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<p>Penn State hasn&#8217;t needed Christian Hackenberg to be superhuman to win games this year. So he stopped trying to be.</p><p>Now the junior quarterback is playing as well as he ever has for the Nittany Lions. Funny how that works.</p><p>By the time November rolled around last season, Hackenberg was fully in the middle of a funk, getting hammered by opposing defenses with no real run game to speak of as support.</p><p>With the Lions offense struggling, to put it kindly, a still-teenage Hackenberg tried to win games by himself. That mentality led to a whopping 15 interceptions.</p><p>&#8220;Yeah, I think I was playing outside myself, trying to do something great to get things going, I guess,&#8221; Hackenberg said Wednesday. &#8220;I think there&#8217;s always a time and place to do that. Last year I often did it too much, when I look back at it.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s tough to change that mindset. That&#8217;s always been my mindset since high school. It&#8217;s bit me in the butt a few times, but it&#8217;s also worked. You have to understand risk/reward, situational football and staying efficient as possible.&#8221;</p><p>Efficiency wasn&#8217;t a problem last week. Hackenberg connected on his first seven passes and finished 21-of-29 for 266 yards and two touchdowns &#8212; plus a third score as a receiver &#8212; in a little over three quarters of work against Illinois.</p><p>&#8220;I did think that starting out the game with an easy completion helped him,&#8221; Lions coach James Franklin said. &#8220;Then we went and ran a naked (bootleg) and the ball was a little bit low. And the receiver went down and got it and made a play for him early, so he was able to get into a rhythm.&#8221;</p><p>And how. It ranked among his best performances in a Penn State uniform, particularly with the way he was able to evade pressure, step up in the pocket and still deliver accurate passes.</p><p>Through nine games, he has 13 touchdown throws, eclipsing his 13-game total of 12 from last year. More importantly, his interceptions have plunged down to just two. He hasn&#8217;t thrown one since a third-and-19 jump ball while holding a late three-score lead against Rutgers.</p><p>That was seven weeks ago.</p><p>So what&#8217;s the difference?</p><p>&#8220;I have a lot of confidence in a lot of people this year,&#8221; Hackenberg said. &#8220;Outside (with the wide receivers) and up front (with the offensive line). That always helps. You take that and add a running game &#8212; we have a very good attack on the ground this year &#8212; and that takes the pressure off.</p><p>&#8220;Now the nakeds, the play-actions, they become pretty good options for us. Teams commit so much to stopping the run. That helps. That&#8217;s good.&#8221;</p><p>The emergence of Saquon Barkley in the backfield has been a big factor in Penn State&#8217;s improved offense, no doubt. But Hackenberg&#8217;s mental approach &#8212; on and off the field &#8212; has also been critical to the turnaround.</p><p>As a sophomore, he would often stomp off to the sideline after stalled drives. TV cameras would catch him barking at offensive coordinator John Donovan over the phone &#8212; &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what the (expletive) we&#8217;re doing&#8221; in one famous moment in lip-reading &#8212; or in person when Donovan later moved down to the field.</p><p>After games, as the losses began to pile up, he began gloomily pulling a hat down over his eyes during interviews. It was bad enough that speculation about him transferring began to take off.</p><p>There&#8217;s been almost none of that this year. Even after being sacked an unfathomable 10 times in the season-opening loss to Temple, Hackenberg kept his head up and tried to stay positive after the game.</p><p>In his own words, he grew up.</p><p dir="ltr">&#8220;Maturity has played a big role,&#8221; Hackenberg said. &#8220;I learned a lot from last year. That was great for me in terms of development as a player.&#8221;</p><p dir="ltr">Beyond that, Hackenberg credited quarterbacks coach Ricky Rahne and film study multiple times. That, he said, has made him more willing to check down on passes, throw it away or even, yes, take a sack rather than try to make that perfect pass into coverage.</p><p dir="ltr">&#8220;To make sure this team can win games, I have to protect the football and do my job,&#8221; Hackenberg said. &#8220;That&#8217;s ultimately what I need to do.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Stadium plan update</strong></p><p>After first talking with students and then faculty and employees, Penn State held a third town hall meeting with the general public on Wednesday to field questions about the school&#8217;s plans for athletic facilities.</p><p>Spearheaded by athletic director Sandy Barbour, Penn State hired a firm to determine what changes and upgrades need to be made, with a potential renovation &#8212; or replacement &#8212; of Beaver Stadium right at the top of the list. That plan is still ongoing.</p><p>&#8220;My desire, because of the history and tradition of Beaver Stadium, is to to renovate,&#8221; Barbour said Wednesday. &#8220;Our needs are fairly basic. But what&#8217;s that going to cost in a renovation? I believe we&#8217;re able to achieve our goals through renovation. But we have to test both.&#8221;</p><p>One renovation question that has come up is whether it would be better to downsize the current 106,572 capacity &#8212; second largest in the country behind the Big House at Michigan &#8212; to make room for more services as well as more comfortable, non-bleacher seating.</p><p>&#8220;It certainly has to be on the table for us to consider,&#8221; Barbour said.</p><p>&#8220;I think it all depends on kind of where we&#8217;re at with attendance,&#8221; Franklin said Tuesday. &#8220;I think the challenge is the amenities. We want to make sure that we&#8217;re providing as many amenities as we possibly can to create a great gameday environment in the stadium. &#8230; That&#8217;s going to be the big decisions that are going to have to be made in the offseason.</p><p>&#8220;Would you love to be able to provide all the amenities that you can in some of the best venues in the country, as well as keeping it at 107,000 in the stadium and selling it out every single week? Yeah, that&#8217;s the perfect situation for everybody involved. But obviously there&#8217;s going to have to be some give and take there.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Penn State has seen a much calmer Christian Hackenberg on the sideline this season. On the field it has led to a dramatic cutdown in interceptions. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_hack-sideline1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Penn State has seen a much calmer Christian Hackenberg on the sideline this season. On the field it has led to a dramatic cutdown in interceptions. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>UP NEXT</strong></p><p>Penn State at Northwestern</p><p>Noon, Saturday, ESPNU</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Hackenberg maturing, excelling for Nittany Lions