Nitt Picks Needs To Focus

Stephfon Green figures to play one of the bigger roles in Penn State's crowded backfield this season, having served as Evan Royster's backup for most of his first two seasons with the Lions.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says Green is working on his consistency and focus.

Green realizes now he can't break a long run or produce a highlight-reel play every time he touches the football. Focus has become a big issue with him.

"Just slowing everything down and not thinking everything is a home run," he said. "Just me slowing down and understanding the blocking schemes and things like that and becoming more of a student of the game.

"That's what I have been doing, that's what I'm going to continue to do. And, hopefully, one day I'll just go down in the record books setting some records here at Penn State."

Many fans like the home run threat that Green brings, but more consistent production behind Royster would be a good thing. Green regressed last season, for the most part, and if he can approach or even surpass his numbers from 2008 (barring a Royster injury of course) that'd be great news for Penn State's rushing attack after having kind of a down year in 2009.

After the jump, Terrelle Pryor, Nebraska, and some PSU baseball...

Jim Tressel let Terrelle Pryor out of his cage to talk to the Cleveland Plain Dealer for a piece that ran on Sunday, and in i, Mr. Pryor says he is now a humble dude.

"I think I was a little arrogant, to tell the truth," Pryor said Sunday, speaking to reporters at Ohio State's team photo day. "You think about it and I came in as a junior in high school and everybody was praising me, everyone was being around me and everybody was telling me how I great I am. It can be kind of ... you lose your humbleness. And [now] I feel humble. I feel very humble, very appreciative."

We'll see. 

In other Pryor news, The Vest says Pryor could be chucking the rock a lot more this year

Tressel said he expects to be a "25 to 35 passing team," and anything closer to that higher end could be historic. Pryor averaged 23 passes a game last year, and 30 a game, giving him 390 for the season, would surpass Joe Germaine's OSU record of 384 passes in 1998.

If the Bucks put it up 35 times against Penn State with a mediocre passer, you'd have to think it'd be because they're losing. Perhaps Tressel would like to throw more, generally, but against some of the better defenses in the Big Ten, that stuff probably isn't going to work.

Nebraska/Penn State

Prolate Spheroid does a fine piece profiling the Penn State/Nebraska series historically, and advocates putting Nebraska and Penn State in the same Big Ten division.

Imagine this scenario for the last two weeks of the football season:

Michigan plays Ohio State for one division title. A few hours later Nebraska faces Penn State to decide the other. The following week the winners face off with national championship implications likely at stake.

What could possibly be more appealing and nationally relevant than that?

Certainly an interesting question, though most Penn Staters seems set against being placed in Nebraska's division if the league is otherwise split geographically. 

Ben Heath Moving Up

Former Penn State catcher Ben Heath has been promoted from the Houston Astros' short-season affiliate Tri-City to Low-A Lexington.

It's a quick move for the young catcher, who rode a great season in Blue and White to a 5th round selection MLB's Amateur Draft in June. He was hitting .248 with six home runs and 21 RBI in 37 games with Tri-Valley

In Scores of Other Games

• Cory Giger of the Altoona Mirror is almost done with his Joe Paterno book [Giger Counters]
• Boise State players can't use Twitter anymore. [AP via Yahoo!]
• Nick Saban's coordinators are taking a bigger role at Alabama [John Zenor]
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