The Penn State Football Show

Now that the matchup has been officially announced, I would like to officially announce myself how incredibly excited I am for this game. Penn State vs. USC in the Rose Bowl. It doesn't get any better than that.

Herbstreit has pegged this as the bowl game he is looking forward to the most, and Mark Schlabach of espn.com ranks it as the 2nd best bowl game behind the National Championship.

There are so many different variables that make this match-up so great. The first is that its between two very storied, succesful, traditional college football powerhouse programs in Penn State and USC. When you think college football, these are two of the first schools that come to mind. Beyond that, this game features two of the best coaches in the game in Paterno and Carrol. Beyond being great overall coaches, they are both specifically noted for excelling at preparing their teams well for bowl games. This is going to make the game very intersting. You can be sure both teams will come ready to play.

This is going to be a very difficult game to predict. A lot of people who don't know much about Penn State think the Lions will get blown out just because it's USC and everyone thinks USC is far better than everyone else. I don't think USC is as good as most people think, but I do think their team matches up very well against Penn State. I think their defense is going to give Clark a very difficult time. I expect a close low scoring game, and can see either team winning. I have to give the advantage to USC, but I don't think it's as much of an advantage as most people are giving them.

Given how much Penn State struggled against the strong defenses of Ohio State and Iowa, I am scared of what USC's incredible defense will do against Penn State. In my opinion, Evan Royster is capable of having a big game against USC with his style of running. The way he squeezes through cracks and finds his way through when there is not much of a hole there is exactly how Jacquizz Rodgers torched the Trojans defense in their upset win. I think Royster can have a big day if they continue to feed him the ball and let him run between the tackles.

There are also some weaknesses on Penn State's defense that I worried about all year long but never ended up being a problem for the defense. As i repeated throughout the year, the performance of the defense really exceeded my expectations tremendously. However, I will never be 100% comofortable with Josh Hull, Ty Sales, and Mark Rubin all starting. They all performed well this year, but I still worry that at any moment they could be exposed. If anyone is going to expose them, it's USC, especially with a month to prepare. But Penn State's defense always performs well in big games, so I expect another strong performance and a low scoring game.

The best thing Penn State has in its favor is the fact that they are widely considered the underdog in this game, and that is when JoePa is at his best. I think he knows this and is purposely trying to promote the notion that Penn State is the underdog... Did anyone catch his quote from yesterday? He said "I hope we can go out there and be competitive with them. I'm a little bit nervous. This is a very, very impressive football team, Southern Cal. They do everything well."

I was shocked after reading that. I couldn't believe he would say something like that. Then, it became clear to me that the only possible explanation for a statement like that is that he is purposely trying to make USC think that PSU is scared so that they enter the game too confident...This almost reminds me of the 87 Fiesta Bowl against Miami when nobody gave Penn State a shot against the invincible Canes from Miami caoched by Jimmy Johnson. This is widely considered one of the greatest games in college football history. We all know that Penn State ended up pulling off the shocking upset, claiming their second national title in four years. I think Joe is hoping that USC enters this game as arrogant as Miami did, so he can take advantage. Unfortunately, Pete Carrol has a done a great job in past bowl games of getting his team prepared for the game, regardles of the opponenet or the bowl.

I'm sitting here right now watching the Monday Night Football game which unfortunately is resulting in the absolute demise of my fantasy football team. So, with my 49ers out of playoff contention (although they are playing better lately under Singletary), I have no reason to follow the NFL. Therefore, the only remaining football of interest to me is this bowl season. There are some great bowls outside of the Rose Bowl. I like Florida in the National Championship. I think Alabama-Utah will be a great game, a close game, but Bama will pull it out in the end. I don't care about Cincinatti vs Va. Tech and neither should you. I don't see Ohio State beating Texas, but if they do, it would do a lot for the Big Ten (as would PSU beating USC). Speaking of which, the Big Ten has a lot of very tough matchups this bowl season. They will be the underdog in every bowl except for one (Iowa vs. South Carolina). But bowls are always wacky and unpredictable, so we will have to wait and see what happens.