But no one foresaw the season unfolding the way it did

The balls whizzed through the air as wide receivers coach Mike McQueary shouted at his players to run crisp routes and the freshmen lagged behind, carrying cones and footballs from moncler jackets one drill to another. Near 90-degree heat seemed to be their biggest concern as Joe Paterno sat with his leg propped up in a golf cart, his broken pelvis still ailing. Players spoke of winning a Big Ten title and, as usual, a crack at a national championship topped their wish list. With four captains leading the way and a rotation of Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin under center, the team believed it had enough leadership to work through anything that came its way. But no one foresaw the season unfolding the way it did. The child sex-abuse scandal that resulted in Paterno's firing and the termination of several university officials changed the focus of the season. Football became an afterthought. McQueary remains on administrative leave. Former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky faces more than 50 counts of child sexual abuse. "Nobody could've predicted it. No one could've scripted it," senior right tackle Chima Okoli said. "This is better than prime-time TV." Those same seniors who spoke of capping their careers on a high note, now remember their final season for something other than football. They remember countless squad meetings, TV cameras swarming campus watching their every move and a coaching staff that probably won't see another autumn in Happy Valley. "I don't think anybody else in this country, or in the history of college football, had to go through what this school had to go through and what this team had to go through," senior co-captain Devon Still said. "For us to stay together and just keep on going out there and playing our hearts out, I think that's what's going to stick out." The Lions have one more game, a TicketCity Bowl clash Monday with Houston, to conclude a most trying season . No matter the one game that separated the Lions from a berth in the inaugural Big Ten title game, this team will forever be linked with the off-field saga. "There's so much stuff that happened," senior wide receiver and co-captain Derek Moye said. "I would like to say (I'd remember) stuff on the field, but honestly it will probably be a lot of the stuff that happened off the field." Arguably, no four captains have been tested more than Still, Moye, Drew Astorino and Quinn Barham. Elected by teammates at the conclusion of camp, the four sat in interim head coach Tom Bradley's office hours after Paterno's firing to discuss how to move forward. As approximately 2,000 students flooded the streets in downtown State College, the captains communicated with teammates and immediately dismissed rumors that they wouldn't play against Nebraska. The captains opted to walk out of the tunnel and into Beaver Stadium for the first game after the scandal side by side with arms linked. It was a show of solidarity, something the captains preached well before news of the scandal, and their seven-game moncler sale winning streak, came to a halt. They stuck together when the quarterback position rotated series by series, when the red zone struggles mounted so heavily that fans booed Bolden just for stepping on the field. Even the loss of the team's top linebacker to a season-ending knee injury during the fourth game of the season seems minuscule compared to everything that's happened since Nov. 9. "A lot of things have happened this year, but I think we've done a great job of staying together as a team." Barham said. "The coaches did a great job of just focusing on this team when they could've been trying to move on." Even a locker room fight between McGloin and wide receiver Curtis Drake that left McGloin with a seizure and concussion during the team's final week of practice in State College won't be the final straw, sophomore running back Silas Redd said. "It has been difficult for everyone, just not the upperclassmen," the team's leading rusher said. "The whole team has gone through it. We're sticking with each other; we believe in each other. We know we have a great fan base. That's all we really can do is rally behind one another to show how resilient we are." Contact with Paterno has been limited as he goes through treatments for lung cancer, but the senior class still speaks as if the 85-year-old is watching their every move. They are the last group of players to have Paterno coach them for nearly their entire careers, and Okoli said the life lessons Paterno preached and the discipline he demonstrated with them won't soon be forgotten. A win Monday would give Penn State 10 victories, a testament to what this team has overcome, Okoli said. For a group of players who repeatedly said since August it was "the closest team they've ever been a part of," that camaraderie helped to heal wounds and dry tears in the weeks after the scandal changed their lives. The closeness was the biggest positive for the team to take out of the season, and years from now, they hope they will be remembered for being more than the senior class that played during the scandal.Moncler vest for men, buy cheap moncler mens vests online. "At this point, nothing really fazes us," Okoli said. "It's just like keep trucking, keep pushing through it. We can't really be broken down by anything that can possibly happen. … (We're) a group of guys who got thrown into the fire and came out stronger."