In The Nick Of Time
The following story appears in our 2018 Penn State Football Season Preview magazine, printed and mailed to our Blue White Illustrated print subscribers this week and set to hit newsstands throughout Pennsylvania next week.
By Matt Herb
Nick Scott likes to keep the mood light. The fifth-year senior may be all business on the field, but away from it, he’s a joker. So when people ask him why he volunteered early in his career to move from running back to safety, a position he had played infrequently in high school and wasn’t expected to play at all in college, his answer practically demands a rim shot.
“I tell them I could give them 26 reasons,” he said.
Scott had called up James Franklin about a week after the TaxSlayer Bowl in January 2016 and proposed trading himself to defense. He had come to Penn State as a running back, but he had seen what everyone else had seen during the 2015 regular season: Saquon Barkley left, Saquon Barkley right, Saquon Barkley up the middle, Saquon Barkley over the top of would-be tacklers. In a matter of months, No. 26 had gone from a promising but inexperienced freshman to the future of Penn State football. Scott understood that there weren’t going to be a lot of opportunities for others to carry the football with a once-in-a-generation talent on the roster for the next two or three years. Hence the trade request.
“It was best for me,” he said. “There was a little hesitation because I knew I lacked some of the fundamentals. In high school, I was never really at this position. I was just an athlete. So when I trained on my own, I didn’t train for a position. I worked out. I worked on straight-line speed, I worked on strength, I did some ladders and things, but I never really did a backpedal. In high school, because of my athleticism, I was able to get away with not being fundamentally sound. So that was something I was a little worried about going into it. But at the same time, I trusted myself that I would put in the work to get those things down.”
He has since put in that work, and as he preps for his final season at Penn State, he is expecting that it will pay off. Scott is in line to fill one of the vacancies that opened up when safeties Marcus Allen and Troy Apke graduated following the 2017 season. He has only made two starts in his career to date, and one of those was on offense in 2015 when Barkley was hurt, but he feels ready for a full-time starting role this fall, most likely at strong safety but possibly at free safety, since players cross-train at this position group to enhance their versatility. The coaching staff has been encouraged by his development.
“Nick has done a tremendous job,” safeties coach Tim Banks said. “Starting with our off-season conditioning program, he was excellent and he really picked up where he left off during spring ball. He’s a great leader right now. He’s playing a lot faster. I’m excited about him. I think the sky’s the limit this upcoming season.”
A special teams standout throughout his career, Scott said that his role on various kick-coverage teams helped convince him that, despite rushing for nearly 1,600 yards as a senior tailback at Fairfax (Va.) High, he really was a safety at heart. As a redshirt freshman, he won the John Bruno Memorial Award, which goes to the team’s outstanding special teams player, and in 2017 he was Penn State’s special teams captain. “If I had never played special teams, I would have never known that I was a defensive player,” he said. “In high school I was playing all this offense, but my personality, how I approached the game, my intensity – I think I always was a defensive player my whole life. I just didn’t know it.”
A trio of teammates helped him come to terms with that realization and adapt to his new role.
Allen showed him the importance of playing with passion. Said Scott, “It didn’t matter what the score was, it didn’t matter how he was feeling, if he was sore or injured, nicked and bruised. That kid, anytime he was on the field, you knew you were going to get 110 percent from him. He was the heart and soul of the defense. You knew that he was out there and that he was in love with what he was doing.”
Apke and 2016 graduate Malik Golden helped Scott understand that even just one season as a starter would be enough to have a big impact on the program and maybe even extend his playing career. Golden parlayed a solid senior season into a free-agent contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers last year, and he’s vying for a spot on the depth chart this summer. His successor, Apke, wowed scouts at this year’s NFL Combine and was taken by Washington in fourth round.
Apke’s emergence as a mid-round draftee “was fantastic for me to see,” Scott said. “It just reassures me that your time here is precious and you want to make the most of it. I would argue that if he was bitter about his past, he wouldn’t have approached it the same way and maybe he wouldn’t be there. But that’s not what he did. He approached everything wholeheartedly and reaped the benefits. And the same thing for Malik. He had a great season for us his last year here. He was a tremendous leader in the safety room, as well as for the defense. And it paid off for him.
