The Penn State Football Show

Gentlemen let me go Beano Cooke on you for a minute: A long time ago, as the Roman empire was starting to slide, a great Carthaginian general by the name of Hannibal got a little uppity and figured he could unseat the great nation of Rome. A superior tactician of warfare, he used all the resources of his homeland of Africa to defeat the Romans on their home turf. Knowing he didn't have the naval power to sail directly to Italy, he sailed north to modern day France, and led a long march through the winter months over the treacherous alps with his most prized instrument of warfare, elephants. From there, his stampeding calvary made short work of all the Northern Armies of Rome. Many people don't know this but Hannibal occupied much of Italy for several years. All the while avoiding major conflict with his tactical equal, Scipio. Scipio knew he could not defeat Hannibal's elephants, so mostly he ran and hid. These elephants were unstoppable. They crushed the mighty Romans to dust. Until one day, Scipio realized how foolish he had been to stand in front of them, because the elephants only ran straight ahead. With the simple notion of giving the mighty pachyderms an alley to run through, he had neutralized Hannibal's greatest threat. Victory for the Romans soon followed. The moral of the story, sometimes one simple adjustment can topple elephants.

The task is large for our boys in blue. There is no doubt this Alabama team has far more experience, superior firepower, maybe the smartest, albeit sleaziest, coach in college football, and a raucous home crowd behind them. But the South lost the war for a reason. If you've ever sat down with me for more than ten seconds you know my hatred for the SEC. Their new found sponsored home at ESPN does little to calm this hatred. Its the same story from the media every time Penn State takes on an SEC foe: "The SEC has too much speed, too much talent, and Penn State is playing dinosaur football." The story ends with the opposing coach and players regretting underestimating the speed and physicality from the team with plain uniforms and black cleats. So to quote the great Lou Holtz: "[Pete], You couldn't pick this game right if you predicted it on Sunday." Penn State wins and shocks the world.