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No Tiger, Phil, but maybe a US Ryder Cup victory

Tiger Woods won’t be at Whistling Straits this week, for obvious reasons. Phil Mickelson will, but for the first time since 1995 won’t hit a shot in the Ryder Cup. The storyline in the Ryder Cup hasn’t changed, but the marquee players have — at least when it comes to the beleaguered U.S. team. Woods is still mending from a car accident, while Mickelson will end a streak of 12 straight Ryder Cups as a player to be a non-playing assistant captain for a team tasked with wrestling the cup back from Europe. That may prove a bit of a disappointment for the tens of thousands who ...

Franklin-Southern Cal speculation will continue

There’s a definite subplot that has developed to the Penn State football season. And that’s whether James Franklin is coaching his final team in Happy Valley. Since USC fired Clay Helton on Monday, Franklin’s name has been widely speculated to be among the most likely successor. Some have him at the top of the list. He was asked about it several times this week before steering the narrative back to the game at hand, No. 22 Auburn (7:30 p.m., ABC). Franklin said he plans to handle the buzz “internally’’ with his team, but we all know it’s not going to away until he ...

PIAA changes its tune on ‘no-contests’

Last high school football season, it seemed as though everyone involved was willing to do whatever it took to have a season after the 2020 PIAA spring scholastic year was completely wiped out. That included making regular-season games a “no contest” when one team could not compete due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the postseason, district and PIAA officials had no choice but to make schools who were dealing with COVID-19 issues forfeit, such as Southern Huntingdon being forced to in its scheduled District 6 Class 2A quarterfinal game against Cambria Heights. Following guidance ...

Not just yet fans: Auburn in the middle of rebuild

Let’s go easy. Auburn provides a big-name whiteout backdrop for the Nittany Lions to full restore a full Beaver Stadium, not to mention showcasing one of the program’s best recruiting tools. As James Franklin noted the other day, most of the great players Penn State has landed trace their interest to a whiteout game. Beating the Tigers, especially decisively, would carry the Nits closer to a top-five ranking and establish plenty of momentum rolling into a most challenging October schedule. But before we oil up the wheels to that old blue and white national championship ...

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, ...

New offensive look sparking Lions

UNIVERSITY PARK — On one hand, James Franklin thought the 105,323 in attendance would blow the clouds out of the Beaver Stadium sky after Sean Clifford’s quarterback sneak gave the Nittany Lions an early two-score lead against Ball State. For the first time since the days of Christian ...