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Cory Giger

Confidence boost of victory could carry PSU a long way

Confidence is an amazing thing in sports, the kind of thing that simply cannot be quantified. Having covered professional baseball for 25 years, I can unequivocally say that confidence is paramount for any player to succeed. The game is just too hard and too fast for a baseball player to achieve any success if he’s not in the right head space. Football is a little different, because it’s such a physical and reactionary kind of game. You can just go out and let your physical skills try to overpower the other guy. Having said that, when you’re talking about college football, ...

Safety first means targeting = ejections

By Cory Giger For the Mirror Football must change. The thinking must change. The attitudes must change. Because safety should always be the most important thing. And throughout the history of football, safety has really never been the most important thing — specifically head safety. We are, thankfully, finally in the midst of a change in football. It took decades and thousands of players at all levels suffering countless concussions — and some dying with CTE or other health problems caused by football — for people to realize, accept and wake up to the dangers of the vicious ...

PSU point-counter point: Offense needs to click to defeat Badgers

By Cory Giger There’s no dress rehearsal, no time to ease into things playing a cupcake opponent. Penn State had better be ready to play right off the bat Saturday, and that means the new offense needs to be clicking early. James Franklin knows this. He’s said as much, noting the Nittany Lions had better be ready to go against a good Wisconsin team that surely will be fired up playing in front of a packed Camp Randall Stadium. The best formula to beat Wisconsin involves basic common sense. Get a lead early and force the Badgers into playing catchup, which is harder to do for a ...

A real sense of normalcy on display at PNG Field

Welcome back … to normal. It’s been a long, long time coming. From a local perspective, if you want to see the best example of life back to normal, head out to a Curve game. Walk around Peoples Natural Gas Field for a spell. Talk to folks (there were a season-high 4,201 on hand ...

Shrewsberry good hire for one tough job

Micah Shrewsberry looks like a great hire for Penn State. Can he succeed in turning the Nittany Lions into a consistent winner in the Big Ten? We’ll see. This is a tough, tough job. Penn State doesn’t have the tradition or resources to think that it will ever become a consistent threat in basketball. The school won’t pay the kind of money it would take to lure a big-name coach, something a lot of fans clamor for, so the choice had to either be an up-and-coming head coach or a proven assistant coach. Shrewsberry is the latter. He has a fantastic resume for an assistant ...

PSU football: McGloin’s amazing story shows ultimate underdog

Christian Hackenberg was a five-star recruit. So was Anthony Morelli. Penn State’s recent four-star quarterback recruits include Rob Bolden, Pat Devlin, Paul Jones and Kevin Newsome. I can hear your collective groans. Not a single one of those guys ever went on to start a game at quarterback in the NFL. You know who did? Of course you do. Matt McGloin. A zero-star recruit. A walk-on. A guy who had the biggest chip on his shoulder that you’ll ever see. A guy with … wait for it … moxie. I never get tired of writing or talking about McGloin. In my 15 years on the ...