didn't get the result we wanted,” he said. “But that is why we’re here now in camp working hard to get that result this year.”