2009 Penn State Nittany Lions football team

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The 2009 Penn State Nittany Lions football team represented the Pennsylvania State University in the 2009 college football season. The team was coached by Joe Paterno and played its home games in Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania. Penn State had the highest graduation rate among all of the teams on the Associated Press Top 25 poll with 89% of its 2002 enrollees graduating. Miami and Alabama tied for second place with a graduation rate of 75%. The Nittany Lions finished the season with an 11–2 record and won the Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy award to the best team in the ECAC for the 28th time and the second consecutive year. The 2008 season began with the Nittany Lions ranked #22 in the AP and Coaches preseason polls. The team was ranked as high as #3 in the AP and #2 in the Coaches polls prior to losing to the Iowa Hawkeyes 23–24. Despite the loss, Penn State were Big Ten co-champions with Ohio State and won the automatic BCS Rose Bowl bid due to Penn State winning the head-to-head matchup. After losing the 2009 Rose Bowl to the USC Trojans by two touchdowns, Penn State finished the season ranked #8 in both polls with a final record of 11–2. In December, backup quarterback Pat Devlin decided to transfer from Penn State and would not play in the Rose Bowl. Devlin appeared in ten games for the Nittany Lions, passing for 459 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Devlin later committed to Delaware, a Division I FCS school, where he had two years of eligibility left. In the Rose Bowl, backup tailback Stephfon Green left the game after sustaining what appeared to be a sprained right ankle. However, tests conducted after the team returned home revealed that Green sustained broken bones in his right leg and ankle and would require surgery to help repair the bones. Green was expected out of action for up to three months and would miss all of spring practice. After the Rose Bowl, defensive line coach Larry Johnson, Sr. interviewed with Illinois head coach Ron Zook to become the Illini's defensive coordinator. While many anticipated Johnson to take the job, in the end Johnson decided to stay at his current position at Penn State. In January, redshirt sophomore defensive end Aaron Maybin announced that he was skipping his final two seasons of eligibility and declared for the 2009 NFL Draft. Junior defensive end Maurice Evans, despite losing his starting position and playing time to Maybin due to a three-game suspension for marijuana possession, also declared for the draft. In addition to losing Maybin and Evans to early entry, the defense loses its entire starting secondary to graduation. However, after redshirting the previous season due to injury, linebacker Sean Lee returns to the line-up for his senior season. The offensive unit loses three-fifths of the offensive line to graduation including All-American and Rimington Trophy winner A.Q. Shipley. Also lost to graduation are the wide receiver trio of Derrick Williams, Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood, all four-year starters for the team. Paterno and the coaching staff also needed to find backups for returning starting quarterback Daryll Clark after losing backup Devlin to transfer and third-stringer Paul Cianciolo to graduation. Sean Lee and Daryll Clark were named team co-captains for the 2009 season. Lee also served as a captain the previous season. The Nittany Lions received 27 letters of intent on National Signing Day, February 4, 2009. The annual Blue-White scrimmage at Beaver Stadium was held April 25. The White squad defeated the Blue 21–16 in front of a record crowd of 76,500. Video Empire produces videos read aloud. Use the information in this video at your own risk. We cannot always guarantee accuracy. This video uses material from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Penn_State_Nittany_Lions_football_team, licensed with CC Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. This video is licensed with CC Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ In order to adapt this content it is required to comply with the license terms. Image licensing information is available via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Penn_State_Nittany_Lions_football_team