Before choosing to have surgery last September, Nick Sukay had a big decision to make.
"It was play just a little last year on special teams or actually try and push for a starting job this year," Sukay said during his conference call on Wednesday. "I figured I want to try to be 100 percent so I could compete for a starting job."
The defensive back had surgery on the sesamoid bone in his right foot, which caused him to miss all of last season.
Sukay said he started feeling pain in the foot during the 2007 Alamo Bowl and didn't return to 100 percent until this January. He isn't sure when he actually broke it but added that it hasn't caused him too much pain since the surgery.
While sitting out the 2008 season, Sukay watched film with the team and tried to learn even when he wasn't on the field. He also worked on the mental aspect of the game.
Sukay made his first start in last weekend's season-opening win against Akron, posting one tackle.
But the redshirt sophomore is probably best remembered for being on the wrong end of the Zips' lone touchdown of the game, when Akron quarterback Chris Jacquemain found receiver Deryn Bowser open for a 40-yard score.
"He got a little careless with it. That's all," Penn State coach Joe Paterno said on Tuesday.
As for his own assessment of the play, Sukay said while his teammates joked to him about it, he learned the importance of staying on his back pedal and not opening up his hips.
Despite the play, the secondary shut down the Akron offense.
"The guy ran a really good route, that's what happens sometimes,'" linebacker Sean Lee said. "But in general I thought looking at the film the coverage was great. They locked them up in a lot of situations." Hailing from Greensburg Central Catholic, Sukay enters an interesting situation this weekend. He faces off against two of his former teammates in Cody Catalina and Max Suter.
Suter is a safety and Catalina is a tight end, although the latter was a quarterback in high school.
"He put on a good amount of weight, good weight," Sukay said about Catalina. "It'll be fun. He jokes about trying to run me over."
Sukay said he talked with Catalina on Tuesday night and that he planned on talking with Suter sometime this week.
Like Catalina, Sukay also went through a full-time position switch when he arrived at college. Besides playing defensive back in high school, Sukay also posted big numbers as a wide receiver, as he had 631 yards and six touchdowns as a senior.
Although Sukay misses playing wide receiver and said other schools recruited him as that, he chose to be a Nittany Lion.
"Coming to Penn State, I know they wanted me to play defense. That was what I was kind of expecting," Sukay said. "I miss [wide receiver] a lot, not going to lie. I'm just trying to work on my skills every day as a defensive back."
