STOP THE PRESSES, PSU ON THE COVER OF SI

Sports Illustrated has placed Penn State's Daryll Clark and Stefen Wisniewski on one of its regional covers for its College Football Preview issue, calling the 2009 Lions squad, "Party Crashers." The issue will hit stands on Monday, August 17, but the reprecussions from the photo shoot may be felt well into November. A monkey wrench has just been tossed into the Lions' plans to repeat as conference champions, a monkey wrench called the SI Cover Jinx.

Before you roll your eyes and click away, let me try to convince you. I won't say I'm superstitious, but I have been living with the guilt that comes from believing I am the sole reason that Penn State failed to go undefeated in 1996 (I wore the wrong shirt to the Iowa game and the wrong shoes to the Ohio State game). I know that what I eat, wear or do during Penn State games can't possibly impact the outcome, but why take a chance?

A quick search through Sports Illustrated's online cover archive reveals that Penn State appeared on the cover of the famous magazine a total of 15 previous times. Subtract from that total the two commemorative issues (2008, 1994) featuring Penn State, the two times the Lions appeared in the background of a photo featuring another team (1995, 1979, 1990) and the 1987 cover that had only a tiny inset photo of Penn State and that leaves 9 covers to examine as a test of the potency of the jinx. Let's get started...

Chuck Fusina was the first Penn State player to be selected as an SI cover model, gracing the front of the November 13, 1978 issue. The Lions were the top-ranked team in the country, having just dismantled fifth-ranked Maryland 27-3 and NC State to run its record to 10-0. Once the issue was released, the Lions defeated Pittsburgh 17-10 to set up a matchup against Alabama in the Sugar Bowl for the national title. Fusina, who won that year's Maxwell Award and was the runner-up in the Heisman Trophy voting, threw four interceptions as Penn State lost 14-7 to the Crimson Tide.





In 1982, Penn State featured a senior-laden squad that was labeled National Title or bust. The Lions got off to a great start, punctuating its 4-0 start with a dramatic, last-second victory over second-ranked Nebraska. The win earned Todd Blackledge the cover of Sports Illustrated on October 4, 1982. Just five days later, the third-ranked Lions traveled to Tuscaloosa, Al. and were humbled by the Tide 42-21.







Perhaps the most famous cover for Penn State fans just might be the one that followed the Lions' 1983 Sugar Bowl win featuring a photo of a jumping-for-joy Greg Garrity with the words "No. 1 AT LAST!" emblazoned across the top. The cover punctuated the first ever national title for Penn State, but was followed by three straight losses to open up the 1983 campaign, including a 38-point throttling from Nebraska and a home loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats.






The Lions' next SI Cover would come on November 11, 1985, with the magazine asking the question, "Who's No. 1 Now?" above pictures of Penn State's DJ Dozier and Florida's Ray McDonald. The Lions would answer the question emphatically by blowing out Notre Dame by 30 points the next week and then doing the same to rival Pitt to end its season 11-0 and the top-ranked team in the nation. However, on New Years' Day in Miami, Penn State would see its National Title dreams crushed by Barry Switzer and the Oklahoma Sooners, 25-10.





On December 22, 1986, Sports Illustrated made history by naming Joe Paterno its sportsman of the Year, placing the coach on its cover. Less than two weeks later, Paterno's squad would pull off a tremendous upset and defeat the Miami Hurricanes 14-10 for the program's second national title.








Halfway through the 1994 season, the Lions were 6-0 and ranked number one in both the AP and Coaches Polls after defeating fifth-ranked Michigan in Ann Arbor, 31-24. Sports Illustrated rewarded Penn State's accomplishment by placing wide receiver Freddie Scott on the cover with the words, "Penn State: No. 1." The phrase was true, but short-lived. After a 63-14 dismantling of #21 Ohio State, the coaches poll dropped PSU to #2. One week later, following a deceptively close 35-29 victory at Indiana, the Lions fell behind top-ranked Nebraska in the AP Poll as well. Penn State finished the year 12-0 and became the first ever team from the Big Ten to go 12-0, win The Rose Bowl and not earn a national championship.




In 1997, the Lions were coming off of a 11-2 season with a Fiesta Bowl win over a Texas team that had both Priest Holmes and Ricky Williams in the backfield. With loads of talent returning, Sports Illustrated tabbed Penn State its preseason number one, choosing Joe Jurevicious for its College Football Preview cover. Things would start well for Penn State, as the Lions streaked to a 7-0 record before losing 34-8 to eventual national champion Michigan at home. Penn State would finish the year 9-3, including a Citrus Bowl loss to Florida in which the biggest story was the absence of both Curtis Enis and Jurevicious. Enis was guilty of improper contact with an agent, while Jurevicious didn't even make the trip for alleged poor academic performance.



