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For anyone who has driven around our area during the past week, you couldn’t help but notice that the foliage was reaching its colorful peak and included almost all of the colors in unison. While weather-related factors, such as rainfall, sunlight and temperature, can have some effect on the intensity and duration of fall foliage colors, photoperiod is the primary determining factor of when leaves make their fall transition. Photoperiod is the scientific term for the relative length of daylight and darkness for each day throughout the year. The shorter days of autumn start the ...

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 ...

Lions’ offensive showing is cryin’ shame

Drew Allar didn’t try to hide his emotions. The Nittany Lions’ quarterback was in tears following Penn State’s 20-12 loss to Ohio State on Saturday afternoon at Ohio Stadium. Allar was well aware that he and the offense were almost entirely responsible for the outcome. He didn’t ...

Franklin’s time to end Buckeye streak is here

By Neil Rudel nrudel@altoonamirror.com This is the biggest game of James Franklin’s career. Franklin is the common denominator in the Nittany Lions’ 1-8 record against Ohio State. He’s had different coordinators on both sides of the ball, different quarterbacks and different standout players, and with the exception of Grant Haley’s return of Marcus Allen’s blocked field goal, a springboard to the Big Ten championship, the Lions have come up short every time. They’ve been close with a couple gut-wrenching come-from-ahead losses, and despite playing the Buckeyes ...

PSU’s season will be shaped in Columbus

UNIVERSITY PARK — OK, let the season begin. Then sixth-ranked Penn State improved to 6-0 by disposing of Massachusetts, 63-0, on a miserable, rainy Saturday at Beaver Stadium, the last remaining “game” on the schedule before the curtain goes up on the real competition. And that’s Saturday in Columbus, where the unbeaten and third-ranked Buckeyes await and where the Nittany Lions’ season will be shaped. James Franklin, though, wasn’t quite ready to look ahead Saturday night, saying/pleading, “I just want to have a few hours of normalcy and hang out with my wife,” ...

With OSU next, Franklin can’t lose focus

James Franklin is generally very careful with what he says, the way he says it and is almost always on point in his dealings with the media. That was not the case this week. With Massachusetts in town — the Minutemen are seven-touchdown underdogs — Franklin was once again asked Tuesday about non-conference scheduling and whether he thought it would change with the impending Big Ten expansion and 12-team playoff format. The first thing he said was, “Yeah, I would say there’s a team in this conference, specifically, that’s buying out of a ton of game contracts that are ...