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Injuries continue to mount for Penn State

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<p>A whole army of challenges kept rushing at Penn State, trying to wear down the Nittany Lions if not make them wilt.</p><p>The soon-to-be soldiers who play for Army West Point&#8217;s football team marched into Beaver Stadium and emptied their arsenal of running plays with a punishing plan of attack.</p><p>They tried sending running backs right up the middle, one after another, time and again. They ran crafty quarterback keepers. They trampled their way to first downs on toss plays.</p><p>And a whole day of trying to figure out how to defend this rare type of college offense called the flexbone is a take-off of the wishbone and had Lions middle linebacker Jason Cabinda just wishing he&#8217;d never see it again.</p><p>&#8220;Very tiresome,&#8221; Cabinda said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a triple-option. You&#8217;ve got the dive, you&#8217;ve got the quarterback running, you&#8217;ve got the pitch. Those kinds of offenses kind of eat up the clock. They want you looking in the backfield, trying to find the ball. Then, whoop, it&#8217;s on the other side.</p><p>&#8220;Very tiring, for sure.&#8221;</p><p>Only Cabinda never fell victim to fatigue.</p><p>He made a game-high 14 tackles Saturday, more stops than the sophomore has ever come up with in his college career. He forced a fumble during one of the few times Army tried to pass. And he recorded two sacks, the last crushing Army&#8217;s final hopes for a comeback victory in the final minutes.</p><p>For Cabinda, it was mind over matter, as the say in the service.</p><p>All because Cabinda had someone else on his mind.</p><p>He was only doing, Cabinda insisted, what Nyeem Wartman-White wished he could.</p><p>&#8220;For me, when I start to get tired in games, I think of Nyeem,&#8221; Cabinda said. &#8220;How much would Nyeem like to be playing that middle linebacker position?&#8221;</p><p>That wish for Wartman-White ended in the first half of the first game this year, when the former Valley View star suffered a season-ending knee injury while trying to block on a punt.</p><p>His absence may have been a big reason why Temple torched the Lions up the middle in a stunning upset victory for the Owls. And it also played a big part in Penn State&#8217;s ability to hold off a late charge by Army.</p><p>Because Cabinda is the one who took Wartman-White&#8217;s place on the field.</p><p>So when the ball was placed at Penn State&#8217;s 43-yard line, with the Lions protecting a 20-14 lead and Army trying to take it away with under two minutes to play, Cabinda knew what he had to do.</p><p>He tried to make a play, not only to save the game, but make the guy who was supposed to be in his position proud.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got to stop them,&#8221; Cabinda said. &#8220;That&#8217;s all you&#8217;ve got to do, stop them and the game is over. It&#8217;s on us.&#8221;</p><p>He took the last play upon himself.</p><p>Army quarterback A.J. Schurr, who took off on a 56-yard touchdown run to pull Army real close nearly nine minutes earlier, dropped back to pass for the fourth time all day. Cabinda read it, stormed the backfield, and dropped Schurr on fourth-and-five for a 10-yard sack.</p><p>Finally, against a tricky team like Army, Penn State could celebrate a hard-earned victory.</p><p>&#8220;They&#8217;re a bunch of tough guys,&#8221; said Lions junior linebacker Von Walker, who drew a start due to injuries and came up with his first career fumble recovery. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to be a very disciplined defense. This is the kind of offense you play against, maybe, every four years. It&#8217;s not an easy offense to defend against.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to be more disciplined than a group of soldiers on the football field.&#8221;</p><p>Those players from Army may be battling on a much different type of field when they go off to serve our country, which was not lost on the Nittany Lions.</p><p>&#8220;We respect the hell out of those guys,&#8221; Cabinda said. &#8220;Those guys are just super, super resilient. The toughness they have, the decisions they make, playing with tremendous passion and toughness, we respect that team so much.&#8221;</p><p>In the trenches that were built for a fight to the finish, Penn State&#8217;s defense earned it own honor in the end.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Paul Sokoloski at 570-991-6392 or on Twitter @TLPaulSokoloski</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Penn State column: Nittany Lions find a way to fend off a heart-stopping attack