THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 5, 1996 TAG: 9610050224
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: The Class of 1992
[It was probably the best group of recruits ever to come out of
Virginia Beach....]
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: STATE COLLEGE, PA. LENGTH: 114 lines
He studies ``administration of justice'' at Penn State. Of course he does. At 6-foot-2 and 260 pounds, with muscles on top of muscles, a shaved head and tattoos of a lion on his back and a bull's skull on his biceps, Brandon Noble is a guy you can imagine walking around hammering a fist into his palm, threatening to ``administer'' some justice upon anybody who steps on his shadow.
But then you meet him, see his easy, wide smile, talk trout fishing and football with him, and you realize Noble's vigilantism extends only to between the tackles on Saturdays, at the bottom of a stadium bowl filled with 90,000 bellowing people.
So, if this is Saturday, it must be judgment day.
The latest comes in Columbus, Ohio, this afternoon before most of the TV-watching nation (though only on pay-per-view in South Hampton Roads) - Noble and his No. 4 Nittany Lions vs. No. 3 Ohio State.
It's a blatant, Big Ten war, the kind ``you definitely find yourself thinking about all the time,'' says Noble, a defensive lineman from First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach. ``You try to visualize yourself making big plays and stuff like that. This is why you come to Penn State. It's why I came here.''
Yes, the lure of The Big Dream. The sound and scent of The Big Game. The taste of The Big Play, and the tether of relationships with other men who truly understand those passions.
These forces drove Noble to state Group AAA player-of-the-year status in high school and into the ranks of the well-recruited. They heavily influenced his decision to attend Penn State.
Then, they carried him through the despair of his early career when it appeared as though the place they call Happy Valley wasn't going to be so welcoming.
``The main thing that kept me here was the friends I'd made,'' says Noble, sitting in the lounge off Penn State's weight room, his dark blue shorts and gray T-shirt sweat-soaked from a lifting session.
``I don't think I ever said seriously that I wanted to leave,'' he says. ``But a lot of people probably knew I was unhappy, and then word just kind of spreads like that.''
The rumors - Noble to Virginia Tech; Noble to just about anywhere he could start fresh - began sometime after the broken leg and before the finish of a hellacious fight with mononucleosis.
Like most first-year men, Noble was redshirted and employed on the scout team, but it gave him time to lose some baby fat and sculpt his body for Division I battle.
Poised to join the depth chart for the 1993 season, Noble was a few days into preseason camp when he fell awkwardly on the side of his right calf and broke a bone. Like that, he was done for the year.
So Noble looked ahead to spring practice and the chance to position himself for his sophomore season. But on a spring-break visit home before the start of practice, Noble became so ill with mono that he went to bed one day, and barely climbed out for three weeks.
He was forced to withdraw from school until the summer. And when practice resumed, a lighter, weaker Noble, who never left the field in high school and now was two years removed from his last real football game, was insecure in his future.
``I was thinking luck might not go my way,'' Noble says. ``You break a leg first and then come down with mono, you think, `Is this what I'm supposed to do?' ''
Not that he was displeased with Penn State's academic or social atmospheres, nor his coaches or the program. Just that he was weary of his football hardships.
``I guess he talked about transferring a little bit, but I knew it was just talk,'' says Noble's friend Tom Curran, an old skateboard buddy and former high school teammate who plays football at Virginia Military Institute.
``We were working out that summer at Wareing's Gym with (former Penn State star) Keith Goganious. Keith told him Penn State doesn't really look at you until you're a junior, they wait for you to mature. That reassured Brandon.''
Noble decided to spin his disappointment into motivation. Finally, when his sophomore season arrived, the gods smiled. He played in the first seven games, then injuries on the line thrust Noble into a starting role for the final four games before the Rose Bowl, in which Penn State beat Oregon 38-20.
That was the foundation, and now Noble's a fixture. He started all 12 games last year, was sixth on the team with 53 tackles and returned for his senior season as the leader and rock of the defensive line.
``Brandon Noble is one of the better linemen in the country,'' Penn State coach Joe Paterno says. ``He's quick and he never gives up. He keeps after you until he gets you or gets knocked down trying.''
Through five games Noble is second in tackles with 32, including three quarterback sacks against Temple, and still impressing people with his speed and savvy despite routinely yielding 20 and 30 pounds to opposing linemen.
``There's usually two guys blocking you anyway, so that's about 600 pounds,'' says Noble, whose defense has yielded only 34 points and an average of 102 rushing yards per game. ``That wears on you, but if you use all the right little techniques you can overcome that. I've been doing it for two, three years. I don't think it matters.''
Talent, technique and emotion can take you places, Noble's found. He plays with his feelings exposed - ``I'm screaming and yelling all the time. That tires me out, I think. I should probably cut it out.''
Then, too, there is a seriousness that hints at the years of effort and planning it took for Noble to push himself to reach his home at the heart of the line, the middle of the action, the center of the stadium.
``Brandon was always the hardest worker, on and off the field,'' Curran says. ``He had it together. He had goals. And he wasn't going to let anything ruin that.''
Not if there was any justice. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by PAT LITTLE
Penn State's Brandon Noble, center, helps stop Southern Cal's LaVale
Woods in the Nittany Lions' season-opening victory.
Graphic
Noble at a glance
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB