where it’s pretty nice- partly cloudy, more breezy than ideal but that’s kind of welcome given the recent soaking and 99 percent humidity. Bear in mind that even though it’s rained every day for what seems like two months, the next time we have three straight dry days you’ll see people toeing the dirt ruefully and shaking their heads, “Yep, we need rain…”
We’re 86 minutes from kickoff. Pennsylvania is on the field and ostensibly warming up, but things look pretty disorganized. Lots of milling around, very little coaching going on. I’m almost certainly reading too much into this, but that’s what we bloggers do.
Being organized is an issue because last year, neither team was, especially Pa.’s, and a miserable, sloppy, endless game resulted, bad enough that plenty of press-box denizens were wondering if scrapping the whole concept would be a bad idea.
The game’s only Lancaster-Lebanon League player is Lebanon QB James Capello (Iowa State), who’s expected to play a lot and may start. The other Pa. QB, Curtis Drake of Philly West Catholic, is an option guy who’s going to Penn State “as an athlete.”
Capello is 6-2, 190 in the program. He looks a bit chunky on the field.
Ohio has the more impressive roster, at least in terms of college commits, 21 D-1A players to 13. And too many of Pa.’s are to second-tiers like UConn, Rutgers and Temple. Ohio has, in addition to the customary Buckeyes (seven of them), a Florida State, Tennessee, BC, Iowa, two West Virginias, two Michigan States.
Ohio has three Pitt signees and zero Penn States. Pa. has four Penn States and four Pitts. Pa. has no Ohio State commits.
Let’s point out, though, that a past criticism, and I think a legit one, of Pa. teams is that they tended to pick a team that looked better in the program than on the field. Not a problem currently. It is hoped.
