I know you’re being mostly facetious, but college football can be super unpredictable. This isn’t the Temple of 2015 and Matt Rhule (or even the Temple of Al Golden), but they’re motivated and could put a scare into an unprepared team. I don’t think this coaching staff will have the team show up unprepared, but when you underestimate your opponent, that’s when it’s easier for them to take advantage.
Just as Michigan…or Rutgers.
A long, long time ago, before the internet, I taught a linear algebra class at the night school at Temple. While I never had my car stolen and the worst thing that happened to me was getting diarrhea from some Chinese food truck which had me wishing for Depends during a 50 minute lecture, should I have more loyalty to the school?–LarzLion
School loyalty is an interesting, and sometimes fluid, thing. You can have as much or as little loyalty as you feel in your heart; I’m sure there are folks who only hold degrees from Temple (not PSU) but only root for PSU (not Temple).
As with so much having to do with sports fandom, just go with your gut and don’t feel bad about it.
Why do you think, with all of our troubles at WR last year, we did not see Koby Howard more? I think he played a little towards the very end of the season but not much at all up to that point.–PennState80
There’s likely a combination of a lot of different reasons.
A lot of stories have been told since he’s left of James Franklin’s unwillingness to play younger, lesser paid players – even if they’ve demonstrated superior on-field ability. These stories, absent any first-hand accounts from the locker room, aren’t entirely unfounded by what we’ve seen as fans over the years; just think back to 2015, and Saquon Barkley being behind Akeel Lynch on the depth chart.
But that surely doesn’t tell the whole story, or else Koby Howard would have been WR1 very soon after Franklin’s firing. There’s also been rumors that Howard has always had all of the physical talent, but it took this past offseason, and the new coaching staff, for him to be motivated to do all the little, off-field things that transform a physical specimen into an elite player. I hope that the more recent stories are true, and that he’s truly taken the next step.
Only time will tell (last year’s first game was promising in terms of wide receiver play, after all) but I’m cautiously optimistic. And whatever the reasons were for Howard not seeing as much playing time, the current staff is clearly ready and willing to rectify it.
Which of the Iowa State transfers do you think is going to be the best addition? Let’s eliminate Rocco Becht from this discussion.
Which of the players that transferred from Penn State in the off season was the biggest loss?–Gerry Dincher
Based on last week alone, Caleb Bacon’s gotta be at or near the top of the list. He looked very impressive in a pretty new position and more limited time; I’m excited to see what he does going up against better competition, with more time at end under his belt.
I also think Chase Sowell had a very good start to the season, and without Howard’s standout performance, we’d probably be talking about him as the cream of the wide receiver crop this year. And Cooper Ebel ran the defense very well – not all of his contributions showed up on the stat line, but the early returns show that his play complements Tony Rojas’ very well. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a middle linebacker we could rely on on every play, and he may just be one of those.
Should we go with “BLT” as the nickname acronym? And, if so, to stand for what?
“Bacon Leveling Teams”?
“Bacon Loading Tackles”?
“Bacon Loves Tackling”?
We finally got Bacon on the team, we NEED to come up with something!–LocalYocal
I’m calling him Bacon Bacon for now, but I like all of your suggestions. Now if only we can find a player named Scrapple…
Will James Peoples = Julian Fleming?–PennState80
In what sort of context are you asking this question?
Really, the only thing they have in common is that they’re offensive players who transferred to PSU from Ohio State. Fleming was a five star recruit from Pennsylvania (the number one player of the state and, iirc, the wide receiver position in his recruiting class) who had been HEAVILY recruited by the Nittany Lion staff prior to going to Columbus, only to return for his final year of play after relatively underwhelming performances at his first school.
Peoples, on the other hand, was a four-star recruit from Texas, not even a top 20 player from that state or a top five player at the running back position. He also has two years left to make an impression, unlike Fleming’s limited one-and-done year in blue and white.
It’s far too early to tell whether the new running back will have more of an on-field impact than Fleming, but it is also disingenuous to compare him to another player just because he came from Ohio State, instead of other player comparisons that may be more apt in terms of talent, position, or on-field eligibility.
