The deep breath before the plunge: Pause for reflection and then crank some Steppenwolf: Nittany Nation is taking a magic carpet ride.
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I was fortunate enough to pen the first words published to this offbeat corner of the Penn State blogosphere following the Nittany Lions’ Rose Bowl victory (the last “real Rose Bowl” ever staged, in all likelihood) that capped the 2022 football season, so I’m digging the symmetry of being once again honored with this chance to author the final thoughts to appear here before this new season kicks off. In fact, I’ll be here every week; all throughout the season, I will be your humble blogger (Blogy-er?) for what we once called “Football Eve” ‘round Happy Valley parts.
This is going to be a column about the journey from late August to early January, one we all take together alongside our champions in Blue and White, and I hope it will be a chance to set the tone and frame a narrative heading into each Saturday. Other competent and capable folks, on this platform and several others, will equip you with the knowledge, analysis, and statistics to own your text thread or tailgate. They’ve got you covered in that department. For my part, I’ll seek to help you orient yourself as a small, but nevertheless crucial character in the much larger unfolding story of a season.
Country Roads – plus a late-season AD change and a Teflon $16.7 million buyout – took/kept WVU HC Neal Brown home to the place he probably doesn’t belong for a make-or-break (likely break) final stand.
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Underneath the iconic roof of a $1.3 billion architectural marvel, seated behind a plastic folding table you can buy for 50 bucks from The Home Depot, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown – fresh off a family beach vacation – drew a strategically-placed, carefully-calculated line in the sand.
I’ll say this at the front,” Brown told the hundred or so sportswriters/Marriott Rewards Point stashers inside Jerry World who picked the Mountaineers to finish last in the conference at Big XII media days back in July. “Appreciate what you all do as far as covering college football and making it one of the top, um, really, sports, in, in, that’s out there.”
After fattening up these figurative hogs with a trough full of pleasantries, Brown began leading them to the verbal slaughter.