There was a time when the trash talking seemed to come just as frequently as the recognition did, Deon Butler remembers. Back then, though, there was little need to self-promote his skills amid an assembly of players that he was superior to, anyway.

"Usually, when you're one of the better kids in your area, there's a lot of people that try to talk to you," Butler said.

But aside from a small percentage of high school athletes that enter college and play immediately, the rest have to sit back and wait their turn.

Butler is no exception.

The redshirt sophomore from Woodbridge, Va., didn't land in Happy Valley like many of his teammates. He didn't come to Penn State on a scholarship, he was what they call in the business a preferred walk-on. It's like receiving an unpaid internship, where the employer says "Hey, we like you a lot, but you'll have to show us a little more before we cut any checks."

So for a whole year, Butler played the role of understudy, the watcher, on probation, in the midst of a season-long audition.

Spend a few minutes talking to him, and you'll understand that waiting is nothing new.

On Saturday, Butler caught two of the bigger passes of the game in the Nittany Lions 42-24 victory against Cincinnati.

The first catch, arguably the biggest catch of the day, came in the second quarter. To that point in the game, the Lions struggled to move the ball fluently. Their only touchdown to that point was set up by an Alan Zemaitis interception, which gave them good field position.

The hookup between Butler and quarterback Michael Robinson was good for 28 yards. The connection was worth a lot more.

"It kind of brought me back to reality," Butler said of the catch. "To let me know I can do it. I knew I could do it before, but you kind of need to do it to reassure yourself."

The reality is the catch was Butler's first in a real game since high school. Coming out of C.D. Hylton High School in Virginia, Butler was recruited mainly to play cornerback, the position he redshirted at last fall. He was a standout cornerback at Hylton -- only problem was, opposing teams barely threw his way.

In his senior season, his coach switched him to playing receiver, in addition to cornerback. This way, they could dictate how many plays Butler could make instead of the plays being dictated to them. Butler put up great numbers in his senior campaign, but by the time all the big-name schools finally recognized it, there were few scholarships left to be distributed.

That's when Penn State came into the picture. Defensive line coach Larry Johnson set up a visit for Butler to come to Penn State. After he left the visit, he was sold on Happy Valley.

The next step was proving he belonged here.

"The first thing I wanted to do was earn my scholarship," Butler said. "They always said there's a possibility I'd go to wideout, either way I could help the team. It really didn't matter to me."

After redshirting at cornerback for the 2004 season, Butler made the switch back to receiver in the spring, when quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno approached him after a workout and told him to get some reps at wideout.

Just like that, the wait was over.

"He's one of those guys that people really don't think can hurt you, but he can. He's probably as good at running the deep pass patterns as anyone we got on the team," Robinson said. "He's making the most of his opportunities."

Butler is a realist, though, and he knows that freshmen phenoms Justin King and Derrick Williams are attracting most of the attention right now. He understands that if he works on himself, everything else will fall into place.

"I'm not the type of guy that needs to be in the spotlight and sometimes I used it as motivation," Butler said. "Those guys are great and I'd like to do what they do. I just felt that, when I get my chance, I'd be able to do some things that they do."

Throughout the first half of Saturday's game, the Bearcat secondary succeeded, for the most part, at disrupting the flow of the Lions passing game. Whenever things went their way, they didn't hesitate to let the Lions know about it.

"Where I've come from, I've heard trash talking before. Once we settled down, once we caught a couple passes, you kind of tune that out," Butler said.

His final statline read two catches for 73 yards and a touchdown, complemented by the trash talking he's been waiting to hear since high school.

"Once you hit a couple big passes, they tune themselves out," Butler said. "They weren't talking as much; that helps."