Big Ten Roundtable: Week 8

The Hoosier Report bring us the questions this week. Oddly enough, PSU plays Indiana this weekend so I urge you to check out this excellent blog for all your hoosiery-needs.

1. Call your shot. We are halfway through the Big Ten season (or, at least, most of us are). What will be your team's final record? Where, if anywhere, will your team be spending late December/early January? Who will win the Big Ten?

I will answer with my heart because that's what I am all about. PSU wins out, going 10-2 and storms it's way into the Capital One bowl. I just don't think, even in my heart of hearts, that PSU will be able to get a BCS birth. There is the outside possibility of a shared Big Ten title but I just don't see it in the cards.

2. How is your team's coaching situation? Clearly, this varies from school to school, with some coaches approaching retirement (Carr/Paterno), some who are just starting out (Brewster/Fitzgerald), the unique case of Bill Lynch, and others who seem to be in their primes. If your coach is on the tail end of his career, where do you see things going from here? If he's still early in his tenure, any buyer's remorse? If he's in he's somewhere in the middle, are you happy or wishing things would go a different direction? How does your view correspond to the "majority" view among your school's fans?

I think our coaching situation is strong. Joe Paterno is a living legend, a veritable football God walking amongst mere mortals. You don't force a legend to leave, Joe has earned that. I believe that I am in the minority by taking that position. Penn State fans are becoming more and more fickle and are refusing to accept 8-9 win seasons. I think Joe probably retires after next year as is contract will be up. I love JOE! I want him to stay as long as he wants, roll him onto the field if you have to!

BONUS BASKETBALL QUESTION: If you plan to cover basketball, give us a brief outlook for your team. Who is your best player? What do you expect from the team?

I have no idea. Sorry, I just don't know.

Big Ten Roundtable: Week Four

Dave from Maize N Brew brings us the brain-teasers for week four of the greatest sport known to man; college football. Also, conference play gets started this week so we finally have conference match-ups and predictions to make!

1. Time to break out the crystal ball. I want to know what happens at the END of the season. Give me your offensive and defensive Players of the Year in the Big Ten along with Coach of the Year and why.

I'll start on the offensive side of the ball; Mike Hart will be your offensive player of the year in the Big Ten. Through three games the Little-Big-Man has rushed for 502 yards and 5 Tds. That puts him on pace to have a 2,000 yd season and score about 20 Tds. That is BEASTLY. Ok, he might not make 2,000 yards but he certainly could and that doesn't just put him in the running for Big Ten offensive player of the year but it also gives him a shot at the Heisman.
For Defense I'm going to dig myself a little Homer-Hole and go with Dan Connor. Dan has 29 tackles so far this season(leading the Lions), nearly 10/game, he also leads the Lions with 4.5 Tackles for loss this year. Before the calls of rampant Homerism become to echoing consider this: DC-40 has more tackles than Laurinaitis (TOSU), Hodge (WISC.), Crable (Mich.), and Klinkenborg (Iowa). So there!

2. With the upsets, close games, and head scratchers so far, every game we thought was going to be important has changed. Michigan State is 3-0, for Pete's sake, and they look good doing it. Pick the three games on the Big Ten Schedule that will determine the Big Ten Champion. Bonus Points for not picking three games on your own schedule.

Oooh, a challenge. Well, Michigan St. has been having a good year so far, they had a good win against Pitt last week and will presumably continue the Hellish nightmare that is Notre Dame's Season. A big game will be, and I don't think anybody thought about this before the season started, will be a 4-0 Mich. St. team playing Wisconsin at Wisconsin. This could be a big match-up between two undefeated teams.
A second big game could be when Tosu has to play Purdue on the road. Purdue is untested as of yet but has beaten every team it has played by a minimum of 23 points. Tosu's Defense has looked great early but will they be able to score more than the Boilermakers on the road?

3. How many games, this season, have you been to? How many games have you tailgated at? If you have tailgated, name your beverage of choice. If you answered no to the previous questions, hang your head in shame, or at least give a good story about watching the game in enemy territory and giving the bouncer the finger when he asked you to quiet down.

I'm afraid I have to hang my head in shame. Though I am planning to attend PSU vs. Tosu on October 27th. While I haven't tailgated per se I have had people over for a football watching party. During this party I was quaffing Bloody Mary's and Budweiser (though Yuengling is preferred when available). I served ribs and pork shoulder which I loving smoked during the 7 hours before the game. It was phenomenal.

Bitter/Angry Bonus Question!

4. As the Big Ten Season kicks off, the Conference is in somewhat of a difficult position nationally. Needing some momentum after a horrid BCS performance, the Conference needed some momentum early in the season. It hasn't gotten it. The first three weeks have been abysmal. Is this just a down year for the Big Ten, is there a change Nationally that the Big Ten just hasn't picked up on, is there some truth to the "Big Ten Style of Play" that everyone harps on, or has college football simply caught up? What so you think and why? I may be beating a dead horse, but no one looks good this year and I'm at a loss as to why.

