Lamont Wade Anxiously Awaiting College Football's Return

“I wanted to play yesterday,” the senior safety said Tuesday afternoon. “Honestly, as soon as possible is the best thing for me, so that I can get back with my team, build those bonds up with the new guys. As soon as possible, honestly, is when I’m looking forward to getting back.”

Wade, who is getting ready for his second year as a starter in the Penn State secondary, is doing everything in his power to prepare for a 2020 season that is in limbo for now but may be inching closer to reality. He’s changed his diet, and that in turn has changed his body. And he’s done what he can throughout the quarantine to put in the necessary conditioning work, running up and down the two flights of stairs outside his apartment.

Wade, who is currently living in State College, said he’s switched to a pescatarian diet. By eschewing some of his favorite foods, he’s reduced both his body fat percentage and his weight, dropping 11 pounds from a listed weight of 199 last year. It’s all part of an effort to make the most of his final season of college football.

“When you get to college and you devote this much time to it, you have to do it the absolute right way,” Wade said. “You don’t realize it at first, but the right way is good sleep, good eating habits, exercising, treating your body right.

“I want to maximize this year. I want to maximize everything. I don’t want to leave anything back at all. So in order for me to maximize it, I had to make some sacrifices. I love fried chicken, burgers, stuff like that. I had to cut back on it. And all in all, I’m seeing progress. I was at 12 percent body fat a year ago. I was real big, but now I’m in the 4 or 5 [percent] range. I’m feeling good, and basically doing it to get everything out of this last year that I’ve got.”

Even at 188 pounds, Wade figures to pack a wallop. He was one of the defense’s bigger hitters last season, finishing with 67 tackles, including 39 solo stops, and three forced fumbles. It was an eye-opening performance by the former Rivals.com five-star prospect from Clairton, Pa., and it may only have hinted at his potential as a defensive hammer. Said Wade, “I haven’t even gotten close to what I can [do] or even close to how hard I can really hit. There’s always room to build on top of that. As long as I continue to be aggressive, I feel like can keep on going.”

As a team, Penn State struggled at times to stop opposing passers last year. The Lions allowed 251.5 yards per game through the air, ranking 13th in the Big Ten and 100th in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Wade said that returning players have been focused on bettering those numbers whenever football resumes.

“Whenever anything goes on that’s not up to the level that we want it to be at, then you’ve got to do some soul searching,” he said. “You’ve got to look at yourself first. And that’s something we’ve been doing, from the coaching staff to the players, looking inside ourselves to see, what we can do better? Where are we not doing enough? We’ve been discussing that over this quarantine period. I’ve had conversations with my safety coach about different things. It’s real good to have this time to lay out a format for how we want that to look next year.”

There are, of course, even more fundamental questions about how things will look when football is played again. If there is a season in 2020, it may have to be played without fans in attendance. It would be a major change from the way that players and fans have experienced college football, but Wade said the prospect of playing in front of empty seats doesn’t bother him.

“The first thing I thought about was going back to my little league days,” he said. “When I was in the midget league, we would be the last game of the evening. It was 6 p.m. and everybody had been there since 8, so people were leaving after those hours had piled up. By the time we played, there weren’t a lot of people there. But we were going hard, playing the game simply because of how much we loved it.

“I love the game, I want to play hard regardless. The film is still going to get sent out. We still want to win, and I’ve still got to do what I’ve got to do for my brothers. It’s easy whenever I think about it like that.”

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