Billy Paultz Reconsidered

It’s less than an hour until kickoff at the Beav. I wanted to wait until I got here to make a prediction, so I could get the lay of the land, a sense of the atmosphere, the look in the players’ eyes….
No, that’s crap. I just forgot.
I’m torn on this one. I’m pretty sure Ohio […]

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We are live from Harrisburg International Airport, where the atmosphere is electric…..
The trap game concern is a real one. A quarterback named Kafka (not Franz, but still) has to give one pause. Kafka runs a pretty good passing game that should test Penn State’s mostly untested secondary.
But I’m not bullish on Northwestern’s intangibles, either. The Wildcats […]

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We are live from the Big House, which is being refurbished and already looks cooler than it used to. They’re still working on a huge luxury box section which sits on top of everything directly across the field from the press box- very similar to the Beav.
It’s cold here, and intermittently windy and rainy. And, […]

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Coming at you live from the Philly airport, where I’m waiting to fly to Detroit for the Nits and Wolverines, and where there has just been a Mario Andretti sighting. No kidding.
Among travelers sitting at the gate, there’s exactly the same amount of Penn State attire and Michigan attire. For what it’s worth.
This could be […]

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First, a note about the weather: As this is written, there’s about 5 inches of snow on the ground in State College. It’s already the biggest snowfall ever in SC in October, and they’re expecting twice that much by game time.
All grass parking areas will be closed, and if you’ve been up there, you know […]

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This one is sort of, um, obvious, so let’s talk a bit about the fact that your humble correspondent has gotten the last two Penn State games wrong- I had them beating Iowa and, yes, after witnessing the Iowa game, had them losing to Illinois.
I’ve spent the last half-hour or so researching this, and I […]

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Penn State is sick, hurt, beat up. After last week’s loss to Iowa, in which the Lions suffered the indignity of simply being pushed around on the line of scrimmage, they’re mentally and emotionally damaged, too.
They’re still better than Illinois. But the Illini have talent, and if they lose badly Saturday, at home, their season […]

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The injuries are of course an issue, but Iowa is if anything more banged-up than Penn State (there’s a rumor, denied by Kirk Ferentz, that all-Big Ten tackle Bryan Bulaga has been sidelined by an infected tattoo).
Ferentz has been weird this week. He keeps categorizing his team as a work-in-progress, almost as if it can’t really be […]

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Coming to you live from Lancaster Catholic, where the mood is ruined, and that may be an understatement, by an ankle injury to Crusaders’ stud QB Kyle Smith. The expected epic battle with Manheim Central (both teams are ranked #2 in the state in their classes by Pa. Football News) probably can’t materialize without him.
So […]

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Wanted to break down what we’re doing with Penn State this year. In the Sunday News game days, I’ll have a game story, column, highs and lows (a quasi-notebook) and grades.
In the daily paper: A post mortem Monday, something off Joe’s weekly press conference Wednesday, and a player-profile/game preview Friday.
I’ll also put excerpts (at least) […]

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