STATE COLLEGE - It's 5:15 a.m. on a Friday in State College, and Penn State head football coach Bill O'Brien struts onto his team's practice field outside the Lasch Football Building holding a cup of coffee.
"This is a first," O'Brien says, speaking to the two dozen or so reporters and cameramen standing behind the near endzone, "5:30 in the morning."
Forget what the clock says, the presence of the media at a Penn State practice is a first in its own right.
For decades under the Nittany Lions' old coaching regime, former coach Joe Paterno concealed practices as if they were top-secret government meetings. Aside from a 30-minute sneak peek at the team's media day late in the summer, only coaches, players and trainers were allowed to see any kind of team workouts. All of it was confidential.
But now, behind the new theme of transparency preached by O'Brien and his staff, media members were invited to watch one of the Lions' early-morning training sessions.
"I think it's really important for people to see that these guys are working really hard, that we've got a great staff here," O'Brien said following practice. "We feel like we're building something here. We're just starting. There's no light at the end of the tunnel right now, but we've got a long way to go. I just wanted to give you guys a chance to see how hard these guys are working."
While most students were snug in their dorm room or apartment beds, the Lions were running around gigantic hula hoops, bobbing and weaving through tall poles, and sprinting to and diving over track-and-field hurdles onto a padded mat. The early scheduling allows the Lions to comply with NCAA regulations without interfering with players' classes or routines.
Led by adrenaline-fueled strength-and-conditioning coach Craig Fitzgerald, Friday morning's workout finished and ended before sunrise. Ladder drills began at 5:26 a.m., followed by high-leg kicks at 5:35, then group drills until halftime at 6:05. Each player completes two 300-yard shuttle runs by 6:28.
"The offseason is about becoming a better competitor, and we're trying to find ways to do that, and the guys love it," Fitzgerald said. "These guys are top of the food chain, kind of, 'Hey, I want to compete. I'm going to beat you. You're going to beat me. I want to see who wins and test myself against you.' So they love it. That really keeps me going."
