WE ARE.....(pt 1)

PENN STATE.....dammit. :)

Game day. Season opener. Signal of fall and the start of all that is right with the world. Of course, I'm talking about football. But not your gay, european soccer kind of football. Not your overpriced, whiny american professional kind of football. No sir, I'm talking about your college football. Specifically your Penn State football.

I slept in today, thank god. I really needed it. I got up and did my walk. Came in and changed and we headed up the road. Chrissy, Mike and JoAnn weren't too hungover after they're party, so they had gone into Stop 35 (a local trucker diner) for breakfast/lunch. When they got back they said that traffic on the highway was backed up from the narrows almost all the way to Mifflintown exit. I wasn't too worried. We got on the highway a little before 2 and had a clear shot the whole way up to Happy Valley.

We parked in a different area than normal and we really like it. No major hills to deal with, just a gradual incline up to the stadium. We got up to the ticket window, which is right up by our gate and I held the tickets up in the air. Within 3 minutes we had them both sold. I didn't get much, but it was better than having 2 pieces of paper. Here's the deal though. We never saw either of the guys we sold them to. Weird, huh?

We headed up and watched PSU thoroughly trounce Akron 48 to 10. It was 48 to 3 up until about 6 minutes to go. They ran 4 different quarterbacks and had 2nd and 3rd string players in. All of the squads seem to be a cut above last years team.

Here's my notes. 2 tailbacks ran for over 100 yards. The second play from scrimmage was a 77 yard touchdown run by Tony Hunt, and they didn't look back. The first time for that since 93. Zack Mills threw a touchdown, ran for a touchdown, and caught a touchdown pass. That is very cool.

Again, you don't wanna throw a whole season of hopes on one game. But there was a palpable difference in this team from last year. They are more physical. The first half of football was about as perfect as you could ask for. At one point, for 7 posessions, there were 7 touchdowns. There was one point where Akron was threatening and I thought "Oh well, I guess they're gonna get 7." Last year, they would have. This year, they sucked it up and stopped them. They have energy. They have emotion. The defense was able to pick off a Heisman candidate and keep his longest pass completion to 15 yards. The offensive line dominated. It feels very nice to say that. The PSU recievers are trying something new this year called "catching the ball". It seems to go over well with the crowd.

The officials missed a few calls (It's a Penn State game, after all) :) But when your up by 40+ points, it doesn't bother you nearly as much.

I took a lot of pics, I'll put some on the photoblog tonight.

We went to Sam's afterward and found a backway to the parking lot we were in. We're gonna try to park there more often. Then we headed down and met the kids at Angelo's for some good eats. We then went back up to Giant on the other side of town and did our grocery shopping. We came home and put stuff away. Then I headed down here to do this.

BTW. I'm doing this on the XP machine downstairs. It seems to be behaving, but it didn't like my reboot a few days ago. So things are not 100% yet.

cya