The Penn State Football Show

Boys,
This one will be a bit lengthier because I have to re-cap last week and give a preview for this week so bear with me...
Last week Monday through Saturday at 4:30 was hands down the worst week of my life. I was often the only one at work in what proved to be the busiest week we've had thus far. It was miserable. This guy for the navy is giving me nightmares. That is not a lie. Tuesday was so bad I found myself in a very shady bar drinking jim beam on the rocks. I spent the night in the office on Friday. Saturday, after working 8 hours, I threw down $1,000 to fix my car. Are you getting an idea for the kind of mood I'm in? So imagine how much worse that mood got when Penn State got absolutely abused in the first quarter. I was absolutely infuriated. I knew we would overcome at least on offense. On offense we were just having dumb luck. But the defense definitely gave Tressel some things to look at. Luckily though we turned things around and broke a long and overdue drought against a team that robbed us of something very special in 2005.
One of my concerns at the beginning of the year was special teams; especially the kicking team. They have silenced me greatly and have now become the most underrated strength on this team. Michigan's starting field position was terrible all day because of great open field tackling and discipline by Penn State.
I'm not sure whether the defense figured it out or Michigan ran out of gas. They are a team that has been accused of being out of shape in the past. And p.s. Pete, Gbadu is garbage. Gino Capone made stops closer to the line of scrimmage than him. I do like Mauti a lot though. That kid can play. Brandon Minor also ate Scirotto's lunch all day. I imagine he was circled in film sessions this past week. The tackling in general was not superb which is usally a sign they took it easy that week in practice. Adjustments have to be made because as gay as Tressel is the guy can put together some schemes and it will be up to Bradley and the defense to adjust on the fly.
As for Kevin Kelley I agree. He is a bit of a choke artist. I can only recall one time where he iced or won a game with a field goal and it was against FSU three years ago and it took him 4 tries.
The offense continued to look smooth as silk. Some hiccups early which again was really just dumb luck and then they locked it up and got the job done. I must echo the sentiments of Mr. Ryan Albright, "Why don't we just give the ball to Royster every time?" This kid is playing tremendously.
This game provided us with one of the many moments/situations you need in a successful season. There are certain elements that every great season has. We have had some of them so far, some of them still remain. I don't know all of them so feel free to add to this list. Here's what we've had so far:
1) The "The rest of the country should see this" moment: Illinois night game with the white out. A lot of the guys I work with could give a shit less about college football and could give two shits less about Penn State but so many of them came up to me at work on Monday just saying "Man, that stadium looked cool..."
2) The Road Test game: Wisconsin. Although it is looking like Wisconsin sucks, no one knew that going in. It was a night game in a pretty rowdy stadium and the Lions took care of business.
3) The come from behind game: Michigan. Like Pete said we were down and hadn't really been there before and the boys responded superbly.
Here's what we're missing:
1) The highlight reel signature play. It 2005 you could take your pick from the Williams catch against Northwestern, the sack on Troy Smith, or the stricken from the records murdering of that d-back for Minnesota by M-Rob. There have been some memorable plays, but nothing that the season really hinges around.
2) The knock down drag out game. We had a few in 2005 and this team has not been taken to the wire yet.
I think this weekend we will see both. Penn State is honestly damned if they do damned if they don't this weekend against OSU. If we win by a hair people will say "Oh man they only beat them by 3 points and they could barely beat Ohio." If we blow them out they will say "I knew Ohio State was overrated, Penn State still sucks." Every commentator outside of Beano Cook thinks we're garbage and I just hope to God we get a chance to prove them wrong.
Ohio State will bring it. They have a lot to play for. With only one loss they can still win the Big Ten and go to a good bowl game, but a two-loss team from the Big Ten probably won't get an at-large BCS bid this year, so they will be fired up. I think it is CRUCIAL to stop them on their opening drive, score on our first drive and set the tempo. This is the moment Darryl Clark has been waiting for, and like he said, "When you put on that helmet, it's time to party."
Penn State can win this game. I worry about Tressel though. He is sly and he is smart. You can gurantee he will exploit some of Penn State's weaknesses. We have to adjust. This will not be anything like any Penn State-Ohio State game in the past. This game will be won with offense. I like the Lions 33-27.
As for upsets, short and sweet, the Longhorns go down.