Two years later, Sports Illustrated once again picked Penn State as its top team in the preseason, this time featuring a menacing Lavar Arrington on the College Football Preview Issue. The Lions began the year 9-0 before ending the regular season with three straight losses to drop off out the national and conference title picture, finishing the year with an Alamo Bowl win against Texas A&M, a disappointing consolation prize for a team with so much promise.






In 2005, the Lions won their first Big Ten Championship in 11 seasons. Following the team's conference title clinching victory over Michigan State, Sports Illustrated once again put Penn State coach Paterno on the cover on November 28, 2005. Just over one month later, the next time the Lions took the field, the Lions captured the Orange Bowl Championship with a triple-overtime victory against the Florida State Seminoles.







Some might consider it just a coincidence, but the more paranoid among us see a disturbing trend. The two times that Penn State was on a preseason Sports Illustrated cover, the Lions failed to win 10 games or make a major bowl game. Covers featuring players from undefeated teams in 1978 & 1985 both foreshadowed disappointing losses in national championship games later that season. In addition, in-season covers from 1994 and 1982 preceded disappointment the following week for both, a 21-point loss for the '82 squad and an unwarranted drop in the rankings for the '94 team. It seems like the only safe bet is to put coach Paterno on the cover. So, is it too late for a reshoot?

RANKINGS!

Pre-season college football rankings...can't live with them, can't live without them.

The USA Today Coaches Poll unveiled its 2009 Preseason rankings Friday morning with the Penn State Nittany Lions slotted eighth and the defending National Champion Florida Gators the clear-cut #1.

Pre-season rankings are routinely blasted as being completely inaccurate since many teams haven't even started their practice sessions yet, but they sometimes are a great indicator of what the national perception of your team is for the upcoming campaign.

Overall, here's how the conferences were represented:

CONFERENCE	# of TEAMS	HIGHEST RANKING	AVG. RANKING
SEC	5	1	7.6
BIG XII	4	2	9.5
PAC 10	4	4	13.8
ACC	4	7	15.3
BIG TEN	3	6	11.7
OTHER	5	16	19.6
BIG EAST	0	0	0

As it looks right now, Penn State has only two ranked opponents on its schedule - Ohio State (6) and Iowa (21). By comparison, USC is slated to play five ranked opponents (Ohio State, Cal, Oregon, Oregon State and Notre Dame), Florida is lined up to play three (FSU, LSU and Georgia), and Texas is scheduled to play two (Oklahoma and Oklahoma State).

Surely, these rankings with undergo seismic shifts as some teams' preseason hype morphs into regular season failures and others suprise. Here's a list of teams currently unranked that could make some noise come bowl season - West Virginia (31st), Miami (33rd), Illinois (35th), Tennessee (t-53rd) & Michigan (56th).

HULL OF A PROBLEM TO HAVE

The Daily Collegian has a couple of good reads this morning about the upcoming season. Will somebody tell these young, enterprising journalists that it's the summer and they should be out slacking off at an internship instead of slaving away to write copy?

Of all the units on the defensive side of the ball for Penn State, the linebackers are the one that doesn't have anybody worried. A deep, talented stable of athletic players almost guarantees that this position will be the strength of the team, but that doesn't mean that its not without some uncertainties. Although most fans will tell you that whichever number you plug in will get the job done, there's still doubt as to who will line up next to Sean Lee and Navorro Bowman. Senior Josh Hull is confident that he's going to be the man.

"I'm 100 percent confident enough in my talent that I'm going to be on the field playing linebacker at one of the three spots," Hull said before competing in last Friday's Lift for Life.

Click HERE to read the full article.

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Over on the offensive side of the ball, the Lions must replace last year's Rimington Award Winner, AQ Shipley at center. Stepping into those shoes is junior Stefen Wisniewski, who started at guard last season for Penn State. It may take a few games before his play resembles his former teammate's, but let's hope he has a better knack for remembering the snap count.

"The last thing you think about is the snap count. I remember A.Q. [Shipley] would turn around and ask Daryll [Clark] what the snap count was like every other play," Wisniewski said about last year with a laugh.

Click HERE to read the full article.

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Hull and Wisniewski are both players who, despite starting last year, are facing new challenges in 2009. Jack Crawford had only four tackles as a freshman last season, but has everybody talking about what he can do as a projected starter at defensive end in the fall.

