Give credit where credit's due--even to Ohio State. Ramzy over at Eleven Warriors wrote a post about a game that sticks out in his memory: a fateful day in September.

The Big Ten home opener 12 seasons ago was against 1-4 Penn State. Despite their record - which included a 24-6 mortification courtesy of Toledo - the Nittany Lions were still one of those no-substitute-for-being-there tickets...

For at least one play I would have the best seat in the Shoe.

That play was a pitch-sweep right, to Jerry Westbrooks - and the white shirts read it perfectly. Ohio State's third-stringer had his legs taken out by #43, the right corner...

Westbrooks and everyone else picked themselves up off the turf to return to the huddle. Everyone else except for #43, who stayed on the ground with his right arm awkwardly flapping briefly before going still.

Number 43 was, of course, Adam Taliaferro, lawyer, New Jersey County Freeholder, and, now, member of the Penn State Board of Trustees. It's nice to see that the positive impact that Taliaferro's had on the lives around him isn't just relegated to Penn Staters, or to those with spinal injuries--he's inspiring many. Kudos to Ramzy for putting into words what many couldn't.

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May, 2012

Tampa, FL - Inside the dark halls of Fired Football Coaches of America Headquarters

"BScaff! Welcome to Tampa, my man!"

"Thanks for having me down here, Coach Gruden. I'm looking forward to learning from the master."

"Ha! The master...but I still got myself fired, didn't I?"

"I'd point the blame at a below par roster; unrealistic ownership and fan expectations; and of course, the ready-for-Medicare QB combo of Brian Griese and Jeff Garcia. You had a worse QB situation than Bill O'Brien."

"That's my man. But that's it. I won't throw roses at you all day long bscaff, because I watched your high school film. And let me tell you, it wasn't pretty."

"How did you even find my high school film, Coach?"

"I've got film on everything, though I think we should burn yours. You were awful, son. But there's one play you sucked at just a little more than the others.

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In part two of this two-part series (see the list of former Penn State players in the AFC here), we move on to the division that has produced the last three super bowl champions: the NFC.

Though only holding 18 of the Nittany Lions' 42 players on rosters, the NFC Penn State contributors are no less important, including the most recent Pro Bowl participant, as well as a pair of standout linebackers who made a lot of noise in their sophomore professional seasons.

NFC East

Dallas Cowboys

Dan Connor, LB. Drafted by the Panthers in the 3rd round, 2008. Signed as a free agent with the Cowboys, 3/15/12. Currently listed as active.

Sean Lee, LB.

Drafted in the 2nd round, 2010. Currently listed as active.

Andrew Szczerba, TE. Rookie. Signed as an undrafted free agent, 4/30/12.

New York Giants

Kareem McKenzie was announced as not being re-signed by the Giants; they now currently have no former Nittany Lions on their roster.

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While most Penn State teams have finished their seasons, a few are still going strong. Hence, here's this week's abbreviated Smaller Side of Sports.

Women's Lacrosse (12-6)

The chicks with sticks made a triumphant return to the NCAA Tournament on Saturday by defeating #8 Towson in dominating fashion, 15-8. The win was especially sweet for Penn State coach Missy Doherty who previously held the top job at Towson before coming to State College. Molly Fernandez led the Nittany Lion attack with a four-goal game. With their first win in the NCAAs since 1999, the team will now travel to Gainesville to take on the top-seeded Florida Gators this Saturday.

Baseball (27-24, 13-8)

Illinois came to State College this weekend and left without a victory as the Nittany Lion baseball team swept the Illini by scores of 3-2, 8-6 and another 3-2 victory. They have now one seven of their last eight and have climbed to second place in the Big Ten standings. They also made history by winning their fifth straight Big Ten series, a first for the program. Senior Jordan Steranka led the way for Penn State, going 6-11 with three doubles and two home runs over the weekend. The team plays four games this week, one against Villanova on Tuesday and then a pivotal three-game series with Michigan State over the weekend.

Softball (18-32, 9-15)

Ohio State took two of three at Beard Field this weekend, including Saturday's Senior Day matchup by a score of 4-1, but there was some good news to come out of the weekend as junior Cassidy Bell broke the 24-year old batting average record. Bell hit .423 on the season. The team ends their season with an 18-32 mark.

Track and field went to the Big Ten Championships this weekend and brought home many individual honors. The women brought back fourth-place honors and the men ended up right in the middle of the pack, placing sixth. You can read the recap and find results here.

Also if you didn't see yesterday, you can read about the women's club rugby team's national championship and the men's less than stellar semifinal performance in psuwxman's Fanpost.

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Bill O'Brien has no intention on squandering precious practice time with a quarterback competition when Penn State's team reconvenes in August. As it turns out, he'll end the competition long before then. He told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that a starting quarterback will be named at the end of this month.

"You can’t waste time, in my opinion, with a quarterback battle during training camp," O’Brien said before speaking, along with three other coaches, to almost 400 Penn State alumni last night at the Omni William Penn Hotel. "We’re not a wishy-washy place. We’ve got to make decisions and some people aren’t going to be happy with the decisions, but that’s our job. It’s about the team, and we’re doing what’s best for the team."

"Not a wishy washy place" should be sweet music to every Penn State fan's ears, considering the senseless and random carousel of the past two seasons. O'Brien's reasoning for this?

"I just think you have to have a starter and he’s going to get most of them reps," O’Brien said during a stop of the Penn State Coaches Caravan. "The guy I name the starter, he’s got to do a great job every day to keep his job so that doesn’t mean he can’t get beat out, but I think that’s important for our team to know who our starting quarterback is going into camp."

