It’s the time of year when many first-year college basketball players hit the freshman wall, that real or imagined phenomenon that is characterized by tired legs, questionable decision-making, and generally a lesser quality of play than the same player showed from November through mid-January.

Penn State’s freshmen haven’t logged nearly enough minutes to hit that freshman wall, which is good for them but not great for the present or future of the program.

The Nittany Lions, 13-7 overall and 4-5 in conference play entering Sunday’s game against Michigan, are very much in the NCAA Tournament mix thanks to one of the most experienced lineups in the entire nation, let alone the Big Ten. Jalen Pickett, Seth Lundy, Myles Dread, Andrew Funk and Cam Wynter have already played in a combined 633 games, and their bodies and their minds have gone through so many reps that any one of them would not be out of place as a fourth assistant coach.

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What’s old (like really old) is new again, as Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich’s 2021 flirtation with an antiquated alignment morphed into a full-blown infatuation in 2022.

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Apparently, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit didn’t get the memo.

In the dying breaths of the Rose Bowl’s 1^st quarter, beneath a gloomy, outlier Southern California sky that deceased journalistic windbag Grantland Rice would have gushed over in his run-on, 300-word, one-sentence lead in the next day’s newspaper, Penn State lined up in a T Formation for the 27^th time this season.

To those who diligently watched every game of Penn State’s bounceback 2022 campaign, this was no big deal – standard operating procedure in short-yardage situations.

And yet — as you’ll hear below if you click the video clip – both veteran announcers sounded absolutely bewildered/befuddled/flustered when the Nittany Lions suddenly whipped out this X’s and O’s antique near the goal line.

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