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Cory Giger

PSU Point/Counterpoint: Should the Big Ten have added the teams from the Pac-12?

It’s a shame what’s happened to college athletics I absolutely hate what has happened to college athletics. Ridiculous cross-country conference expansion. Transfer portal chaos. And the wild, wild West of NIL. Here’s the part where I yell “get off my lawn” like a crusty old neighbor and start pining about the way things used to be. Back when things made sense. Trying to make sense out of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington joining the Big Ten comes down to one thing and one thing only. We all know what it is, because it makes the world go round and people worship it to ...

Why weren’t Fleming, Carter more effective against WVU?

PSU point/counterpoint: Did anything happen in the opener that surprised you? Why weren’t Fleming, Carter more effective against WVU? By Cory Giger sports@altoonamirror.com Penn State played an excellent game in its opening win at West Virginia, but there were two glaring surprises involving two of the biggest names on the team. Transfer wide receiver Julian Fleming played much of the contest, and not only had zero catches, he wasn’t even targeted once. On the other side of the ball, Abdul Carter had a mere one tackle, three penalties and was pretty much a non factor in his ...

What’s the best thing going for Penn State right now? Expanded playoff field will do wonders for Nittany Lions

By Cory Giger sports@altoonamirror.com When the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams beginning next year, there’s no program or coach in the country that stand to benefit more than Penn State and James Franklin. That’s not me being a homer. Because, you know, everybody knows I’m just a Penn State homer. Wink, wink! When the Nittany Lions beat Michigan State on Friday, they’ll finish the regular season 10-2 and will be ranked in the top 12 by the College Football Playoff committee. They’re currently sitting at No. 11. This year, then, will mark the sixth time ...

PSU point-counter: Lack of talent at WR derail PSU hopes (Giger)

It is darn near impossible to believe that Penn State’s wide receiver situation is this bad. So bad that it killed the program’s chances for greatness this year. I’ve only covered PSU since 2006, and this is by far the worst group of wide receivers the program has had in my 18 years. The 2004 group (Gerald Smith, Mark Rubin, etc.) was worse — running back Tony Hunt led that team in receptions with 39 — but Penn State was lousy that year, so there were no real expectations. This year’s team had huge expectations. The coaches had known for a couple of years that they had Drew ...

PSU point-counter: Best and worst part of this season (Giger)

Beating Wolverines would make things better A lot of people are really down on Penn State right now, and the team has shown the past two weeks that it’s clearly not as good as many people thought. But a win over Michigan next week would change everything. Having that tremendous opportunity ahead is the best thing I can say about the season right now. Because regardless of the loss to Ohio State, there is still a path to the College Football Playoff, if the Nittany Lions can find a way to upset the Wolverines. Will that happen? I doubt it. Not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but to ...

Giger: The most dissapointing part of last week’s loss was …

Yurcich, Franklin, receivers need to share the blame. Penn State embarrassed itself offensively in the loss at Ohio State, and to me the primary culprits are Mike Yurcich, the wide receivers and James Franklin. The easy part of this is pointing out that the receivers just aren’t very good. There’s not a legitimate No. 1 Big Ten receiver on the team. KeAndre Lambert-Smith is really a possession guy and No. 2 receiver, and everybody else is really a No. 3 at best. I’ll try not to speak Japanese here, but ... when defenses don’t respect your receivers or believe that they can ...