Fine by me. The team has enough of a task adjusting to a new playbook with new terminology. There isn't a lot of ramp-up time before the opener against Ohio (and I'll keep beating the drum, that game is not going to be easy). The starting quarterback needs as many reps as possible for his personal sake. The surrounding players on offense need to get in sync with the starting quarterback. Apparently, BOB's seen enough to make a call.

As we all know, Matt McGloin, Paul Jones, and Rob Bolden are the three choices (our sources inside the program tell us that Giant Trebuchet has requested a transfer and Jugs Machine is academically ineligible). The conventional wisdom has been that Jones moved up to the #2 position during the spring and could possibly catch McGloin with a strong performance in pre-season practices. However, it would seem that O'Brien is going to lean on experience. And moxie, of course.

Only three commits joined the 2013 classes in the Big Ten this week, including one JuCo transfer to Purdue who wasn't even listed on the 247 website (hence, his addition didn't affect the 247 team rank). He is listed, however, as a member of the 2013 class by both Scout and Rivals, so we will include him on here.

As with last week, Rivals is the only service to rank all of Illinois' nine players; both Rivals and Scout gave grades to seven of nine, while ESPN only ranked two of their commits. Iowa's Scout number is from six of their seven, while they only had three commits rated by ESPN. Michigan State's Rivals and Scout grades are for six of seven, and ESPN from four of their players. The only service that didn't rate all of Nebraska's players was ESPN, which only graded four of their six; on the flip side, the only service that did grade Northwestern's second commit was 247. With the decommitments at Ohio State, only ESPN didn't rank all of their players; ten of their eleven were rated by that service. As has been the case for weeks, Penn State's numbers are based off of six of eight recruits for Rivals, Scout, and ESPN, and seven of eight for 247. Lastly, Wisconsin's 247 grade is from five of their six commits, and their ESPN number is for four of six.

The big changes were for Purdue, who, as mentioned above, gained a commitment in the form of Junior College transfer who was unranked by all services, and Michigan, whose streak of all recruits being rated by all services comes to an end this week; with the addition of their 18th commit, only 17 of their recruits are rated by Rivals and ESPN (all are still rated by the other two services).

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Earlier today, the schedule for the 2012 edition of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge was announced, and the powers that be decided to pair together Penn State and Boston College for a second straight year. This time, however, the Eagles will make a return trip to Happy Valley, where PSU will attempt to repeat last year's victory up in Boston. The game will be played on Wednesday November 28th, which is the second and final night of a challenge that will feature marquee matchups such as Ohio State at Duke, UNC at Indiana, and NC State at Michigan, to name a few. All 12 games of the challenge will be broadcast in some way, shape, or form through the Dear Worldwide Leader (ESPN) series of networks.

During the DC leg of the Coaches Caravan tour, Pat Chambers mentioned how the folks in charge of scheduling at PSU were working to set up a home-and-home series with DC-area programs such as Georgetown, George Mason, and Maryland. Consider me disappointed then, when my dreams of a Penn State-Maryland showdown in this year's challenge were dashed. I suppose there's always 2013...

This announcement adds yet another confirmed non-conference game to the 2012-13 basketball schedule, which along with the already announced participation in the Puerto Rico Tipoff Tournament the week before Thanksgiving, home dates with Bucknell, Duquesne, and Penn, as well as a road date with LaSalle at the Palestra, is shaping up to be a semi-appealing OOC slate thus far.

Bill O'Brien made a splash last week when he expressed his desire for more marquee out-of-conference games for Penn State. That got us thinking- which program would you like Penn State to schedule for a home-and-home series, and what destination would make for the best road trip?

Cari- I'd like us to schedule a home-and-home with Texas--a storied program that I think we'd be competitive with, where a win would get us cred but a loss wouldn't damage us too hard.

As for which stadium I'd want to visit, I'd probably say Oregon's Autzen--I've heard so much about it, and how loud it is. And Oregon the state is supposed to be beautiful.

Devon- I'd love to see Penn State schedule a series with Stanford. They're not a traditional power, and they're sure to take a step back with the loss of Andrew Luck, but they've established themselves as a significant presence out west, and unlike Oregon and USC, one that isn't teeming with scandal. Stanford is also ideologically similar to us, with the heavy emphasis on education, but we haven't played them in 20 years. Let's remedy that.

Where would I like to visit? Well, Austin has been on my to-go list for a long time, and playing Texas would be a ton of fun. I could also use an excuse to take a vacation to Boulder, even though Colorado is hardly an elite non-conference opponent these days.

Ben- We used to schedule a series after a great bowl game: Alabama, after the '79 Sugar Bowl; Miami after the '87 Fiesta Bowl. Lets start a feud with another fan base after a great bowl game, so we have something handy to throw in each other's face. And no, I'm not talking about Houston.

I want at least two out of the following three traits from a destination: 1) great tailgating; 2) a great game; and/or 3) batshit crazy fans - they make for better stories. I was torn between Ole Miss, for 'the Grove' legend, and LSU for Death Valley at night. But I'm not keen on tie-and-jacket - con Ole Miss. And with LSU, there's a chance I could run into some of the 'Swamp People' actors - that's a definite pro. And LSU has food. My God, the food. So it's LSU - Death Valley, at night, after a day hanging out with the crazies you see in a Google image search of "LSU tailgating."

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