Because “Fashionably Late” Is Still Fashionable

I originally intended to have a post for this past Friday but was overcome by a huge wave of pure laziness, not to mention the fact that pretty much every PSU blogger had commented on the brand-spankin’-new Coaches Poll and being that I’m not the biggest fan of such polls, decided to hold off.

However, I figure I should just suck it up and offer my two cents on what we may very well look back upon as “meaningless” come December:

• Best of luck to #1 Georgia in getting through their season without more than one loss: The Bulldogs’ schedule resembles the most daunting “Ninja Warrior” course ever created: Road games at Arizona State, Auburn, LSU, and South Carolina? Yikes…
• There is no valid reason to rank Penn State below the Top 20, even with the inevitably brutal October schedule, especially when you have Rashard Mendenhall/J. Leman/Element of Surprise-less Illinois at #19. Do 18 returning starters mean absolutely nothing to the Pollsters? I guess I just answered my own question.
• Michigan (#24) is only in the poll due to its prestige and its coach. Any other program experiencing the personnel losses the Wolverines have been gutted by would be on the outside looking in to start the season.

Today also marks the first official day of preseason practice. Hopefully this means less talk about the “Outside The Lines” propaganda piece and more talk about who will be the starting QB, whether the D-line will skip a beat without Chris Baker and Phil Taylor, who the first three lucky contestants will be that try their hands at solidifying “Linebacker U”, and whether JayPa’s “Spread HD” will provide a sharper look to the offense.

The Nittany Line has a nice rundown on such issues and I particularly agree with their assessment of JayPa’s latest brilliant innovation.

What the hell is the Spread HD?

Jay Paterno dropped a bomb on the Big Ten when he revealed his dastardly plan to unleash what he called the “spread HD” on unsuspecting defenses this year. Ok, I just chuckled writing that. Much has been tossed around about what the new offense will be. JayPa says it’s a running offense which kind of goes against the reason for a spread in the first place, isn’t having 3, 4, or 5 receivers on the field a good time to throw? Jay wants the offense to average 200 yards passing and rushing this year. Uh not to burst his bubble but we already had that… last year.

Category	National Rank	Actual
Rushing Offense	29	193.77
Passing Offense	75	206.31

How’d that work out for us? Yeah not so good. Who knows what’s dancing through the mind of Jay Paterno, only time will tell.

Also, since I feel like latching on to the latest fad of putting up a photo of a corresponding PSU player’s number to signal the number of days left until the season opener, here’s a mini Tony Hunt-A-Palooza to leave you with warm feelings for the rest of the day..the same kind of warm feelings you get from watching the infamous Folger’s Christmas commercial on endless repeat.