With Franklin’s press appearances we had and over under bet on the number of times he said “obviously”. With Campbell are we going to do the same with the number of times he says “Um”?–ageing lion
Um is a very common verbal tic, so if we’re using it for Campbell, it’ll need to be used for many, many members of GenX.
I actually find his comparative lack of polish (and ego) quite refreshing, and a marked change. We’ll see if it pays off.
Watched the game with some friends. A very silly debate broke out among us. We talk often of the best QB in Penn State history. Or the best RB, LB, DT, etc… Rarely do we speak of the best kicker or punter. So, with CMC and the Lions putting the Herd out to pasture early and with ease, we entered into that very debate much to the amusement of our wives. Did it get heated? No, it’s special teams. At most a few of us became mildly perturbed with each other. At the end of the discussion we arrived at a top tier list of both punters and kickers in Penn State history. We did not agree on a #1 player for either position. We did not include current players, And, yes, we attempted to debate long snappers as well. That debate went nowhere after we realized we couldn’t name any. Dates are approximate as we tried to do this without bringing Claude into it. Good lists? Did we miss anyone?
KICKERS (No particular order): Kelly (’05 – ’08), Chris Bahr (’73 – ’75), Matt Bahr (’76-’78), Ganciato (’81 – ’84), Ficken (’11 – ’14), Gould (’01 – ’04), Manca (’85 – ’86), Craig Fayak (90′ – 93′)
PUNTERS (No particular order): Ralph Giacomarro (’78 – ’81), John Bruno (’84 – ’86), Helkowski (’87 – ’89), Pat Pidegon (’97 – ’99)*, Gillikin (’18 – ’19), Stoudt (’20 – ’22), Nwsou (’23 – ’25)
DOUBLE DUTY**: Stoudt, Sherman (’66 – ’67), Burkhardt (QB/P, ’68 – ’69)
*Pidegon was the source of the mild perturbation. Half felt he deserved mention. Half felt he was on the list since his name was very silly. He stayed on the list.
**My dad brought up this category. Boomers can still be of use.
Addendum: The best placeholder voting was not close. It was unanimous for Joe Nastasi. https://youtu.be/qORYbQCplM8?si=uATfV9F1evTS74kx —Kilgore42
In terms of kickers, while Robbie Gould is undoubtedly the PSU kicker that had the most storied career at the next level, I’d actually go with Kevin Kelly here. He started all four years and was remarkably consistent, both in placekicking and field goals/extra points (which are now more commonly broken up). Honorable mention to Sam Ficken, of course, who gets that just because I can’t recall a player who’s so remarkably turned his whole career around, from being a joke to being automatic. It was cool to see.
For punters, I’d actually put Jeremy Kapinos (‘03-’06) up there; he wasn’t even on your list, but he was one of the few bright spots in the latter dark years – and likely because of the offense’s ineptitude in his first two seasons, he still holds the PSU record for most punting yards AND number of punts over his career.
Nwosu and Stout are one and two for yards per punt in the PSU record books, but punting is just such a different animal nowadays than it was 20 years ago, so Kapinos gets my vote.
It appears that PSU is reconnecting with its roots and embracing honoring Joe Paterno and his legacy and overall I think that it’s a good thing. Am I being cynical by thinking that AD Pat Kraft has ulterior motives in that he wants to engage that boner donor base to hit those who have been on the sidelines since he has basically been scrubbed from the University for the past 15+ years or so.–LarzLion
Not cynical, realistic. I’d be more shocked if a large part of the reasoning behind this isn’t monetarily motivated, with high dollar donors promising major gifts contingent upon some honoring of Paterno. If Franklin was still here, I doubt that this would be happening, and that’s a big sign as well.
I need to sit here at least once. Incredible view
—Liongame
Good luck and God bless. Couldn’t be me.