“I joke with Malik, I call him the grandfather because of how old he was when he was still playing here. I made fun of him for that, but now I’m the fifth-year senior leading the safeties. Those are two great guys who I really look up to, and obviously I aspire to contribute and be a huge asset and lead the defense like they were able to do.”
This past spring, Franklin cited Scott as possibly the best-conditioned athlete on the team. The coaching staff uses an all-purpose measurement called a “T score” to quantify players’ overall physical fitness. “It’s a combination of the power clean, squat, bench press, vertical jump, 40-yard dash and body weight,” Franklin said. Scott’s number was the team’s best, “so you could make the argument that Nick Scott is the best athlete that we have on our team from a testing perspective.”
Scott had been a versatile, athletic prospect in high school, playing running back, quarterback, wide receiver, linebacker and, briefly, safety at Fairfax. But when he was assigned classmate Mark Allen as a training partner during his freshman year with the Nittany Lions, his competitive instincts kicked into overdrive, as did Allen’s.
“We would put on more weight than what was required on our card, if he had a higher weight than me and vice versa,” Scott said. “Once we started doing that our freshman year, that really molded us and shaped how we approached the weight room for a long time.”
Scott played in 36 games during his first three seasons of eligibility, but he made only one start on defense during his two years as a safety, filling in against Maryland last November after Apke received a targeting penalty the previous week vs. Nebraska.
While he’s had to show considerable patience at Penn State, it feels to him as though the time has flown by. There have been some sharp turns, and not just athletically. He came to University Park expecting to study psychology, with an eye toward becoming a sports psychologist. But that’s no longer the plan. “As we walk through this thing called college, we come in thinking we’re going to do one thing,” he said, “and then by the time we leave, it’s a complete 180.” Scott now wants to work in human resources, a field where he will be employable no matter where he goes next. “Everybody needs an HR department,” he said.
But his football career isn’t over just yet. He’s got, at minimum, 12 more games in which to make his mark on Penn State, and while he said he’s happy with the decisions he’s made over the course of his career, he’s not satisfied with what he’s accomplished. “I always want more and strive for more,” he said. “But it’s been a great ride. The relationships I’ve built have been amazing and like no other, and I’m really just looking forward to the end of my career and ending it on a high note.”
Blue White Illustrated is thrilled to present its 2018 Penn State Football Preview magazine, featuring 112 pages of the most in-depth features, news and coverage of the Nittany Lions as they prepare for the upcoming season! It's our biggest preseason issue ever, and it's mailing next week to our print subscribers, pre-orders, and will be on newsstands throughout Pennsylvania beginning the week of July 14.
Don't miss your chance to grab a copy - PRE-ORDER HERE!
What else is in our preseason preview magazine this year?
Phil's Corner - BWI publisher Phil Grosz kicks off yet another year in his decades-long coverage of the Penn State football program with a detailed look at the biggest questions this program will need to answer if it wants to achieve even better results than the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
Coaches Interviews - BWI editor Nate Bauer sat down with Nittany Lion head coach James Franklin as he gets set to embark on his fifth season at the helm, as well as his three coordinators on offense, defense and special teams. Don't miss the full Q&As running with Franklin, Ricky Rahne, Brent Pry and new special teams coordinator Phil Galiano.
Player Features - Like our exclusive one-on-one interviews with Penn State's coaching staff, these are the stories you won't see anywhere else this summer. We sat down with the biggest names and faces that will determine the Nittany Lions' fate as a program this season, including McSorley, wideout DeAndre Thompkins, running back Miles Sanders, guard Michal Menet, end Shareef Miller, linebacker Koa Farmer, safety Nick Scott, and captain punter Blake Gillikin.
Position-By-Position Analysis - BWI publisher Phil Grosz takes on each of Penn State's positions across the field as we break down the entirety of the Nittany Lions' depth chart. From quarterback through special teams, we've got it all covered.
2018 Opponent Previews - BWI editor Matt Herb tackled each of Penn State's 12 opponents in the upcoming season. What will the Nittany Lions have to overcome in order to produce the dream season their hoping for? Kicking off with Appalachian State and working all the way through the regular season finale against Maryland, each of Penn State's upcoming foes are broken down here!
These stories, along with our 2017-18 Penn State Year in Review, plus all of our usual fare including comprehensive recruiting coverage, men's basketball, a monthly historical retrospective, columns from each of our staff of writers, and more, are all included in our 2018 Penn State Football Preview edition.