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For our readers who have been A) abducted for the past month or B) experiencing never-ending rolling power blackouts or C) stuck in line at PHL, DTW, IAH, or some other three-lettered torture chamber/airport since early December trying to reschedule your canceled Southwest flight, All-American Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr. will be the only healthy-ish Nittany Lion defender choosing to sit the Rose Bowl on January 2. If not the greatest cornerback who ever called Beaver Stadium home, then certainly slated to be the highest-drafted, JPJ opted to forego the free trip to Pasadena, thus eliminating any chance that a tweak, pull, sprain, or tear might jeopardize the millions of dollars that await him on future Sundays. We certainly wish JPJ luck, but as his famous father’s former boss like to say: “We’ll focus our attentions on the players who make themselves available to us.”
Now, let’s talk about Ji’Ayir Brown. Can we talk about Ji’Ayir please, Mac? I’ve been dying to talk about Ji’Ayir with you all day. After setting the pace for all of College Football in interceptions last year (6), Brown leads all B1G safeties in PFF pass rush grade (88.5), pass rushes (44), sacks (3) and QB pressures (10). If we expand our search parameters to include the Pac-12, the only guy who tops any of those numbers is (ironically) Utah’s Cole Bishop. Coincidence…or conspiracy?
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Keyvone Lee: BACK. Caedan Wallace, Juice Scruggs and Olu Fashanu: BACK to BACK to BACK. Nick Singleton: FAST. Kaytron Allen: FAT(man).
After patching the run game together for much of November with wads of Hubba-Bubba, rubber cement and the free, second can of Flex Seal (James Franklin ordered “within the next 15 minutes” when the commercial popped on – Smart Man), the Nittany Lions appear to be back at full strength against the Utes when these two squads clash just on the other side of the calendar crease.
Penn State’s tandem of true freshmen (Singleton and Allen) combined for 2,346 all-purpose yards…more than 400 yards better than any single player in College Football this year. There’s a lesson there.
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• 10-2. Pretty much a Cotton Candy season. Enjoyable but hardly filling and a tad empty but sure as hell tastier than whatever gruel Mom slap on our plates in 2020 and 2021. As far as the way the 12-game slate played out, this season reminds us a bunch of the 2017 season – double-digit wins but none of them worth memorializing with one of those commemorative plates or coins they’re always advertising to insomniacs on TV at 3 a.m. In 2017, Penn State’s “best” win came in the dying breaths of an Instant Classic at Iowa – a team that eventually won 8 games. In 2022, Penn State’s “best” win came in the dying breaths of an Instant Classic at Purdue – a team that won its 8th game today.
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Knowing us, of course we saved our wildest tailgate recipe of the season for last. Yes, even wilder than making pork poppable, like we did with our Kielbasa Tots creation.
Hear us out:
Peanut Butter.
Chocolate.
Chicken.
Yep, you read that right.
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.
• As much as we love to b*tch about the Big Ten schedule-makers’ obvious vendetta against Penn State Football, those Excel aficionados in Chicago unknowingly did the Nittany Lions a HUGE solid by backloading the 2022 slate with a bunch of helmet-wearing sloths. Because, my goodness, recent the tidal wave of injuries on offense has forced Mike Yurcich to piece things together with duct-tape, chewed wads of Juicy Fruit, and infomercial Flex Seal – like the Nittany Lions OC is some lamented playsheet-holding MacGyver or something. It’s weird offering up this commentary considering Penn State eclipsed the 50-point mark for the first time since 2020, but this offense was a sputtering mess for a decent portion of Saturday. For much of the first half, faulty pass protection was the stick in the Nittany Lions’ bicycle spokes. Once that issue was fixed, another leak sprung – Penn State’s incomplete WR crops, down the services of safety blanket Parker Washington, couldn’t separate.
