You forgot to put a PSU win into your poll.

nothing short of beating USC will be acceptable. I don’t care if it’s a triple overtime slugfest.

we are penn state, we don’t know the meaning of “moral victory” — this is an elite program headed by one of the greatest coaches of all time at the helm of one if his best teams ever. The media’s been in the habit of treating PSU like we’re some 2nd tier program, like we should just be happy to have made it to the Rose Bowl, as if we’re not used to success.

sorry if this comes off as defensive, but that’s the truth for me

I am just trying to construct a Penn State 10 mentality because the Big 10 conference has come under intense media negativity, not to mention a weird idea that the Pac 10 and Big East are still better conferences, no matter what matchups or records say.

I am ok with the idea that we aren’t going to the MNC, but I really want to see this excellent team perform against USC and come out with a win. Anything else will be dissapointing.

I can’t call this a win or bust game for myself. Nobody expected us to get this far. We weren’t even picked to finishi in the top three of the Big Ten this year. To go from 8-4 the past two years to 11-1, playing in the Rose Bowl and only being one late drive in Iowa away from playing for the National Championship is a good season. Losing the Rose Bowl won’t take any of that away.

Winning the game will be a nice cap to the season, but when it’s over it will have no effect on 2009. I’m excited for this team. We’re recruiting extremely well and they seem to have found their identity on offense. This team is a 180 degree opposite from the Penn State teams we saw the earlier part of this decade. I wish Joe Paterno had another ten years left in him because I really feel like Penn State is on the cusp of creating a ten year dynasty like Ohio State. It’s an exciting time to be a Penn State fan.

If we play our best and lose, I can’t possibly be mad, but I honestly think this team has the talent to beat SC and, if a few chips fall our way, convincingly.

I agree with Mike- the last few years seem to have set us up for what looks like years of, at worst, competitiveness or, at best, dominance. I do think that a win in the Rose Bowl helps that process though, at least in how the media looks at us.

If we win the Rose Bowl, that will put us in the top 5 or top 10 at the beginning if next season.
If we win the Rose Bowl, people may look past our ridiculously weak schedule next year and give us some credit for beating USC at the end on the 2008 season.

But regardless…win or lose, there WILL be booze!

Obviously I like to get the W’s, but I’m never disappointed in a loss if it is a hard fought game between two evenly matched teams. One team has to win those games, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they were better (or that the losing team was worse).

With that said, I’d be highly disappointed in a blowout loss, and those feelings will probably be magnified by the stage the game is being played on (which itself is magnified over a normal game). I think the Big 10 needs a Penn State win, though, and since Penn State’s ranking is effectively pinned on the public perception of the Big 10, then we therefore also “need” this win.

As far as pre-season expectations, I completely disagreed with what the media was saying. I’m not going to say I’m a great football analyst, but I typically have a good feel for how the program will do in any given season, based on looking at the returning players, and the players that will be stepping up and filling in for graduating players, and then comparing our team to that of our opponents.

In 2002 (which came, logically, after the 2000 and 2001 seasons) I had friends who laughed at me for predicting that Penn State would move up into the Top 10 at least some point during the season, and in the final regular season AP poll we reached #10 (and if not for 2 bullshit calls in the Iowa and Michigan games we would have been even higher, with an 11-1 record).

2003-4 were much worse than I was expecting, but I was still only expecting a mediocre 7-5 type season.

2005 I wasn’t excpecting to be as good as it was until the end of the Northwestern game (and then the Ohio State game that followed).

2006 & 2007 I felt I had realistic expectations that varied based on how M*r*ll* turned out. In 2006 he was an unknown. In 2007 I was hoping for improvement. Both years I estimated ~9-3 both years, with a shot at a NC run in 2007 if he lived up to his potential. Unfortunately we all know how that turned out.

Before this season I was thinking we’d have 1-2 losses. I, like most people, thought we’d lose to tO$U and/or Wisconsin (boy was I off on that second one), but I thought we’d win the rest of our games.

So to sum up my ramblings, I think our team is very good this year, and should match up well against ANYONE they faced. The only 2 (or 3) teams I think that would have an advantage over PSU would be Florida, USC, and maybe Texas, but I don’t think any of them are significanly better than PSU. Since we’re basically going to USC’s home, I’d put the odds in their favor and say they’d probably win 60% of the time (which converts to about a 3.5 point spread). I still wouldn’t be too disappointed in a bigger loss, as long as it was a close, hard fought game.

But with all that said, I am still confident PSU can pull out a win here, and even a convincing win, and am hoping to be feeling quite happy when the clock ticks -0:02 (wait, Lloyd Carr isn’t involved in this game at all, right? ok, then when the clock ticks 0:00)

I posted that I would be disappointed in anything less than a regular season undefeated team. Am I disappointed…probably a lot less than the players who lost one they shouldn’t have. Am I proud of the team? Damn right! They came back from their loss instead of losing heart and got to the Rose Bowl. I personally think this team can play with any team in the country and I bet if Mike did one of his graphs like he just did for the Rose Bowl, that it would show that. Fear the graph.