My thoughts on PSU for my Birthday

I know I don't say all that much on here, occasionally commenting on Game threads, posts, and whatnot. But reading game comments this morning and over the weekend got me to thinking and this isn't intent on who I think should be the next QB or the coaches or anything. Just thoughts I recalled pre-season with my own thoughts. I wrote it just for myself to read, but thought I'd share. Since I came to work at 5 a.m. and its 8:30 and I haven't done anything...

16-14. 

That's the score come 7 pm on Oct 8. I am not going to say who wins or loses but that's the score. Anyway you look at it you go wow, what a close game or wow that was ugly another nail biter. We are going to play in these games, because frankly that what we do, we play close games.

 What if we limp Past everybody by a margin of 3 to 6 points till Nebraska comes home. Its a teeth-gritting ride for the rest of the season. And if we limp past everyone and end up winning, who cares?

If someone told me Penn State would win every game by 2 and lose every game by 14 I'd think I was cheering for a pro team.

Just saying...I'll take ugly wins over any losses. I dont care if we beat Purdue by 3 and win by 2 with Iowa; everyone has decided that its too hard on the nerves that we don't know what to do.

I remember Purdue 2004, I remember sitting in my dorm room because I was sick and couldn't make it to the game. I watched and screamed and cried and then flipped my chair, which at the time was my table for my bowl of boiling hot ramen and watched the bowl shatter against the wall. Needless to say I had to clean it up, pick up broken shards of porcelain and then sit there sick, hungry, and exhausted because I cared too much about a team that I had no control over.

Its nice when we win, sad when we lose.

I'm just as tired as everyone else about all the inconsistent play and the up and down pitching and heaving of the the ship that is our football team. This is why you only get on boats if you know how to swim. We are 4-1 and we wanted to be 4-1 starting our Home stand against Iowa. We wanted to be 8-1 or 7-2 at the end of October and we wanted to be 9-3 or 8-4 at the end of November. That's what the majority of us said! We dreamed of knocking off Bama early on and dreamed of coming into November 10-0 with a Top 5 ranking and being the Dark Horse. But that was it, most of us said "Hey 9-3 is pretty nice to have going into a bowl game, we might have an outside shot at the CCG if we can steal one from OSU and Wisconsin and are 10-2".

So if we limp to 9-3 or 8-4 we played right up to our average expectations, maybe lower if its 8-4 and not 9-3 , but not that much lower. Its hard for me to believe that every year we as fans get upset because we aren't Top 5 like LSU, Bama, etc. Those are teams that only recently have had the continued years of success (Florida, Bama, LSU) I mean look at Georgia and Auburn they only pieced together 1 or 2 good years each in the last decade (good being 10-12 wins before a CCG or Bowl game) and now their programs are faltering. Oregon is the same, Boise and TCU benefited from favorable early season scheduling and now look (oh TCU you lost to SMU).

We have never built to be a year to year dominant program since the 80s; we talk about this in the offseason, we discuss in depth the cyclical seasons of 10+ win seasons (05, 08, 09) and the oddity 9 win should be better seasons (99, 01) and the "Dark Years" (03,04).

I am going to tell you Bama's seasons since 99 (left) and PSU's on the right) Also note that I am counting the CCG games for Bama so thats one more game for them to win or lose than us (i.e. highest wins for Bama can be 14 where PSU could only be 13)

Bama 99: 10-3 PSU 99: 10-3 
Bama 00: 3-8 PSU 00: 5-7 
Bama 01: 7-5 PSU 01: 5-6
Bama 02: 10-3 PSU 02: 9-4
Bama 03: 4-9 PSU 03: 3-9
Bama 04: 6-6 PSU 04: 4-7
Bama 05: 0-2 (10 wins were vacated) PSU 05: 11-1
Bama 06: 0-7 (6 wins were vacated) PSU 06: 9-4
Bama 07: 2-6 (5 wins were vacated) PSU 07: 9-4
Bama 08: 12-2 PSU 08: 11-2
Bama 09: 14-0 (National Championship) PSU 09: 11-2
Bama 10: 10-3 PSU 10: 7-5

Bama Total Wins: 78 including one National Championship
PSU Total Wins: 94 without a National Championship

We all want a National Championship. Lord knows, we have had more undefeated seasons without a championship that anyone. But even if we had the trophy for 94, 78, 68, 69 would we still act as if beating Indiana by 6 is an aneurysm for us? Probably not, but I tell you it would mean we'd trade 94 for 78 with one more NC. I don't know if as a fan of the sport I would want to do that.

I got bored with my 27 year Army football dynasty in NCAA. with 26 consecutive national championships and 26 years of being #1, and breaking every single game, season, school, and NCAA record. And I would get tired as a fan if every year all we cared about was winning a National Championship, or "mortgaging this next for nexts" or "oh God we barely won. We are just as depressed if we barely lose or win.

We are a good football PROGRAM. We always will be. The program is all that matters, its survived since 1887 against all types good and bad from pink and black to navy and blue, from cow shit pastures to hybrid kentucky bluegrass. 

I'll wager in survives longer than we do. So I no longer want to age myself any longer than I have to. This Saturday will be my first birthday since turning 18 I won't be at a Penn State game (I sold my tickets so someone could take his dad to a game this year).

Sometimes there are things more important than the game being played...