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First, he leaned back, trying to pass on a question as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Then KJ Hamler leaned forward.
Then he fidgeted.
All this talk about the NFL Draft was making Penn State’s super-cool wide receiver nervous.
How could he not be?
The most dynamic offensive player the Lions have will likely put his faith in an NFL future next season, entering a world of unknowns on a boatload of cash.
He earned that with his electric play at Penn State.
But he also earned the right to consider coming back to college for his final year, before heading off to pro football fortune and fame, to spend one more round of fun with his teammates.
His brothers, he called the close-knit Nittany Lions.
“They’re always on me about what I’m going to do,” Hamler smiled last week. “I don’t like to share my decisions.”
He maintained that stance after Saturday’s Cotton Bowl win over Memphis, as he told reporters in Texas he would take a few days and talk to Lions coach James Franklin before making a choice.
It’s not an easy one for any underclassman coming out of college, but maybe moreso at a school like Penn State — where bonds built around campus through three or four years seem to last a lifetime. And even the possibility of realizing a boyhood dream of playing football on Sundays isn’t always a slam dunk when compared to the opportunity for one last chance to catch passes with close friends on Saturdays.
Because once you leave the house, you can’t come back.
“I always go to my quiet places,” Hamler said, softly, “ask God what to do. I really was waiting for God to give me a sign.”
The sign for Pat Freiermuth hung on the vision of a mailbox.
He certainly displayed enough talent through his first two college seasons to play in the NFL, and it’s a safe bet that he will someday.
Just not any day in 2020.
The sure-handed tight end is coming back to finish his college career, or at least one more year, at Penn State — mainly because of what’s certain to show up in the mail if he doesn’t.
“I don’t want to pay bills,” Freiermuth said.
He’s only partly joking.
He said about halfway through a season where he caught 41 passes for 468 yards and seven touchdowns, he began tossing around the idea of heading to the NFL.
“I was trying to joke about it with my parents,” said Freiermuth, a true sophomore but draft-eligible. “They said, ‘You realize you’re going to be living by yourself (as an NFL player). I said, ‘Uh, I don’t know about that.’ I’m not ready. I’m not ready to pay bills yet.”
There’s another sticking point that’s driving him back to Happy Valley.
“After the Ohio State game (a loss), that was a very bad taste in my mouth,” Freiermuth said. “I just wanted all the speculation (about his future) to end and get back to work.”
Call it unfinished business. That’s exactly the phrase that junior offensive linemen Michal Menet and Will Fries used when they announced they too would be back for the 2020 season.
So far, only junior defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos — a potential first-rounder — has publicly said he is turning pro. Three other juniors in defensive end Shaka Toney, safety Lamont Wade and cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields have also made no statements about their future.
But make no mistake, football is a business, whether it’s played at the major college level or in the NFL.
And for an underclassman, making a choice between one or the other can be excruciating.
“I didn’t think it was going to be this difficult and this stressful,” Hamler said. “It’s kind of like (college) recruiting. If you pick the wrong school, you can mess up the rest of your life. With this, if you make the wrong decision, it can hurt your future.
“It’s a really big decision.”
The school that won the recruiting battle for Hamler can help.
“Everybody’s afraid to talk to the coach about it,” Franklin said, “because they think we’re just going to try to talk them into staying. I just want to see them and their family make an educated decision.”
The coach has an interesting perspective on things.
He noted the NFL advisory board gives schools and players prospective round grades suggesting where they can expect to be drafted — “But we only get to send in five guys,” Franklin said. He went on to break down the evaluation system by suggesting guys with first-round draft grades should probably be moving, on, second-round grades would lead to a personal decision and third-round or lower grades suggest players should strongly consider returning to school.
“If they leave early,” Franklin said, “it’s in their best interests and our best interests that they get drafted high. So we can tell recruits we’re sending high draft picks to the NFL.
“The reality is, you want it to be a win-win.”
So how could they lose, having an idea of how high they’ll be drafted?
Well, they lose a last chance at experiencing the camaraderie and rapport and cohesiveness and connection they’ve spent their college years developing if they enter the NFL draft. In exchange, they’ll get a chance to make their kid’s dream a reality, and make a lot of cash while doing it.
In the end, only each individual can decide if it’s worth it.
And that’s enough to make even the coolest customers break a sweat.