We’ve cleared Valentine’s Day, and Penn State basketball is still relevant this season. That, if you’re a college hoops fan in these parts, is a thing of beauty. The Nittany Lions bring a three-game winning streak into tonight’s huge home game against No. 8 Ohio State at the Bryce ...
The Pirates decided to blow it up, and the most disappointing thing about that is the team actually had a chance to be good this year. Maybe not a great chance, but with Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, 85 wins and playoff contention might have been within reach. Call me optimistic there, but ...
Happy New Year! Some random thoughts on, well, a bunch of random stuff, not all of which involve sports: n Having Christmas and New Year’s Day both on a Monday is cool because it’s a great three-day weekend to spend with family and friends. But having to go back to work the Tuesday ...
Saint Francis’ players will get a lifetime of memories tonight when they play at No. 1 Duke. The school itself will get $85,000. That’s what you call a win-win, even though a blowout loss on the court is pretty much inevitable for the Red Flash. College basketball is a wonderful game. ...
The Penn State offensive coordinator position has become a sensational, high-demand job. A million-dollar-a-year job. A job that can springboard the right candidate to a major head coaching position in a few years. All thanks to Joe Moorhead. Replacing Moorhead will be very, very difficult, ...
What in the world were the Tennessee Volunteers thinking? Whatever it was, the power of the people proved to be enormous and led to a crazy college football story that embarrassed Tennessee and brought the Jerry Sandusky scandal back into the limelight Sunday. The silly season of postseason ...
So, Saquon Barkley has decided he will play in Penn State’s bowl game. He’s an outstanding young man, and the program means a great deal to him, so it probably was a no-brainer in his mind. Until a year ago, many of us wouldn’t have even thought about a top player deciding to skip his ...
DaeSean Hamilton showed a lot of character following last year’s loss at Pitt simply by coming out and talking to the media. As he sat in his chair and answered very difficult questions about “the drop,” Hamilton started to cry. “I’ll never forget about it,” Hamilton said of the ...
Head coaches make the huge money in college football, just as CEOs get the big bucks in corporations and, for most of us, the manager of your office makes a lot more than you do. But who does the actual work? The grunt work. The daily grind. The nuts and bolts. The stuff that makes the whole ...
Program development for next season and beyond is my biggest concern for the Penn State football team down the stretch. The Nittany Lions are going to whip up on Rutgers, Nebraska and Maryland and finish 10-2. But I want to see how they do it. Then I want to see how they line up up against a ...
The sky is not falling on Penn State. The team is still going to finish 10-2 and go to a decent bowl game, most likely the Citrus or Outback. Still, there are serious problems the Nittany Lions must address for this season and beyond if they’re going to remain nationally prominent and take ...
Josh Bell had a terrific season for the Pirates, finally giving the club the everyday first baseman it sought for so many years. Among the people who are very proud of Bell’s development at first base is the last guy who held that everyday job for a long time with the Bucs, Kevin ...
As soon as Kirk Herbstreit said it, I knew Neil and I had our point-counterpoint topic for this week. “The best thing that Penn State can do is blow people out … by 40 or 50 points if they can,” Herbstreit said on the College Football Playoff ranking show Tuesday. For many years, Neil ...
Saquon Barkley is awesome. The best running back in Penn State history. So how on earth has the program gotten to the point where it cannot run the ball effectively in clutch situations? The great Bill Murray line from the classic comedy “Stripes” is appropriate: “There’s something ...
Penn State is every bit as good as Ohio State and certainly can win Saturday’s showdown. But the Buckeyes have not just one, but three major elements in their favor, which is why I’m picking them. The game is in Columbus, first and foremost. Winning at The Horseshoe is always difficult ...
One of the best things I read this weekend about Penn State’s 42-13 blowout of Michigan was this single line: “The Harbaugh worship has to stop.” It came from a Wolverines beat writer, Shawn Windsor. In the Detroit Free Press, of all places. And it’s 1 million percent spot ...
Michigan’s offense is not all that good, which makes this question easy to answer. Penn State has a terrific defense that leads the country in fewest points allowed (just 9.0 per game) and should play well Saturday night. But even if it doesn’t, the Wolverines don’t have the kind of ...
I won’t say a bad word about Christian Hackenberg the man. He’s a good, intelligent, respectable person who was a terrific representative of Penn State, and I wish him nothing but the best in life. But Hackenberg is not a very good quarterback. He did some things well at Penn State but ...
Gone are the days when the offensive line was Penn State’s biggest weakness, but we are not yet to the point where we can call the line a major strength, either. That was expected to be the case this season, and it hasn’t played out that way yet. The yet part is a key word because the ...
Commentary How on earth did Penn State only win 21-19 Saturday at Iowa after dominating statistically? And did we see some things to be concerned about for the long haul in the game? Let’s play the glass is half full/half empty game. Half full: A win is a win is a win, especially on the ...