“It’s a real college football program in there,” James Franklin remarked about his team after its 38-10 first-round College Football Playoff victory over SMU at Beaver Stadium on Saturday. “And a college football program that everyone should be proud of,” Franklin continued, “because those guys are doing it the right way.”
To the 11th-year head coach of the Penn State football program who just cleared a major hurdle with a CFP victory, the right way involved sacrifice, hard work, all the things that coaches love to espouse about their team and their players, and qualities he ascribed to redshirt junior linebacker Dom DeLuca.
DeLuca arrived a Penn State as a walk-on after the highly-touted high school quarterback injured his knee during his prime recruitment years. Then, on Saturday, he was the hero for Penn State because of what he did to the opposing quarterback, intercepting Kevin Jennings twice. DeLuca returned the first for a touchdown to open the scoring in the first quarter, and with the second, he bailed out his head coach after a failed fourth-down attempt on Penn State’s own 19-yard line.
Franklin didn’t just use the moment to spotlight his team’s most unsung captain, but as he often does in postage press conferences, to campaign for (or against) change to the sport of college football.
“What a shame,” Franklin said, “that there may not be more stories like this in college football with the 105 rule,” a tectonic change to roster limits in that sport and an increase of scholarship allotments that would all but do away with walk-ons. “Dom DeLuca may not happen at Penn State,” and what a shame that would be.
If all 105 players on rosters going forward are scholarship players, then a program like Penn State may not have the capacity for a project like DeLuca, who underwent a massive position change amidst his injury recovery.
“There are a ton of changes in college football, but this one that I’m struggling with because there have been so many special stories over the years of walk-ons, whether they’ve earned a scholarship or not, they’ve been such a significant part of the game and our history.”
DeLuca, along with sophomore linebacker Tony Rojas who also returned an interception for a touchdown, were a part of even more history than just Penn State’s first CFP win. It was the first time since a 1998 win over Michigan State that Penn State returned two interceptions for a touchdown.