Singleton’s approach keeps paying off
Penn State head coach James Franklin joked during his weekly press conference that Nicholas Singleton has said only 17 words since arriving at State College. His teammates tease that he’s “all substance, no swag” on the field.
That resonated with coaches, teachers and other staff who know Singleton from his time at Governor Mifflin High School, his alma mater situated in the lush confines of rural Berks County, just outside of Reading.
The freshman running back’s introverted nature bears no over-the-top flash or flair. Rather, a quiet assuredness. Five games into his Penn State career, he’s already turning heads, prompting Franklin to articulate what Singleton’s hometown has known for years.
“His actions get people’s attention,” said Governor Mifflin football coach Jeff Lang. “That’s the kind of kid he is.”
Few people outside of Singleton’s family have seen him develop as closely as Lang, from flag football with his son Cole to the Broncos, the town’s youth program, then coaching him for four seasons of varsity football.
“I was amazed because he was so much faster and bigger than the rest of the kids,” Lang said. “I always wondered in the back of my mind, when is everyone going to catch up? Usually, by high school, everyone catches up [physically] . ... But one of my favorite stories is from Little League watching him.”
Singleton played quarterback for the Broncos. They built a sizable lead one game, so his father, Tim, pulled him early. The younger Singleton sat on the bench, hands on his elbows, in an outward display of frustration and disappointment. He had no interest in sitting out.
Lang joined him on the bench afterward trying to pick up his spirits. The message? He had proved his worth among the other middle schoolers, it was time to prove himself as a supportive leader. Prove he could make those around him better.
“He responded to that,” Lang said. “I remember the next game, the same thing happened. He’s on the sideline, [this time] doing everything I talked with him about. I was like, ‘OK, this kid’s coachable.’ ”
Some leaders rely on their voices. Singleton lets his actions and emotions do the talking. He’s the kind of leader who walks into a room and instantly lifts up the energy of those around him. He’s all substance.
No other Penn State freshman besides D.J. Dozier and Saquon Barkley has rushed for more than seven touchdowns in a single season. Singleton is on pace to swiftly move into their territory with five scores through five games — fueling No. 10 Penn State’s unblemished record.
When Governor Mifflin French teacher Kristyna Eagle read Franklin’s remarks, she proposed to Lang that they get T-shirts made with “No Swag” scribbled across the chest.
Fueling Nick
Eagle slowly morphed into Singleton’s snack supplier even though she never had him in class.
His go-to midday craving was a granola bar. They were close enough that Singleton started making requests. “I like the ones with the old man on them,” he would say, referring to the more expensive Quaker brand.
She wouldn’t budge, countering, “You’re getting the generic brand.”
Eagle, in her 26th year teaching, also spent Thursday nights over the last five seasons baking cookies for the Mustangs. There was some incentive attached, too.
If a player had an interception or scored a touchdown, for example, “their next bag might be a little fuller.”
Singleton was consistently seeing double-digit chocolate chip cookies on game days.
He still gets cookies mailed to his college dorm before Penn State games. Eagle rolled her eyes after hearing they’ve become popular among his Nittany Lions roommates, too.
‘1600 / Nick Singleton’
The summer before Singleton’s freshman season, he was called up to join the Mustangs’ summer workouts.
Monday through Thursday, they’re in the weight room at 8 a.m. — nothing out of the ordinary for Singleton, having trained with Dane Miller at Garage Strength Gym since he was 12 years old.
“He’s in the squat rack with some of our senior linemen,” Lang said. “They’re starting to go up in weight and up in weight. He’s hanging with weights and getting depth that our seniors couldn’t even get — senior starting linemen. It blew their minds.
“That motivated everybody else to work as hard as he did and try to catch him. And that motivated Nick because he wanted to be the best. It was contagious.”
Just outside Governor Mifflin’s weight room is a piece of paper hanging on the bulletin board labeled, “1200 lb. Club Members.” Add up a player’s bench, squat and clean to categorize them into one of four columns: 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 or 1,500 pounds.
Only two athletes belong to the elusive 1,500-pound club. If you look closely at the paper, there’s a bonus column. In blue pen, it reads “1600 / Nick Singleton.”
Lang catered to Singleton’s strength by putting him at fullback running the triple option in his first season. He started seeing 20-plus touches per game, leading Governor Mifflin to a spot in the district playoffs. Lang likened his star pupil’s lone season at fullback to driving a Ferrari at the drag strip.
“He’s got such strength and explosiveness,” he said. “I’ve always said when you watch him run, he runs violently. People are afraid to get in his way. If he’s in the open field, he’ll run you over. If he gets to the edge, he’ll outrun you.”
Singleton moved to tailback by his sophomore year. As he got better at recognizing holes in real time and understanding how to get to the edge, it allowed Lang to open up the playbook.
The absurd numbers started to stack up. With it, came national recognition.
Most notably and perhaps allegorically, former Nittany Lion great and current Giants running back Barkley presented him with the 2021-22 Gatorade National Player of the Year award via Zoom.
Singleton holds Berks County records for both rushing yards (6,326) and touchdowns (116). In his senior season alone, he rushed for 2,043 yards and 41 touchdowns on 165 carries.
Patience, patience
Choosing Happy Valley meant learning a whole new style of offense. He was a Ferrari at Governor Mifflin, attacking gaps without hesitation.
Franklin’s offense requires a bit more patience.
“We’d get him the ball and get him full speed as soon as we could,” Lang said. “Up there, it’s more about that patience [from the shotgun], so he had to learn that . ... It’s kind of like learning a foreign language. The older you get, the more difficult it is. For him to be able to do that has been very impressive.”
Singleton arrived on Penn State’s campus ahead of spring ball. Two offseasons worth of summer classes helped him graduate high school early and qualify as an early enrollee.
A Nike showcase event in Dallas was the turning point when Singleton started drawing attention from some of the country’s top college programs like Alabama, Notre Dame, and Ohio State.
“That’s when the conversation moved towards, ‘How do we graduate early?’ ” said Steve Murray, Governor Mifflin’s principal. “Wyomissing, our neighboring school, had [linebacker] Alex Anzalone, who’s now on the Detroit Lions, in a similar situation.”
Murray looked to the neighboring school for guidance about navigating NCAA-approved classes.
There are two types of classes: credit recovery and enrichment classes. The former is for students who failed as a way to get through a fraction of the content. Singleton was taking the latter, cramming a semester’s worth of content into a shorter summer session.
According to Murray, math and social studies were his two favorite subjects. That and Governor Mifflin’s athletic strength elective that is aimed at getting students “addicted to weight lifting.”
‘He’s just a normal kid’
At home around immediate family, he’s Nicholas, not Nick.
At Governor Mifflin, it depends on whom you ask. Penn State officially lists him as Nicholas, but to coaches and teammates, he’s Nick.
There were a few high school peers who tried calling him Nicky, which wasn’t his favorite, but Singleton wasn’t one to offer a correction.
It would have been easy for Singleton to walk the halls of Governor Mifflin with a certain smugness, ranked by 247Sports as the class of 2022’s top running back.
If it weren’t for his stature, Murray said, Singleton would not stand out in a crowd. “He’s just a normal kid.”
That humility hasn’t wavered since he has joined a storied Big Ten program.
Miller caught a Penn State scrimmage before the season and when Singleton went to meet his trainer after the game, his first priority was asking about the ice cream truck near the field.
With the way he’s playing, the “all-substance” description could help propel Singleton into rarefied air by the end of his Penn State career.