Here is you holiday version of the Blue and White Roundtable. Galen from The Nittany Line has the questions a day late this week. He must have been busy playing with his new toys. Check out TNL and Run Up The Score to get their take on the state of Nittany Nation.
Sorry about the lateness everyone!
1) So far there hasn't been a bowl game that has ended within a touchdown, are there just too many bowls or is it poor matchups?
I think it's just poor matchups. As much as I would love to see a football playoff, I love the bowl season. I've caught at least a little part of every game so far. Some of these lesser known teams are a blast to watch. They don't have NFL caliber defenses, so they run up and down the field and you see lots of big plays.
2) Excluding the national championship and PSU game, which bowl is a can't-miss in your mind?
Oh man. So many great ones. Like I said, I try to watch as many as I can. The Rose Bowl will be a great one. I hope Michigan wins so they can say, "We told you so" because I think they got screwed. I'm interested in watching the Capital One Bowl. It will be interesting to see how Wisconsin does against some real competition when they play the Arkansas Razorbacks. I'm also looking forward to seeing the Fiesta Bowl to see if Boise State is for real. I love Bowl season.
3) Nick Saban told Alabama to pound sand last week, at this point, and in all seriousness, who do you think is going to be their next coach?
I think if anybody knew the answer to that question we wouldn't be talking about it. I feel sorry for the guy they do get. He'll probably be a good position coach from some small school nobody ever heard of. He'll be doomed for failure the minute he steps on campus. First he has to live up to the Bear Bryant legend that no Alabama coach has been able to live up to save Gene Stallings who had to win a championship to get there. Second, whoever the guy is the fans will already be convinced he's a loser because he's the 26th choice. Their best bet is to bring some big name out of retirement. What's Joe Namath doing these days?
4) The Men's basketball team finally put away a patsy beating Maine 75 - 42; with conference play fast approaching has the team finally turned the corner or was it just a fluke?
Who knows. I think you have to beat more than two cupcakes in a row before we can claim they are a good team. It's a big plus that everyone is finally getting healthy as conference play starts. But I expect we'll see more of the same with this team the rest of the way. They will look great but come up short against great competition like Wisconsin and Ohio State, and they will struggle to beat the Northwesterns and Iowas. They'll pull off a shocker or two and they will blow one or two they should win. It's going to be a frustrating season. I can see why Ed DeChellis has no hair.
Lightning round
Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan set a new NCAA single-season record for touchdown passes in the Hawaii bowl: he needed 2, he got 5 - is he that good or is it a product of their weak schedule?
Thanks for making me go look up Hawaii's schedule. I didn't think lightning rounds were supposed to require research. They didn't play any powerhouses, but surprisingly they had some decent competition in there.
Whenever a kid rolls up numbers like that I think it's partly competition level, partly skill, and partly the system he plays in. They ran a very unbalanced offense with 573 pass attempts and 271 running attempts. So it's partly the Alan Iverson philosophy, when you take 40 shots per game you're bound to score points.
Did you attend the spaghetti dinner for Chris Wells and Antonio Pittman?
My invitation got lost in the mail. Seriously though, two future NFL players can't afford to bring their moms to the National Championship game? And if not, can't they talk to Reggie Bush's loan buddies or Maurice Clarrett's Jewish mafia friends? And spaghetti? If I'm sending you to the BCS Championship game, I better be eating a steak.
What's your New Year's resolution going to be?
I'm going to try to not scream at the television so much. It makes the dog bark and the kid cry and I have trouble explaining to the people at work how I lost my voice in the living room.
Prediction time: final score of the Penn State - Tennessee game?
Penn State - 20
Tennessee - 17