Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

• 92.3% sure I used this topper before…but whatever. It fits: As Chumbawamba once pontificated, these Nittany Lions got knocked down, but they got up again for the second time this season, further distancing themselves from the rolling snowball of suck that was the second half of last year. With “nothing to play for” in front of a scattered, gap-riddled, British-smile of a crowd the Nittany Lions tub-thumped Indiana as if there were still pollsters to impress. The haters won’t like this, but kudos to James Franklin and the rest of the staff for erasing at least one of many troubling narratives attached to his 9-year tenure…well, for now, anyway.

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• Tweet Of The™ Game goes to Senior Editor of The™ Athletic (and apparent State College resident), Matt Brown, @MattBrownCFB: “Penn State Took The™ Lead With 9:26 Left And Is Losing By Multiple Possessions With 8:17 Left.” Unreal turn of events. Those not-niiiiice 69 seconds felt like suddenly awaking from the™ most beautiful dream only to find your house on fire, your wife banging the™ gardener, a telemarketer blowing up your phone, all while you try to flex/rub out a charley horse in your right calf.

• Upset of the™ Day: Absolutely NO qualms with James Franklin’s pre-game approach or in-game decisions. NONE. Unlike 2019, 2020 and 2021, when Franklin was content playing a superior Ohio State squad straight up…and in turn content to lose by a smidge more than a touchdown with no zero flirtation of pulling off the™ monumental upset, today Franklin rolled the™ dice, pushed the™ enveloped, colored outside the™ lines on occasion, and coached like a 15-point underdog. And, damn, it almost worked.

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Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

Last 42 minutes of my life (I counted) are gone, wasted away, circling the drain of curiosity, incapable of escaping the Marianas Trench of Internet wormholes.

And who (or what) is to blame? Why it’s the title of this week’s tailgate recipes: Drunk & Blacked Out Shrimp.

I let out a faint chuckle when this creative culinary concoction arrived in my Inbox thanks to the good folks and Blue and White bleeders at the 409 Tailgate Club. It certainly paints a picture, doesn’t it? An inebriated shrimp, keeled over, his shrimp buddies stacking empty red solo cups on his head or taking a Sharpie to his little shrimp face…which got us wondering, ‘Do Shrimp drink? Heck, do shrimp even have mouths?’

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• Prior to tonight, the last time Minnesota backup QB/full bag of Scrabble tiles Athan Kaliakmanis started a football game, THIS was the setting:

Needless to say, to steal a phrase from former Penn State defensive tackle and Friend of the Blog Brandon Noble, THIS (below) was an entirely different animal.

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Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

Preaching to the choir here, but the Penn State Whiteout is truly a sight to behold – as ABC announcer Chris Fowler said a few years ago, an unmatched display of “monochromatic mayhem.”

For us, the festivities begin well before Saturday and extend through the night as evening turns to morning. Like those 1980s Energizer commercials, the party keeps going and going and going…the only interruption occurring around 7:30 p.m. with a 4-hour, 110-decibel intermission.

Of course, the Whiteout isn’t all fun and games, especially for sticky-fingered, sauce-centric grill guys like us. In fact, our typical tailgate menu is basically kryptonite for pristine Whiteout attire. Sizzle, splatter, spirits and sauce = stains.

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Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

• Perhaps we’ve reached the ACCEPTANCE stage of grief, because we’re all out of spittle, all out of veins bulging from our angry foreheads, all out of cuss words, all out of pillows to scream into, all out of reasons to let this forever-good/never-“ELITE” program ruin our afternoon. THIS IS PENN STATE FOOTBALL…a cockroach that feasts in the comfortable obscurity of also-ran BTN/ESPN 2 broadcasts, but scatters and disappears when the bright lights flip on. It’s one thing to lose to Michigan on the road. It’s quite another to have Joel Klatt twist the knife by saying, “I don’t know how this game could have been any closer than (41-17)?” That comment stings worse than rubbing alcohol on a knee scrape because it’s 100 percent accurate. For two programs that recruit and sign the same caliber of player, this was Varsity vs. JV, at best.

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