This year, our Nittany Lions have shaved more years off my life than I expected. Most will rightfully say it hasn't been pretty… because, well it hasn't. But this is college football. You never know what will happen. That’s what sucks and at the same time makes it so great. Prior to the season I did what most fans do, looked down our schedule and prognosticated different scenarios on how the season could play out. The best scenario I could honestly (don’t BS yourself here fans) come up with was to be 8-1 going into the bye week. And of course as life would have it… wait… no…. could it be…. YES!! It actually happened. If anyone predicted a better record at this point for Penn State, give me some of what you’re smoking. No seriously, give me some. The media/polls will continue to shortchange us until we beat a ranked opponent. Our games by and large haven’t been the sit back and crush people types, but we’ve played more complete games than our opposition and we have made other team look worse than us by enough to win for 7 straight games.

Now, up to this point in the season we’ve all been (myself included) a little critical of this team because of the lack of development/growth of some of our athletes along the way and the manner in which we’ve reached our 8-1 record. But this post is a cry for the fan base to look forward. We’re in November and we have a shot. We’ve got a bye week to give us time to scout/prepare; we have one more home game, we have a fantastic fan base and game day atmosphere, we have an excellent defense, we can finish 2-1 and punch a ticket to Indy for a run at the roses. Now we can’t change how the players play by simply writing blogs to one another, but we collectively can start believing, we can create a down right electric atmosphere at Beaver Stadium in a few weeks (even if the offense once again struggles to get going), we can pour everything we have into this next game and send our boys off to close it out on the road.  We control our own destiny.  We need no one but ourselves. I’m going to need a larger soapbox and bullhorn if I am to keep talking!!!

It’ll be no surprise. We won’t be favored in our final stretch, but we weren’t against tO$U in ’05 or ’08. But the fan base rallied, we provided an unforgettable atmosphere which people to this day still talk about, our team has to be feeling some confidence now that they really could do something here to close out the season, because we just keep winning despite the adversity. But it all starts now, let’s rally behind our team. Let’s remember who again who stole our 1994 National Championship. Let's get College Game Day here.  Let's invite Urban Meyer to the pep rally.  Let’s remember we’ll have 2011 recruits at our game on 11/12 looking at our student body, our school, and our atmosphere which is one of the most unique when we start believing and getting excited. I’ll myself be up in Happy Valley for the Nebraska game, drenched in white clothing, doing whatever I can to support our boys.