Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

The thing you have to remember about football is that it’s played — and coached — by human beings. And when those human beings reach a certain point, sometimes they’ve just had enough.

Maybe the UCLA Bruins were sick of being the laughingstock of the Power Four, let alone the Big Ten. Maybe they wanted to rally around  interim head coach Tim Skipper or its newly appointed offensive coordinator Jerry Neuheisel, who is the spitting image of his Tavern-loving father and called a pretty solid game on Saturday against a Penn State defense that hadn’t allowed much of anything to anyone through four games.

Whatever the case, the home team played like it had something to prove in the Rose Bowl, and it became the first 0-4 program to defeat a top-10 ranked opponent in 40 years.

But you don’t want to read about UCLA. You’re here for blood.

Continue reading

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

The many sides of Drew Allar were on display in Beaver Stadium once again on a crazy Saturday White Out night.

For three quarters, there was Frustrating Drew, the one we’ve seen in too many big games to count, holding the ball too long, missing open receivers and, though certainly not the only issue in an offense that looked like it couldn’t advance the ball on a decent high school team, not doing much of anything to elevate it out of that rut, either.

Then, for the briefest of moments—four plays to be exact—we saw Franchise Drew, the guy whose performance matched his stratospheric potential. A perfect strike to his tight end, Luke Reynolds, for 9 yards. Then, after a long run by Kaytron Allen, another strike, to Trebor Pena, for 12 more. And finally a gorgeous rainbow over the entire Oregon defense to Devonte Ross for Penn State’s first touchdown. You remembered why this kid will likely hear his name called on the first day of next spring’s draft, and while most of you was celebrating, the rest of you got mad all over again wondering where this version has been for the last four years.

Continue reading

Every so often, there comes a crucial inflection point so fraught with meaning and pregnant with possibility, mere contemplation of its monumental consequence can bring the beholder to the brink of insanity. Such is the state of affairs for much of Penn State’s fan base leading up to the third-ranked Nittany Lions’ clash with Oregon under the lights at the White Out. With so much on the line, and every criticism of coach and quarterback in the biggest games ringing in their ears, Chris and Kevin air their hopes, fears, and frustrations about one game that could very well shatter or cement every narrative that has dogged this program for a decade, sorting through the jangled nerves, rankled senses, and shattered confidence brought on by a decade of perpetual failures in moment of truth. All the while, Brandon and Mailman marvel at grotesque spectacle of their tortured thinking.

If you need to share in the self-administered coping mechanisms to soothe your mania and hasten the long hours until game day (and GameDay), then join us and ease your troubled heart and mind. However, if you count yourself among the rational and well-adjusted, why then you can just kick back and join Mike the Mailman and Noble in their bemusement at the curious madness of Horne and Buchignani.

Either way, we can think of worse ways to count down the minutes to what promises to be among the most consequential evenings in Beaver Stadium history.

HOSTED BY: Brandon Noble, Mike “The Mailman” Herr, Kevin Horne, Chris Buchignani