"Jack's a monster," senior defensive end Jerome Hayes said. "This year's gonna be a very big year for him, gonna put him in a position where he can really succeed and help us out as a defense so were all excited -- the team and the fans -- about Jack."

Click HERE to read the full article.

PARTY LIKE IT'S 1992

Thursday night brought me an opportunity to spend an evening with some of my heroes, five Penn State football players from the early 1990s - OJ McDuffie, Ki-Jana Carter, Troy Drayton, Reggie Givens and Brian O'Neal. The quintet, who all currently reside in south Florida and all played on the 1992 Penn State team together, were guests of the Greater Scranton Chapter of the Penn State Alumni Association for "A Night of Penn State Pride." The former PSU greats signed autographs and participated in an extended Q & A session for the fans. It's been a long night's drive, but here's some of the highlights that I remember from the event.

On Running out of the tunnel at Beaver Stadium...

All of the players were in full agreement that the emotions connected with being a Penn State football player on gameday in State College were nearly indescribable.

Brian O'Neal commented that the best part for him was riding on the blue buses up to the stadium and hearing all the car horns going off in the parking lot and the hands pounding on the side of the bus as it drove by. Of waiting in the tunnel to run out before the game, he said, "If you could bottle that feeling and sell it, you'd be a gazillionaire."

Ki-Jana Carter reminisced of how he would always race out of the tunnel and sprint straight to the handicapped section of seats in the north endzone. In particular he recounted the 1994 Homecoming Game against Ohio State in which he was so fired up to take on his hometown team that he started crying in the tunnel. He then said that he ran so hard across the field that he was actually out of breath and hoping the offense wouldn't have to take the field first.

Carter also talked about how coach Joe Paterno's method of making the players dress before boarding the bus to the stadium made them more focused for the game. He compared it to the NFL and other schools that have players wear suits to the stadium then get dressed once inside. Carter said that once a player puts that uniform on he knew it was gameday and none of his distractions would be brought with him to the stadium.

On What was the loudest opposing stadium they played in while at Penn State...

While all five players said nothing compares to the roar of Nittany Nation, each named an opponent's venue that stood out in his memory.

Ki-Jana Carter - Ohio State
Brian O'Neal - Syracuse
Reggie Givens - Alabama
Troy Drayton - West Virginia (Troy named the Penn State vs Miami game in 1992 as his favorite Beaver Stadium game)
OJ McDuffie - Syracuse

On their recruitment by Penn State...

Ki-Jana Carter - He was nearly set on attending Ohio State after growing up in Columbus, OH, but took an unofficial visit to State College with one of his high school coaches. He remembered that it was the way current players like OJ McDuffie and other players from the Buckeye State treated him and took the time to make him feel at home that swung his decision away from Ohio State and to the Nittany Lions. He added that most schools that recruited him came off as arrogant, implying that he should feel honored that they would let him play at their schools as opposed to taking the time to get to know him and really making him feel welcome.

OJ McDuffie - He had a final five of Ohio State, Michigan, UCLA, Notre Dame and Penn State. He crossed off Ohio State after it fired then-head coach, Earle Bruce and didn't care for Notre Dame at all after taking an official visit to South Bend. He returned home from his trip to UCLA to find a Fed Ex package containing a seven-page hand-written letter from Joe Paterno on spiral-bound notebook paper, detailing all the pros and cons of signing with Penn State. He remembered being promised nothing but a great education and a chance to possibly play for a National Championship. He said that Joe Paterno and the letter he wrote were the main reasons he came to Penn State.

Brian O'Neal - Brian grew up in Cincinnatti and told a classic story about his recruiting experience with Ohio State head coach John Cooper. As he told the story, his mother was handling his recruiting since his father was an NBA referee and was often on the road. Coach Cooper visited his house to recruit him, and Brian had always figured he would play for the hometown Buckeyes. As his mom began to ask about the kinds of classes her son would take, the graduation rate at Ohio State and other questions about his non-football life at the university. Cooper kept blowing her off, saying that it would all be addressed during Brian's official visit, and kept trying to steer the conversation toward football. Finally, after about ten minutes of not having her questions answered, Mrs. O'Neal stood up and told the coach that she had better things to do than to be blown off by him and that he had to get out of her house. She shut the door behind the coach and told Brian, who was sitting with his jaw open to the floor, that he could cross Ohio State off of his list of potential schools. Just minutes later, Cooper called the house from the road and asked Brian how he thought the visit had gone. Brian told him that he had angered the one person in the house that he couldn't anger and that the Buckeyes' chances didn't look too good.

On how Penn State prepared them for the NFL...

