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PSU football
Saturday: Ohio State at Penn State, noon.
TV: FOX
Radio: TOONA 1430-AM & 99.7-FM; WRAX-FM 106.5
By Neil Rudel
nrudel@altoonamirror.com
Penn State is unrivaled.
It markets itself that way.
On the field, though, it's not been so unrivaled.
There have been plenty of teams that have dominated the Nittany Lions (Ohio State), drubbed them (Michigan three times in the last seven years) or upset them (too long of a list to extend this paragraph but it would start with Illinois.)
Except for when Pitt is occasionally rationed a spot on the schedule, most inside the PSU program see the Buckeyes as the closest thing to a rival the Lions have - and despite the fact that they're 1-9 in their last 10 vs. OSU, and riding a five-game losing streak, it's generally been a fairly competitive game.
In fact, only once in eight matchups since James Franklin arrived have the Lions been blown out by Ohio State (38-10 in 2015), and none of those came at Beaver Stadium.
The other seven have all been nearly one-score games with two being one-point losses in which the Lions squandered double-digit second-half leads.
Including Penn State's 24-21 win in 2016, the signature win of Franklin's nine-year tenure, take away the 2015 blowout and the average point-differential in the Lions' other seven games is 7.2 points.
Saturday, the oddsmakers see a more decisive victory for the Buckeyes, having installed them as a 15.5-point favorite. In 2016, OSU came in as a 19-point favorite.
So there is precedent for shocking the world.
The Lions will get juice from their home crowd -- if they can keep it involved -- in their second chance to be competitive with the Big Ten's elite this year.
They couldn't cope with Michigan physically. That's the first thing they'll have to prove today -- that they can withstand the battle up front, something they failed to do in losing 41-17 in Ann Arbor.
But some things don't change, and if you're drawing up a road map to a monster upset, controlling the line is a priority.
There's no way the Lions can get into a Sean Clifford-fueled shootout with Ohio State's terrific passing game, which averages 312 yards per game, tops in the Big Ten and second in the country.
We've seen it too many times before when the Lions coughed up leads as the Buckeyes' talented receivers danced untouched through the Penn State secondary.
Franklin has said a couple times in the last two weeks that the secondary is the strength of the Lions' defense, so we'll see. We'll see if Joey Porter can eliminate somebody like Marvin Harrison Jr., Jaxon Smith-Njigba or Julian Fleming.
It would also help if the Lions' pass rush (without a dominant edge rusher) can to get home against C.J. Stroud, the Buckeyes' star quarterback and a Heisman Trophy frontrunner.
PSU defensive coordinator Manny Diaz did not have a good day at Michigan as the Lions didn't summon enough bodies to the box, and the Wolverines ran through them.
Today is Diaz's second chance against the other marquee opponent on the schedule.
The best defense against a great offense, however, is a running game.
That flips the script to the Lions' other coordinator, Mike Yurcich.
Time of possession is considered an overrated statistic these days, but today, it won't be.
Penn State must maintain the ball and, by doing so, keep Stroud and Ohio State's offense on the sidelines.
That onus falls squarely on Penn State's offensive line, a unit that has kept the Nittany Nation wanting since, oh, about 1994.
And even so, the Lions' top two running backs - Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen - are just freshmen. Can they tough it out between the tackles? It's one thing to outrun Ohio U. to the edge and another to run over Ohio State.
Keep an eye on that as well.
As much as anything, today falls on Yurcich to put OSU's defense on its heels and offensive line coach Phil Trautwein's unit to protect Clifford and mush the Buckeyes.
Franklin has been through multiple OCs and line coaches trying to find this formula.
Controlling the ball and the clock represents the Nittany Lions' best chance - maybe their only chance - to win or even keep the game close.
Rudel can be reached at nrudel@altoonamirror.com.You can also follow him on Twitter@neilrudel.