Mickey Shuler knelt outside Beaver Stadium's south end zone, finishing up his pregame stretches with about 40 minutes until the 2007 season's official beginning.
Stretching on the grass about five feet in front of him was his teammate and fellow tight end, Andrew Quarless.
During the 15 days leading up to Penn State's season opener against Florida International, the early-season fates of these two players gradually became intertwined.
When Joe Paterno disciplined Quarless -- the established starter at tight end -- for receiving an underage drinking citation in mid-August, his fall from the depth chart opened the door for Shuler to step in, though Shuler had never caught a pass in his Nittany Lion career.
Barely seven minutes into Saturday's game, however, Shuler changed that. Anthony Morelli hit the redshirt sophomore for a 17-yard touchdown pass, giving the Lions an early, 14-0 lead on their way to a 59-0 rout. Shuler finished the game with four catches for a total of 54 yards.
"I was happy with my performance. ... The last game I played was in high school, really," said Shuler, who saw some time last season, but never started. "It was really fun to go out there and actually play in a game for Penn State."
But how long is Shuler's window of opportunity going to stay open? He was forced into a battle with Jordan Lyons, a junior, throughout the last week of the preseason to earn the start Saturday. Not to mention that Quarless' return looms somewhere around the third or fourth week of the season, Paterno said at last week's press conference.
"I'm not worried about it," Shuler said of Quarless' return. "You can't really think about that -- say, 'Oh, Andrew comes back in a couple games, and then I'm not gonna start.' You gotta play your best, and you can't worry about other things like that."
Shuler's father, Mickey Shuler Sr., played tight end for the Lions in the mid-1970s and watched Saturday's game from the sidelines. He used the family's video camera to zoom in on his son's plays and, through the viewfinder, he observed that Mickey Jr. had come prepared to play.
"He didn't look nervous at all to me," said Shuler Sr., who was drafted by the New York Jets in 1976 and also played for the Philadelphia Eagles. "I think he prepared well."
Mickey Jr. needs to keep his hands inside while blocking, said Mickey Sr., but he hasn't tried to drill his son on techniques while mentoring him over the years -- the team's coaches do enough of that, he said.
Instead, Mickey Sr. has tried to stress to his son the mental aspects of the game. He can still remember Paterno telling his teams in the 1970s to block out thoughts of girlfriends, parties and exams when they stepped onto the field. Their job was to react to the things they could control and not be bothered by what was out of their control.
The elder Shuler hopes that advice will be helpful to his son in competing for playing time this season.
"I would hope he understands it's always about competing, always about trying to do the best you can," Shuler Sr. said. "For him to worry about [Quarless' return] isn't gonna help him prepare to do what he needs to do. I'm assuming he's gonna do what he's learned."
