When Penn State defensive tackle Antonio Shelton witnessed a man in Beaver Stadium yelling at one of his teammates during the Buffalo game Saturday night, he did what the modern-day student-athlete would do to get even.
He got on Twitter.
Appreciate everybody that came out to support tonight. But some people are becoming too comfortable. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little criticism,that’s not what I’m saying. But when you become overtly disrespectful, there’s a problem.
— Antonio (@_groovy55) September 8, 2019
Trust me, we love the fact that people care enough to consistently fill Beaver Stadium. But do not for a second think that college football is something that is even remotely easy. If we spoke to somebody how some people spoke to my teammates tonight, it would be a serious issue.
— Antonio (@_groovy55) September 8, 2019
If you have all the answers. I invite you to get into coaching. Or, come do what we do for a day and then have an opinion. End of the day tho good team win lol shout out Buffalo they came ready to play.
— Antonio (@_groovy55) September 8, 2019
It’s just funny to me how the same people who will openly trash me, my teammates, and my coaches on the Internet are the SAME PEOPLE who want a picture or an autograph for them or their kids? like come on yo!??
— Antonio (@_groovy55) September 8, 2019
We understand people have a deep connection to this university and this team. But understand that we are men first. Do not disrespect us.
— Antonio (@_groovy55) September 8, 2019
“It’s that time of year where everybody thinks that they know what’s going on on the football field,” he said Tuesday when asked about the incident during a conference call with reporters. “To a certain degree, if you’ve never played college football at a Division I level, or if you never played professional football, to an extent you kind of can’t talk about certain things.
“Like, I’d like to think I don’t talk about certain things I don’t know about. I’m not a rocket scientist, so if the space shuttle doesn’t do whatever, I’m not, like, ‘Oh, they should have done this.’
“But I figured he knew him, so he was just trying to get his attention. Then, my teammate turned around, and it was clear that he did not know this dude. And the fan is just trying to tell him how to play football as if we don’t have a coaching staff that’s doing that already, and as if he’s not an adult, a young man who has dedicated his life to this.
“Like we practiced all week, watched all this film and did all this studying on these people and put in all this work during summer and during camp — let’s just go out here and lose.”
Shelton also made sure to add, “We appreciate everybody that comes out and supports us because, as a player, when you sit back and you really think, ‘These people are here to watch me play a game.’ It’s pretty cool.”
Petrishen knows too much
Coach James Franklin said the same day Central Catholic graduate John Petrishen joined the Pitt team last month after transferring from Penn State, Nittany Lions coaches got together to change their play-calling signals.
“We didn’t wait until this week to do it,” Franklin said. “We did it right when that was announced, but obviously, we had to change all of our signals, you know, especially on defense and on offense, as well, but especially on defense, because he knows all of our signals and those types of things.
“We’ve had plenty of time to get it done and now our guys are comfortable. We’ve already done it the first two weeks, so that helps.”
Penn State tight end Nick Bowers (Kittanning) said learning new signals wasn’t difficult.
“I think we’ve done it before,” he said. “It’s not really a challenge. I mean, you get to come in and work every single day and you’re expected to know those signals. So it’s up to you if you want to play or not.”
