Killer Nuts Tailgating

For god's sake, don't drop him -- he might break!

When Joe Paterno won his 400th game last weekend, he took away one of the things that was concerning me about this week’s game — that an extra-motivated Nittany Lion team would show up in Columbus and do what they did to Ohio State in 2001, when Paterno had the chance to pass Bear Bryant as the all-time leader in D1 coaching wins.

That is not to say I don’t have other concerns.

Penn State’s defense is starting to play like a Penn State defense. I know, I know — giving up 423 total yards and 31 points against Michigan two weeks ago isn’t an all-world effort, but if they played that game in September, I think Michigan probably would have won.

Penn State has apparently found a quarterback in Matt McGloin. I thought Rob Bolden looked pretty good for a true freshman earlier in the season, but this could be a case of the offense having more confidence in McGloin; since his first start, against Michigan, Penn State is scoring and Evan Royster is rolling up rushing yards again after looking like he was sleepwalking through game after game.

There are some other things to remember, though. Penn State’s offense has rolled up those big numbers against Northwestern and Michigan, which might have the worst offense in school history. Michigan is 104th in scoring defense so far this season. Ohio State is third. So there’s that.