Up Close and Personal: Miranda hoping to make early impact
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Attending school just over 130 miles northeast of Ohio State’s campus, Mike Miranda heard with regularity about the Buckeyes’ early-season success in 2016, and how, when they played his Penn State team in October, it wouldn’t be much of a contest. Miranda drew a different conclusion, and when he went back the next week – after his Nittany Lions won, 24-21 – it was with a proud grin.
“That was really the most fun part about it,” he said, “getting to go back to school and talk to all those people who wrote them off.”
Having been committed to Penn State since April, Miranda knew that the Nittany Lions had overcome a slow start and were coming off a bye week when they hosted Ohio State. Momentum, he thought, was beginning to build. “They had a lot of things going for them,” Miranda said. “Also, giving Coach [Joe] Moorhead that extra week to prepare had to be pretty big.”
Miranda was confident. He didn’t miss one home game in Beaver Stadium his senior year, and he wasn’t going to miss this one either. Joining him were five friends, a few of whom were avid Buckeye fans. They sat in the recruiting section, and when the game grew tighter in the second half, Miranda’s friends slowly began wavering in their allegiance.
“They were telling me around the third quarter that they wanted Penn State to win,” he said. “I guess the atmosphere just overtook them.”
After Grant Haley returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown, they were out of their seats and standing in the front row with Miranda. When the final seconds ticked off the clock, over the barriers they went and onto the field.
“I was waiting at the rail for the clock to hit zero,” Miranda recalled, “so when I got out there, there weren’t that many people, but it filled up quick. Then the next thing I knew, there was a person on every side of me and it was kind of hard to move.”
Just a few months later, Miranda graduated from Stow-Munroe Falls early and arrived at Penn State in time for the start of the spring semester in January. In 2017, he’ll be on that field again, this time in pads and a Penn State uniform.
When he steps out into Beaver Stadium, he’ll be even more familiar with the offensive system than many of his teammates. Moorhead’s new scheme helped lead the Lions to a Big Ten championship, an 11-win season and an appearance in the Rose Bowl. But most of the players only began learning it in the spring.
Miranda, on the other hand, has been working with a similar offensive playbook since his freshman year at Stow-Munroe Falls. Tempo, no huddles, checks with the sidelines – his high school did it all.
Bulldogs head coach Mark Nori worked alongside Moorhead at Akron, and they’ve had a working relationship ever since. Drawing on his experience with Moorhead, Nori and his offensive coordinator have been using similar concepts at the high school level since Miranda’s freshman year.
Before Miranda’s senior season started, they took it up another notch. That’s when they traveled to State College for a sit-down and a refresher course from Moorhead himself. The meeting helped the Bulldogs go 10-1 through the regular season before losing in the second round of the playoffs. Miranda was the team’s key contributor playing left tackle.
Now at Penn State, he’s switching positions. He’ll practice primarily at center this spring while also working at guard. His grasp of the Lions’ system, coupled with a strong fundamental technique base, could make Miranda a candidate for playing time as early as this fall.
Despite playing tackle throughout high school, he routinely worked in extra reps at center on the scout team, practicing against Stow-Munroe’s starting defense, honing his skills for the college level.
“Since I first started getting recruited, I knew I wasn’t going to play tackle in college unless I somehow grew a few inches all of a sudden,” said the 6-foot-3, 295-pounder. “I’ve been working on the scout team in practice, snapping the ball and getting some guard work. I have been getting a look with it a little bit this year, so I think I prepared myself and I think it will make the transition maybe a little bit easier.”
His goal, after all, is to see the field as soon as possible.
“I definitely want to try to play early,” he said. “That should be the goal for anybody.”
Perhaps, then, he’ll be on the field when PSU travels to Ohio Stadium on Oct. 28.
A three-star recruit, Miranda bypassed scholarship offers from Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern, Pitt, Syracuse, Vanderbilt and Virginia. Missing from that list was Ohio State, and he sure would enjoy proving some Buckeyes wrong again.