Nitts Picks Is Peaking At The Wrong Time

Exercise in apathy. For those of you worried about a fierce Northwestern crowd:

[T]his 4:30 pm et start time, which was cemented at the beginning of the season has been the home treat of the schedule. This summer, fans dreamed of NU being 7-0 or a "realistic worse case scenario" of entering 6-2. The current 5-3 was inconceivable. Regardless, you were excited because it promised our best home atmosphere of an otherwise pathetic home atmosphere season. There is one problem. It is Halloween night.

That's LTP and he goes on to explain that, in the twisted world of NW athletic support, an 11 a.m. local time start is preferred.  It's way sadder over there than I realized.

Also of concern for those in purple: Northwestern's secondary isn't exactly healthy.

Oh contrare.  Rittenburg has an untypical fluff piece about how Penn State is (per the title) "peaking at the right time."

Uh, no they aren't.  Penn State is certainly better today than they were on the Wednesday before the Iowa game -- shoot you might even be able to call the team "peaking" -- but it's certainly not happening at the right time.  You want to peak against the best competition on the schedule, not Northwestern. 

We'll hopefully finish strong, smart money says we do, but having one loss through eight and a 2% chance at the Rose Bowl means you didn't do anything at the right time, and that's why Paterno's best realistic scenario right now is a BCS at-large against someone uninspiring like TCU.

Someone isn't understanding the point of an "unofficial visit."  In what has become rare bad news about the upcoming recruiting class, Sharrif Floyd announced a top-5 in some type of journal on SI and left Penn State off the list.  What's strange, though, is that he wants to make a visit for the Penn State-Ohio State game:

Next weekend, I [as in Floyd --ed] might head to Penn State for an unofficial visit. The Nittany Lions play the Buckeyes and it should be a crazy game and a full white-out. And I want to end with this with my top five.

Can I have a drum roll please? In no particular order, they are: Florida, Ohio State, North Carolina, South Carolina and USC.

For starters: someone isn't reading their daily-Daily Collegian.  Ohio State isn't "a full white-out," and not even a fun alternative like "stupid tie-die shirt you bought at the FCL for $8 day."

Also, are you allowed to make a visit to a school to see another team play?  Someone ask the caring is creepy experts.

The schools failed him.  Taylor Mays did something dirty in USC's game against Oregon State, and the Pac-10 has decided that the best way to handle this is suspend the referee who missed the penalty.  Because when you steal and get away with it, really the cop should go to jail.

A week after exonerating USC safety Taylor Mays for a penalty that was called against him at Notre Dame, the Pacific 10 Conference on Monday suspended an official for not calling a facemask penalty against the two-time All-American.

[...]

"We have taken this action in light of the blatant and dangerous nature of the missed call," Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. "We have full confidence in our highly trained and qualified staff of football officials, but they, like the coaches and players [O Rly? --ed], are accountable and must meet the high expectations placed upon them."

The call in question:

So, yeah, stupid ref, what were you thinking.  This is clearly all your fault, as Mays obviously isn't in need of cleaning up his own work.

Oh yeah, never mind.

In score of other games.  Decker is done, so you can now call Iowa's remaining schedule that much more manageable...but then again they've just lost running back Adam Robinson for the year...Wrestling coach Cael Sanderson is making some questionable redshirt moves...Penn State continues to feel the hate in the Mumme Poll as a very distant 12...Iowa's SOS is several 1's and 0's better than yours.