The strength of the conferences is always cyclical and, while this is clearly a down year for the Big Ten, it certainly won't be a static position. Similarly, college football is entering a time of greater parity than it has ever had before. If anything, you will see more teams upset by the App. States of the world not less.

GO STATE! BEAT MICHIGAN!

Big Ten Roundtable: Week Three

MSC brings us the questions this week. I'm all a-tingle with anticipation so lets get straight to the questions.

1. Now that two weeks of play are behind us, what is one encouraging surprise and one downing disappointment from your team? (Easy answer to the latter part of the question for Michigan bloggers)

Austin Scott is really starting to show that he can have a very good season this year. He still has to do it against a truly quality opponent but he has 162 rushing yds (4.2/carry) and 4 TDs in the first two games of the year.
Anthony Morelli is playing better than he did this time last year, however, his decision making still is not where anyone hopes it would be. For PSU to join the ranks of elite teams he will have to get his completion percentage into the 60s and just eliminate the truly awful decisions.

2. A look at the current Big Ten standings shows things dead-locked record-wise for the most part. Once conference play actually begins, which two or three teams pull away from the rest of the pack?

Judging from what teams have shown so far, PSU and Wisconsin seem to be the best two teams in the conference. Michigan has looked terrible and Ohio State struggled with Akron into the third quarter.

3. Has your team ever played in a game that was just downright boring and impossible to watch? I ask this because going into the Michigan-Notre Dame game, looking at it on paper, it is shaping up to be one of the ugliest we may see all year.

Oh yeah. The obvious choice is Penn State's loss to Iowa in 2004. The final score was Iowa 6, PSU: 4. I mean, when your defense is so good that it only gives up 6 points and scores 4 points on its own AND YOU STILL LOSE BY 2! Absolutely awful. These guys know what i'm talking about.

GO STATE! GET FIRED UP FOR BUFFALO!

The Big Ten Roundtable Week 2

The first week of college football has been,well, ridiculously awesome. I have a lot to live up to as Sean at ATO did an excellent job with Week 1 and really set a great pace for the year. As such, please link your responses in the comments.

I have made an executive decision to not open up this Roundtable to be a Michigan-Free-For-All. If you want to delight in their pain or offer a word of consolation feel free to stop by their excellent blogs. MZone has some very funny stuff up. Brian, @ MGoBlog, basically turned his blog into a kitten/emo extravaganza. MSC ponders the repercussions as we all wait with baited breath for the polls to come out. It seems Dave, @ Maize & Brew, has not yet crawled out of his giant bottle of Maize & Brew after the holiday weekend. If I left out anybody's pain, I'm sorry. Now, lets move on to talk about week 2!

1. Clearly, Week 1 was a huge week for upsets with Appalachin St. beating Michigan and Clemson beating FSU (though if that really shocked anyone I'd be surprised). What are your upset games for Week 2 and why?

2. What do you think about the BTN? How'd it look? How were the announcers? Did the first weekend change your opinion of the BTN?

3. Now that we're a game into the Season evaluate the Big Ten's strength.

GO STATE! GO BIG TEN!

Big Ten Roundtable Week 1

Sean from Around The Oval has the questions for the first week of the the BTR. I will give my usual, half-hearted attempt at answering questions imagined by those far smarter than myself. To the Questions!

1. Which player from your own team are you most looking forward to watching?
I am really looking forward to seeing Austin Scott play. Don't get me wrong, I am really excited to watch Dan Connor assume his role as leader and all-around beast at ILB and Sean Lee become/stay a dominant force. But the reason I am interested in seeing Scott play is because there are so many questions for PSU at tailback. Austin could really go two different ways this season, he could become the RB he looked like as a freshman and in the Orange Bowl; or, he could be the unfocused mess that was the rest of his career. In sum, Austin will be exciting to watch not just for his big play ability but also for the possibility of his complete and total collapse.

2. Which player from another Big Ten team are you most looking forward to watching?
Mike Hart. Mike has been doing a lot of woofing this off-season and I want to see if he is going to back it up on the field. He is certainly capable of backing it up and Michigan looks explosive on offense but they do have a tough schedule which includes Oregon, ND, PSU, OSU, Wisconsin. There is certainly the possibility of losing a game or two in there. If they do, what will the newly loquacious Mr. Hart say then? Maybe it'll be what he said after losing to TOSU last year:

"I guarantee if we play, it would be a whole different game," Michigan running back Mike Hart said. "We should have got them the first time around. We didn't. If it doesn't happen, that's our fault."

Right. Well, this is his chance to back all this up.
(HT to Mike at BSD)

3. If your team was an action movie star, who would it be?
It would have to be bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard. PSU is old school. Dirty. Hard working. Not overly buff or threatening but still dangerous. A little crusty. Sometimes hung-over. But through all that, still capable of great things. It also makes me laugh to picture Joe saying: "Yipee-ki-yaay Mother-fucker" That would be hilarious.











GO STATE!