No more PSU football. No more college football in general. Normally I'd be sad as hell. But not this year. WOOHOO the misery has ended!
The clouds are lifting!
It was just 4 short years ago that PSU stole from Pitt, oops - I mean landed, high school quarterback extraordinaire, Anthony Morelli. The Football Gods had smiled upon Happy Valley - the PA record holder in basically every passing category - we thought we were looking at the second coming of Kerry Collins. Turns out...not so much. The Nittany faithful were even willing to give him a break last year as a very average first year starter (despite having one of the best receiving corps in the nation). This year the pressure was on. We all drank the Kool Aid and believed that this team had a shot at the National Championship (**choke**choke**). Instead what we got was a mediocre 8-4 regular season with big wins over little teams (Florida A&M, Buffalo, Temple, Notre Lame) and big losses to not so big teams (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois), and the loss to OSU where we were just out manned and out coached. Oh wait, we did get to hear a lot of Morelli's whining and watch him trade insults with Michigan fans, but mysteriously he could not speak with the media when he lost.
Dan Conner did win the Bednarik award for being the best College Football Defensive Player and a First Team All America (does anyone else miss the days when Bob Hope would have the All America Team announced on his holiday show?!). We went bowling in San Antonio and thanks to that A&M Yell Leader who said Joe needed to be a casket, or something like that, he fired up a rather apathetic Nittany Nation that was still thinking about "what could have been" in 2007. It got the boys on the field fired up too and we were able to overcome the typical so-so Anthony Morelli and Kevin Kelly combination (bad passing and bad kicking) to win 24-17. In other news I won $50 off my good friend Doug Gricius, an A&M alum too, so all in all a good night at the Alamo.
That being said, I'm happy to say good bye to 2007 and look at 2008 with promise and hope.
(Thanks to "Tangled up in White and Blue" for this pic... )
Things to look forward to in 2008:1. In February, our fight club representatives, Anthony Scirotto and Chris Baker will go to trial for the fight in April. Four others had charges dropped and this trial has been conveniently moved 3 times through out the fall to allow these two to play football. Baker, however, decided to look the gift horse in the mouth and get into ANOTHER fight - this time at the student center. At least Scirotto has been smart enough to stay out of trouble. Baker must be as dumb as he is violent. Get rid of him.
2. The Darryl Clark / Pat Devlin QB controversy. The most favorite player of the PSU students and fans is the backup QB. Clark is a runner, Devlin is a passer and whoever isn't on the field at the moment will be the better one, guaranteed.
3. JoePa's retirement? Who knows! He says he can coach another 4-5 years (he's 81 now), so who knows.... I only wish Jay would leave. And am happy to report that Joe even noted in his post-Alamo Bowl press conference that he doesn't think PSU is the place for Jay to be head coach either (St. Marys Academy for Girls, maybe....?).
4. Perhaps beating Rich Rodriguez in his first year at Michigan? (Aw geez, just saw that this is our Homecoming game - what were they thinking?!). By the way, a GREAT win by the WVU Mountaineers last night in the Fiesta Bowl. Great to see the team show Rodriguez that they don't need him after all. Good luck to Coach Steward down there in West Virginia.
5. The return of PSU to a BCS game something like the 2006 Orange Bowl.
Now that we've closed out the 2007 football season, let me know that the PSU Men's basketball team actually won its first road game in 14 last week at Northwestern last Wednesday AND today (Sunday) beat Illinois for their second Big 10 win. Granted, it's not like they beat Duke, but for a team that has not had any success since it's Sweet 16 finish in 2001's NCAA tournament (when, as a 7 seed, we lost to 11th seed Temple), it's a bright spot. Incidentally, the women won their first Big 10 road game in 2 years. How pathetic is the state of Nittany Lion football that winning a road game is a huge deal?
If you think this is a big deal, you should see what the big deal in Hunterdon County is this New Year..... check back in a few days for the post.....
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