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The tattoo on Nyeem Wartman-White&#8217;s left arm is of a city. His city&#8220;Made in Philadelphia,&#8221; it reads, winding in and around the skyline.Penn State&#8217;s starting middle linebacker ultimately moved to Lackawanna County, where he starred at Valley View High School.But Philadelphia is still where he grew up. The Eagles are still his team. And taking the field today at Lincoln Financial Field?&#8220;I already know I&#8217;m going to have a little jitters,&#8221; Wartman-White said leading up to the Nittany Lions&#8217; season-opener against Temple. &#8220;You know what I&#8217;m saying? It&#8217;s the Linc. I went to a few Eagles games, and it&#8217;s something about the Linc that gets me. I don&#8217;t know, maybe because it&#8217;s my hometown and it&#8217;s my favorite team.&#8220;I&#8217;m going to have to calm myself down. I know I&#8217;m going to be a little emotional. Bunch of my family is going to be in front of me. But I know I&#8217;m going to come ready, straight mindset, ready for Temple, ready with the game plan. I&#8217;m going to have to take a step back, but that&#8217;s going to be in the pregame. I think once the kickoff starts, I&#8217;m gonna be OK.&#8221;Once he gets through that, his first game at his new position should be cake.The key for Wartman-White to replacing Mike Hull in the middle is to not try and be Mike Hull.That much has been repeated to him by his coaches, who would like him to ease into the role after playing on the outside during his first three years on campus.&#8220;To think you&#8217;re going to take a Mike Hull out of the equation,&#8221; Lions coach James Franklin said, &#8220;and replace him with this one specific person and replace the impact and the production that he had, I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s realistic. And we haven&#8217;t really approached it that way.&#8220;Overall I&#8217;ve been pleased.&#8221;The results during training camp were promising.Though Wartman-White doesn&#8217;t have Hull&#8217;s exceptional ability to get out toward the sidelines, he is a bigger body, well-suited to take on blockers from multiple angles in the box.&#8220;Nyeem did fantastic,&#8221; linebackers coach Brent Pry said. &#8220;He was excited about the position change. He wanted it for himself. It&#8217;s a great challenge filling in for Mike Hull, and he&#8217;s taking the spot by the reins. He&#8217;s really worked at it. It&#8217;s very important to Nyeem. He&#8217;s had a great camp physically and mentally and learned the position.&#8220;I feel good about where Nyeem is and I&#8217;m excited to see him play his first game there.&#8221;Pry said that Wartman-White was already well involved in the defense&#8217;s pre-snap communication last season and that added responsibility there shouldn&#8217;t be an issue.More than anything, Wartman-White&#8217;s emotions will be tested today.Getting out of Philadelphia is what started his football career and now he has a chance to return and play there with friends and family watching.&#8220;I think about it all the time,&#8221; Wartman-White said. &#8220;(If I had stayed), I probably would have never played football, to be honest. I didn&#8217;t start playing football until I moved. I remember at some points when I lived in Philadelphia, I could actually see the Linc from where I live, and I remember never playing a football game in my life. But I knew I loved football at that time.&#8220;It was (a) dream to play in the Linc, and look at me now. Eight, nine years later, moved from Philly and I&#8217;m playing for Penn State, about to go play in the Linc. So it&#8217;s truly a blessing, and all glory goes to God for that.&#8221;THREE AND OUTLynch aims to repeatPenn State had one of the country&#8217;s least productive running games a year ago. Yet the Lions were able to hammer the Owls on the ground, pulling away for a 30-13 win at Beaver Stadium.One of the stars was none other Akeel Lynch, who set a career-high with 130 yards and a touchdown on just 18 carries.With both sides bringing back the majority of their personnel from that game, Lynch will again be a focal point.Owls DE hobblingTemple&#8217;s top pass-rusher, Praise Martin-Oguike, has not been able to do much in practice this week because of a leg injury. Temple coach Matt Rhule, a former walk-on linebacker at Penn State, had said earlier this week that he doubted the junior defensive end would be able to play against the Lions.By the end of the week, it sounded like he was going to try and play through the pain.&#8220;He told me that he wants to give it a go,&#8221; Rhule said in a Philadelphia radio interview on Thursday. &#8220;He&#8217;s a competitive kid so we&#8217;re gonna see. But I wouldn&#8217;t expect too much from him. The rest of the guys are going to have to step up in Praise&#8217;s absence.&#8221;Just a bit closerAfter taking an overnight cross-Atlantic flight &#8212; and having to monitor the potential eruption of an Icelandic volcano &#8212; to get to last year&#8217;s opener, the Lions get to drive to their first game in 2015.Penn State took the bus down to Philadelphia Friday and won&#8217;t have to worry about declaring every last roll of athletic tape like last year on the way to Dublin, Ireland, to play UCF.For Franklin, it was an easy opportunity for a joke.&#8220;I think the biggest thing is I like consistency, so we&#8217;re going to do a similar thing as we did last year. We&#8217;re going to fly to the Temple game,&#8221; Franklin deadpanned. &#8220;And we&#8217;re going to do about 12 connections on the way. So we&#8217;re going to fly to Boston and then Chicago and be on a sleepover with a 300-carrier plane, because I like the consistency that it creates.&#8221;<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Penn State linebacker Nyeem Wartman-White has received plenty of attention ahead of the season-opener in his native Philadelphia. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/web1_wartman.jpg</photo0><caption0>Penn State linebacker Nyeem Wartman-White has received plenty of attention ahead of the season-opener in his native Philadelphia. </caption0><photoCredit0>Nabil K. Mark | AP photo, Centre Daily Times </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Derek Levarsedlevarse@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta>PSU GAMEDAYPenn State at Temple3:30 p.m. todayLincoln Financial FieldPhiladelphiaTV: ESPN</factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</shirttailMeta></div>

Wartman-White takes the spotlight in his hometown