So i've decide with the Halloween game being at Northwestern and me have 2 cousins it would make a pretty good road trip.  I have a couple questions for BSD nation and any TLP'ers here to visit.

Firstly has anyone ever been to a game in Evanston before?  What's the tailgating scene like?

If you've been to a roadtrip out there before how was the PSU representation?

Is anyone around here thinking about going this year?

If you're the superstitious type then i would say don't read on cuz i'm about to jinx the hell out of Royster.

Looking at the numbers I think that Evan Royster is a shoe in to leave State College with the most career rushing yards and has a good chance to take the career TD record too.  The records currently stand at 3398 yards by Curt Warner and 38 rushing TD's by Lydell Mitchell.  Evan is sitting at 1749 and 17 TD's with 2 years left to play (assuming he doesn't leave early for the NFL).

I think we are going be witnessing history every time he carries the ball.  Each carry will bring him several steps closer to those records.

With spring practices just around the corner this is not the kind of news I want to be reading.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3994231

It's an article about another alledged fight involving a PSU Defensive Tackle.  The bad news is it's Jared Odrick this time.

I'm getting tired of this business.  I was just getting excited that things were turning around.  I thought we were on track to becoming a serious national power again.  I know we're good but i'm talking perrenial top 10 or even top 5 team.

I hope Wiscy can beat Bobby Bowden and F$U.

The parts of the preview that weren't all about how awesome Myron Rolle was were all about how fast F$U was and how Wisconsin wont be able to handle it.  It reminds me soo much of the Tennessee Outback bowl hype.  I hate the media.

I'm going to be cheering for all the Big 10 teams.  Lets gain us some respect back.

Goo Badgers!!!

So in case you haven't heard last night on MNF Obama and McCain were asked to comment on how they would change sports today if they were elected.  McCain went vanilla and said he'd eliminate steroids.  Obama on the other hand came out with guns blazing and said he'd institute a college football playoff system.

I didn't see this last night but a colleague of mine told me about.  I couldn’t believe it.  I proceeded to explain about the hose job that Penn State got the last time a President stuck his nose in the National Championship picture.  I went to hunt the interwebs for a suitable Paterno vs. Nixon article and I found this gem:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D9133BF937A35752C0A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

You should note that it’s from 1987 and it still highlights how often PSU gets the raw deal with undefeated, untied, uncrowned teams.  I especially love how the second page of the article degenerates basically to anticommunist ranting.

I was just checking out the lines for next saturday's games and  I noticed that Directional Michigan + THEM + Michigan State are all favourites in their games.  I wonder when the last time all 5 of those teams were favourites was.

Incidentally our Nittany Lions are favoured by 27.5 at Syracuse.  And in the most lopsided spread of the week we have LSU -41 for a night game in Death Valley vs. North Texas.

Or whatever you guys call yourselves (I'm sorry for my ignorance).

What is the general consensus that the outcome of this Saturdays game is going to be?  Over at the PSU blog everyone thinks it's going to be 3 TD+ blowout.  Personally i think it could go that way if OSU gets overwhelmed by the hype/crowd or if they fall a touchdown or 2 behind and then give up.  However i don't see how that would happen; a team doesn't beat USC one year and then totally panic about playing the #19 team in then nation.  I think it will be a 7-21 point win for PSU totally dependent on how open the playbook gets.  The way stanford ran the ball on you guys i just dont see how you're going to be able to control the line of scrimmage enough against us to win.

Some info on the players that will be missing as a result of what has been dubbed "the 5204 incident" (since "the apartment incident" was taken last off season).

TE - Andrew Quarless - very talented guy but has been in trouble before and been successfully replaced before.  Also the team should be going farther and farther way from relying on a TE to begin with.  Conclussion - wont be missed much at all.

DE - Maurice Evans - Very very talented player, pre-season All-American, All-Big10, had a metric assload of sacks last year.  Is the best player on our defense.  Luckily we have many talented DE's waiting in the wings (watchout for #59 aaron maybin and #5 Jarome Hayes).  Conclussion - Will definitely will be missed, but with depth at the position not devastating.

DT - Abe Koroma - Good runstopper, and solid cog in our DT rotation.  We went in the offseason from being 6 deep at DT down to 2 good ones and 1 serviceable one (all due to off-field shenanigans).  Conclussion - Not the best player missing but may be the most missed.  If the PSU offense can keep the D off the field this wont matter, but if time of position is split, our DT's could be tired come the end of the game.