Penn State 30, Iowa 24

The sun didn’t shine much on St. Joe Memorial-Penndot/Altoona Federal Stadium at Beaver Field on Saturday, but when it finally did, it was in the form of a game saving interception by Nick Scott with 3:18 left. #17 Penn State (6-2, 3-2) hung on to defeat the #18 Iowa Hawkeyes (6-2, 3-2), 30-24 on a rainy, cold day at the Big Beave.

Once again, Trace McSorley produced a significant share of the offense, even after he had been hurt. He wound up 11-25 passing for 167 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. He added 12 carries for 63 yards, including a touchdown while hobbling on a 51-yard post-injury scamper, enabled by a mighty fine block by DeAndre Thompkins. [Read more…]

#18 Iowa vs #17 Penn State

Kirk Ferentz is a helluva good coach, but he needs to be on his game if he expects to leave St. Joe Memorial-Penndot Stadium at Beaver Field with a win on Saturday. The #18 Iowa Hawkeyes (6-1, 3-1) will try to show the #17 Nittany Lions (5-2, 2-2) some of their signature defense and improving offense on what promises to be a crappy, chilly, sloppy day.

At our local game celebration in The Cave, which has been renamed “The Pigpen” for this game, we’ll be serving spare ribs and corn-on-the-cob to honor our opponents, who represent a state famous for pigs, corn, floods, and good defense. Whether we serve up lemonade or moldy lemons depends on how Penn State can attack that vaunted defense. [Read more…]

Penn State’s Big Ten opener will happen on Saturday in prime time, and this will be the first time we’ll be able to learn anything about the 2017 team. The dubiously #4 ranked  Nittany Lions (3-0 – all cupcakes) must bring their A-game to Iowa City, where they take on the as yet unranked Iowa Hawkeyes (3-0 – all slightly better cupcakes).

Let’s get a few increasingly irrelevant facts out of the way before we look at this thing footballistically. The Hawkeyes have won four straight night games at Kinnick Stadium, and they’ve won five straight Big Ten openers. (Although a good omen is that the last opening conference loss was to Dear Olde State in 2011.) Four of the five opening wins were on enemy turf. This will be Iowa’s first home conference schedule kickoff since 2012. [Read more…]