The University of Alaska at Anchorage Seawolves!!!!!  The geography wasn't ideal but their close proximity to Russia makes them a mecca for international studies which is something the Big Ten had been sorely lacking up to this time.

The move, which is being hailed by several sources as "brilliant" and "unexpected" and "WTF",  will also help Big Ten football recruiting cover the vast untapped Samoan landscape, as opposed to this talent being left to the USCs, Oregons and Oregon States of the world.  No word yet on whether the Seawolves play basketball but with the extra TV revenue they'll be raking in they'll gladly build a court if they don't already have one.

Delaney has repeatedly said he was looking for a 12th mascot to blend in with the badger/wolverine/gopher crowd, and the seawolf should do nicely in this regard.  UAA athletic officials have probably told all their student athletes in closed-door meetings already but the Twitter hasn't made it so far north as for these students to leak this knowledge to the general public in the lower 48  However, reliable smoke signals from the neighboring Yukon Territory have been interpreted that this is a lock to be announced formally this Friday, February 5th.  More details as they become available.

I notice a mountain of skepticism coming from our most loyal BSD readers this week after the game preview post.  9 guys predicting MSU to win in the comments, vs. 8 for the good guys.  Where's the love???  True, we had 2 make-or-break games this season, and we got broke both times, at home.  True, our special teams looks like the Washington Generals against whatever competition we've come against.  But let's not forget that our team has still has some dominant performers capable of taking over a game against lesser talented teams.  One of my favorite posts each week was the statistical comparisons, but I didn't see it this week, so here are a few of the major matchups I looked up while I was at work today, between brief moments of productivity (games against FCS teams not included).  I'm hoping this will get something of a collective deep breath out of the BSD community.

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Probably way too late for this, but I see a couple problems with the Gameday Whiteout.  First of all, there's no way this idea will get out to EVERYONE showing up at Gameday, especially Iowa fans who would never want to go along with it anyway.  So people will show up with their own signs and it would be tough to convince them not to attempt to show the country their creativity.  People would likely be pissed at someone telling them they "can't" show their signs for the entire show, creating kind of a conflicted atmosphere amongst PSU fans.  The other bad thing about the Whiteout is that it will make any signs against PSU way more visible since these guys would not comply.  Not sure if I have a complete solution to this, and maybe the Whiteout would look really cool anyway, but here's my thought.  Convince people to flip their signs around to the blank side at the BEGINNING of Gameday and keep it like that until the first commercial break or so.  That way, we can get the initial shock of white at the beginning of the show while everyone's watching, AND let everyone show their wordsmanship the rest of the way through.  Thoughts???

Check out this article from rivals:  http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=904928

True, it's a lukewarm compliment to this year's team.  But the write-up seems fair and everything written about the program before this season is painfully true.  The Penn State Nittany Lion men's basketball team:  16-5 with an outside shot at the NCAA tournament going into February, and one of the six most pleasantly surprising teams in all of college basketball this year.  I'll take it!

Bumped...A solid response (with a little snark) to my piece on PSU's Spread HD offense. - Paragon

I recently read an article on this site titled simply "The Spread HD", that claimed "Instead of trying to break this offense down and all of its components I think it’s more important to see how PSU will match-up against USC’s Defense."

Really?  In an article named after the Penn State offense we're still letting the USC defense dominate the discussion?  If the article is supposed to be about PSU's offense then what better time to break down, oh I don't know, PSU's offense?!

The following is one fan's attempt at analyzing Penn State's offense from this past season.

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I just ran a bunch of simulations based on different rankings on ESPN's Playoff Simulation page, powered by Accuscore, and found it to be pretty interesting.  Here are the average percentage chance we'd have against top FBS teams according to Accuscore on the ESPN page:

• vs. #1 Oklahoma:  27% chance of victory
• vs. #2 Florida:  20%
• vs. #3 Texas:  36%
• vs. #4 Alabama:  39%
• vs. #5 USC:  36%
• vs. #6 Utah:  68%
• vs. #7 Texas Tech:  54%
• vs. #9 Boise State:  68%
• vs. #10 Ohio State:  61%
• vs. #11 TCU:  59%
• vs. #12 Cincinnati:  81%
• vs. #13 Oklahoma State:  48%
• vs. #14 Georgia Tech:  75%
• vs. #15 Georgia:  61%
• vs. #16 BYU:  77%

Crazy to me that we would be (though only slightly) an underdog to Oklahoma State.

Also, interesting Bowl matchups:

• Northwestern 28% vs. Missouri
• Michigan State 29% vs. Georgia
• Ohio State 23% vs. Texas
• Oklahoma/Florida 50/50
• Utah 21% vs. Alabama

Thoughts?

Throughout the last week or so, I have heard nothing from the USC camp but excuses as to why they are so unbelievably talented, so deserving of a title shot, so embarrassed to be degraded by playing another "Slow-10" team in the Rose Bowl, etc.  Here's the thing, the sports world DOES NOT EXIST SOLELY BASED ON TALENT!  This is obvious to most that will read this post, but I think most USC faithful can use a reminder

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I just noticed this on espn.com's front page, the very first thing that jumps out at you from the worldwide leader's website:  http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&page=dash0811&sportCat=ncf

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There was so much good about last night it's hard for me to take it all in.  Two gutsy, tough, prideful football teams in an absolute slobberknocker of a game.  Two outstanding coaches that got 100% effort from their teams for the entire game.  And one Penn State victory.  Take nothing away from Ohio State because they gave us everything they had and it was almost enough.  But take nothing away from Penn State either.

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I have seen a lot of talk in the last couple days about Big Ten championships and National Title contention, and I have to agree that I'm as excited as anyone about what's happened so far this year.  After Saturday's win I'll admit I had one hand on the crazy straw and one hand on the refrigerator door, eyeing up the Kool-Aid...but before I go completely insane, here is some sobering statistical analysis...

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