All the players said that NFL practices were no more physically demanding than what they went through at Penn State. Troy Drayton compared playing for Joe Paterno to going through four years of boot camp.

On the ill-fated 1994 season...

Ki-Jana Carter confessed that not winning the National Championship in 1994 is something that will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. He talked about how that year's team did everything it could to prove it was #1, but had to leave the decision up to a bunch of sportswriters. He took solace in the fact that 15 years later, the team is still mentioned among the greatest college football teams of all time and that the controversy of that year was one of the reasons the NCAA felt it had to move toward the current BCS system that guaranteed the two highest ranked teams would play each other.

On who the best player they ever played against was...

Ki-Jana Carter - Greg Lloyd
Brian O'Neal - Levon Kirkland
Reggie Givens - Reggie White
Troy Drayton - Lawrence Taylor
OJ McDuffie - Deion Sanders

FROSTING...THE NOMINEES - PART 3

Sparked by the upcoming season's unusually weak slate of games (especially non-conference), we recently introduced our hunt for Penn State's easiest schedule of the last 45 years.

With the first two nominees already introduced, we now unveil the third in our list; from the 1980s.

1987

The Nittany Lions were coming off of arguably the best season and best game in the program's history. An 11-0 regular season in 1986 was capped off by a classic 14-10 victory over top-ranked Miami in the Fiesta Bowl, securing Penn State its second National Championship of the decade. Anybody hoping to see a repeat performance in 1987 was sorely disappointed as the Lions lost 13 players to the NFL draft, and had to replace graduated quarterback John Shaffer, who was 23-1 as a starter for Joe Paterno. Luckily for the Lions, the temporary fall from the top of college football was padded by a soft schedule that featured only one team with fewer than four losses and included just four road games, none further away than Boston.

The Lions were able to rack up eight wins in 1987, but beat only two teams with winning records, Rutgers (6-5) and Notre Dame (8-4). Less than half of Penn State's opponents finished the season above .500, and only three teams were invited to play in a bowl game, combining to go 0-2-1 in the post season. The Lions took on Clemson in the Citrus Bowl, falling 35-10 to the Tigers, and finished the season unranked.

1987 Schedule
vs. Bowling Green (5-6) W 45-19
vs. Alabama (7-5) L 13-24
vs. Cincinnati (4-7) W 41-0
@ Boston College (5-6) W 27-17
vs. Temple (3-8) W 27-13
vs. Rutgers (6-5) W 35-21
@ Syracuse (11-0-1) L 21-48
vs. West Virginia (6-6) W 25-21
@ Maryland (4-7) W 21-16
@ Pittsburgh (8-4) L 0-10
vs. Notre Dame (8-4) W 21-20

THE GOOD
The Lions took on three teams that were ranked in the top-20 at the time they played them, including #7 Notre Dame in the regular-season finale. Only one of the final five opponents finished below .500. The Lions did get to celebrate a milestone, when Joe Paterno opened the campaign with win #200 against Bowling Green.

THE BAD
The Lions' four road games were in Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Syracuse - all just a few hours from campus. Each of Penn State's first six opponents ended the year with at least five losses.

POSTSCRIPT
Penn State was coming off of back-to-back undefeated regular seasons in 1985 and 1986, so its pedestrian performance in 1987 could certainly be forgiven. Penn State would fall even further in 1988, finishing at 5-6, Paterno's worst record yet. The coming seasons would see the Lions take on teams like Texas, USC and Miami as Penn State's time as a college football independent ran out. It began play in the Big Ten Conference in the 1993 season, bringing an end to many of its traditional rivalries.

HIGH IN THE RAFTERS

Like an old girlfriend you thought you had dumped months ago, I've returned to the upper echelon of sports blogging, also known as The Floating Lion. As a nice appetizer to my forthcoming posts, I've learned that the NIT Championship banner was recently raised in the BJC Rafters.

It looks beautiful and will certainly stand out among all of the Lady Lion accomplishments, and of course the unforgettable Men's 1954 Final Four banner. Here's to the hope that this is the first of many more new banners in the Jordan Center.

Also, I thought these were usually unveiled during the first home game of the next season. Whether the fact the athletic department was a little overzealous and premature in raising the flag remains to be seen. Either way, it will look great to fans and recruits.

BATTLE ILLUSTRATED

SportsIllustrated.com has posted a story about Penn State's star guard, Talor Battle. The Albany, NY product has enjoyed a meteoric rise arriving on campus to becoming one of college basketball's best point guards. The rising sophomore was recently honored by being named to the USA Basketball Roster for the World University Games this summer.

Read the article here.