The day started early, with Penn State Director of Communications and Branding Guido D'Elia unlocking the doors to Penn State's locker room so the area could be set up for a day of filming.

The locker room at Beaver Stadium is normally hallowed ground, but on this day, an ESPN crew and two other local television crews were allowed to intrude.

Even before Penn State's traveling football fans started considering what witticisms would grace their homemade posters for this weekend's edition of ESPN's College GameDay in East Lansing, Mich., the behind-the-scenes staff at ESPN was planning a spot on Penn State linebacker Paul Posluszny for the show.

Not surprising. Penn State legend Jack Ham recently said he considers Posluszny the best linebacker in Penn State's illustrious history, and last week the junior was named as one of the three finalists for the Butkus Award.

What is surprising is how much time and effort goes into filming a spot likely to run no longer than five minutes.

GameDay may thrive on the unpredictability and spontaneity of live television, but the taped feature stories are the meat and potatoes of the show, which is why the self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports sent a crew to Happy Valley yesterday to coax a story out of the media-wary Posluszny.

The crew from ESPN was made up of four people: a freelance cameraman, a sound technician, correspondent Tom Rinaldi and the producer for the spot, David Salerno.

While the crew members waited for the necessarily players to arrive from their 11 a.m. classes, they set up the backdrops for the day's interviews, which included a locker in the semi-dark room, filled with a set of shoulder pads and Penn State's National Championship trophy from 1982.

When quarterback Michael Robinson arrived, the shoot began, with Rinaldi leading Robinson through a series of questions about Saturday's game, the season in general and, most of all, Posluszny.

The whole routine was repeated moments later with cornerback Alan Zemaitis, whom Salerno worked with when he did a feature about the senior's near-fatal car accident for a GameDay spot last year. While the shot was being set up, Zemaitis joked with Rinaldi about how his approach to the bye week differed from his Robinson's.

"When Mike has a bye week, he still goes up to the building and uses the sauna and stuff," Zemaitis said. "I know what a bye week really is. When I have a bye week, you can't get me out of bed."

During the downtime until Paterno was expected to arrive, the crew relaxed and planned how to shoot the segments featuring Posluszny. When the issue of whether the crew is surprised GameDay will be in East Lansing this weekend is brought up, the responses vary.

"I think that Penn State is one of the biggest stories in college football right now," Rinaldi said. "This is a program that won three conference games in the last two seasons, and now they are on the cusp of a conference title and a BCS bid."

Salerno disagreed.

"I was very surprised when I found out," he said. "Because it's not normal for the show to be going to a school that is 5-5."

The wait for Paterno continued, and it was a somewhat anxious one. The coach was scheduled to hold his weekly press conference at 12:30 p.m., and if the crew only gets 10 to 12 minutes with him, it wanted to make sure they counted.

Paterno arrived soon enough, in a jovial mood, and joked his way through the preparation for his segment. After the cameras were off, Salerno told the bespectacled coach how much his wife, a Penn State grad, admires him.

"If we are ever in State College, maybe I can give you a call," Salerno said.

"Don't you call me," Paterno deadpanned. "Have your wife call me." He laughed, and the whole room broke up.

After another short break, Posluszny, the man of the hour, arrived.

Rinaldi asked Posluszny a different and more in-depth set of questions than he asked the others, probing the stoic linebacker about what it means to play at Linebacker U.

After the interview, Posluszny got into his uniform to film the quick, intimidating, accent shots spliced between interview footage. It took both Salerno and D'Elia's best efforts to get the obscenely tight No. 31 jersey over the massive set of shoulder pads.

"You should get a scholarship just for being able to put that jersey on," Rinaldi cracked.

Salerno and Kevin Raullerson, the freelance cameraman, now had the obviously embarrassed Posluszny stand tall, slapping his helmet and showing off the blood on the bridge of the helmet over his eyes.

The shots will undoubtedly look tough, when edited correctly on television, but Posluszny obviously was unsure of himself. He warmed up eventually, though, and fixed an immensely intimidating look on his face, one that Zemaitis has humorously compared to G.I. Joe.

After having Posluszny hold up pictures of past Penn State linebacker greats and give vital information ("Jack Ham -- Hall of Fame"), Salerno was thrilled with the shots. He still wanted to take a few more on the field, though, namely of Posluszny pretending to audible a defense at the line, despite the 110,000-seat Beaver Stadium being empty save four people.

"You want me to just point and stuff?" Posluszny asked, obviously unsure of his acting abilities. Finally, he relented. "Alright. Tell me when to start."

Afterwards, he seemed relieved to be out of the camera's glare. Nevertheless, the crew managed to get the soft-spoken Posluszny to show his tough, intimidating alter-ego to a national television audience.

"We should be able to do something really good with this," Salerno said to Rinaldi excitedly as Posluszny got ready to depart and the crew went to take some shots of the Land Grant Trophy. "It went perfectly."