Black Shoe Diaries, a Penn State Nittany Lions community

Interesting that he'd rather be in on this than buy a baseball team.

did anyone see this yesterday? i guess it's an interesting concept, i don't think it would ever be considered. at the very least it'd help us a bit. i wonder if this was originally a joepa idea? [via]

Great article by Wetzel from Yahoo about the bowl system. Actually well written and researched, not just senseless opinion shouting.

Penn State, and everyone else, stayed relatively stagnant in all of the major human polls. Penn State gained slightly on USC in the AP, but nothing short of a Trojan loss is going to put Penn State ahead. Paterno remains behind Utah in the Coaches Poll, which isn't really an issue except why is USC ahead of them? I think I know the answer to that. Also, it probably doesn't matter. The Harris continues to look a lot like the AP, first place Florida vote and all. Mississippi beat Louisiana-Monroe to improve to 6-4. Sagarin has me all confused for the second straight week. Penn State holds at #10 in his PC 'ELO_CHESS' rating. Behind such teams as Utah, Oklahoma State and, this one is fun: Georgia. Apparently Jeff's computer doesn't mind being mocked: the ACC remains the second highest ranked conference in his formula. Random Update: Penn State has opened as 11 point favorites against Michigan State. [Another Update: The line looks like it will actually rest closer to 14.5]

Some read quotes from the team about what they can and cannot control.

We talked a bit about this last week, but the weak computer rankings, fueled by a sub-par strength of schedule average, weren't enough to drop Penn State out of the number three spot they've earned in the human polls. The computers, by rule, cannot take into account our margin of victory and so the rather dominating performance to date doesn't get it's proper due. There could be a potentially big shuffle next week depending on how Penn State's game against Ohio State goes; the Buckeyes are actually ranked two spots higher than the Nittany Lions in the computers (#5).