Is Aaron Rodgers officially the most tiresome athlete around? Both his antics and the discourse that surrounds them? In not saying of all time, but at least currently.–Homer Ozzie & The Straw
Antics and discourse are two very distinct things. Rodgers’ inability to keep his mouth shut and his outsize ego about things that he’s clearly not an expert on make him up there in terms of antics to me (though recent Novak Djokovic is getting up there for me, and I can see Cam Skattebo trending in that direction).
In terms of discourse, I’m not sure there’s an athlete out there this year that has more tiresome discourse surrounding them than Caitlin Clark. For a player who, while very good, isn’t even the best one on her team, she sure gets a lot of press and fans that don’t know the game. She is looking better than I expected during the current world cup, though, which I don’t hate to see – I’d prefer that she be better coached and not as floppy as she is during WNBA games, and Kara Lawson seems to be the type of leader who can get the best out of her (while tempering the worst).
Do you wreckon Levi will come back for a fifth year of wrestling? What’s your best guess? I know he’s currently focused on becoming a freestyle world champion, but I expected that if he had any interest in returning, there would be some information leaked by now. There’s been a lot of media speculation about lineups, but I haven’t heard anything from Levi or his camp—at least, not that I’m aware of.–Linebacker-U-backer
I truly have no clue. but I’m not sure if the roster limits would allow it. If Jayden James truly is redshirting, this may be a possibility (or Mesenbrink may truly go up to be a light 174).
This isn’t particularly important and I’m not losing any sleep over it, but when did it become a thing for coaches to wear a suit to the stadium and then apparently change when they get to the stadium?–LTFT5
It’s definitely been a thing for at least a few years (I can think of a number of professional sports who’ve done this far longer than college). I totally get wanting to be comfortable on the side of the field or court, but also looking professional and put together on the way into your place of work.
When will the NCAA get their heads out of their collective derrieres and finally bring officiating under their umbrella thereby eliminating the conferences grubby hands out of the equation? Not just football, I’m talking all sports.
I’ve been on this soapbox for a long time as it makes zero sense to me why this hasn’t been done decades ago. The WMU abomination is hardly an outlier and there are 1000’s of examples of idiotic, biased, blatant and mindboggling calls that have seriously changed the game at hand.
It’s 2026, we have the technology and the money that’s involved in college sports is ginormous, why would this be a bad idea?–mbailey71
While I definitely get the sentiment, I’m not sure why the idea that the NCAA would be any better than individual conferences exists. Every time they’ve had it in their grasp to show neutrality over the years, they’ve continued to show favoritism to certain schools, teams, and conferences – and I’m not convinced this would be any different. The SEC and the Big Ten would still very much get the benefit of the doubt, while group of five schools would be shafted.
I do think that maybe not all officiating should be under the NCAA’s purview, but maybe replay officiating. If there’s a challenge or triggered automatic review, it could go to a (purportedly) neutral, non-conference affiliated central ref crew, well versed in the sport’s current rules. I could definitely be convinced of this step.
Do you know a good way to prepare Smallmouth Bass, and can you recommend a decent wine pairing for it?–ckmneon
While I love almost all seafood, any kinds of seafood (fish or shellfish) isn’t something I’m well-versed in preparing myself. I’m sure the fish your daughter caught will be delicious, however you prepare it!
Not football related but I would appreciate guidance for easing back and leg pain from standing on concrete floors for four hours. I’ve tried ortho shoes, sneakers, hiking boots, etc. with various insole and sock combinations – no joy. Thanks in advance!–PSU_Lions_84
I’ve had chronic back pain for the last near-twenty years from similar years of standing on concrete floors for full days, and unfortunately it’s never gone away completely. When it does act up, prescribed steroids work for me for calming it down; on an ongoing basis, I sporadically take prescription-strength naproxen and do certain back-stretch yoga poses.
Additionally, invest in a good mattress – when I changed my mattress, my back pain started alleviating almost instantly. I also am a back and side sleeper, and when on my back when the pain is particularly bad, propping my knees up with pillows (just my knees, not my entire legs) helps; when I’m on the side, I sometimes use a special pillow that you put between your knees to help align your spine. The one I have, from cushion lab, .
Good luck!
