"I don't read blogs. I don't have time for blogs. I don't have time for that stuff...I'll talk to you on the phone. I'll talk to you in person. I don't care to talk to nobody on the internet. Better watch out, that internet will ruin your life." -- Coastal Carolina Head Coach David Bennett
Who Shot Who In The What, Now? Coastal Carolina (0-0) at Penn State (0-0). Some quick math and shallow logic indicates that this is the first game of the season for both teams. Kickoff is at 12:00 p.m. at Beaver Stadium.
Who Are These Friggin' Guys? The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, 5-6 last season. That losing season followed a very good stretch of football for the Chants -- from 2004 to 2006, they were 28-6 and made the 1-AA playoffs once. So they're a new program, but a very successful one. Their coach is David Bennett, who based on this unbelievably entertaining audio press conference, should immediately be considered for Penn State's head coach position when it becomes vacant in fifteen years.
"Anybody says anything negative about Paterno, they're an idiot." -- David Bennett
Where Can I See It? Big Ten Network. Use this handy tool to find out what channel it'll be on. And don't forget to stop by Black Shoe Diaries throughout the game. We'll be hosting a game thread for your ongoing commentary about the greatest new offense since the first forward pass.
Weather: Mildly promising. National Weather Service says 80 degrees, 20% chance of rain before noon and light wind. Accuweather is equally vague, predicting partly sunny and 78 degrees, with a thunderstorm around.
"One of our players, one of them Einsteins that look at figures and stuff, came in my office a week ago and he said, 'Coach, we're going to play in front of more people in this game than we did all last season, all eleven combined. And I said, 'Wow, that's pretty good.'" -- David Bennett
While You Wait: Future Penn State opponents take the field tonight and tomorrow night. Oregon State plays at Stanford tonight (9 p.m., ESPN2). Temple opens the season against Army on Friday night (7 p.m., ESPN Classic).
What Will We Learn? Next to nothing, but there are a few things to look for. Crispness on offense and special teams. Coaches getting the plays to the huddle on time. Daryll Clark's comfort in the pocket. But let's not kid ourselves, a forty-point victory over Coastal Carolina isn't going to make next week's game against Oregon State any less stressful. I'm actually more interested in tonight's OSU-Stanford game than the impending PSU-Coastal slaughter.
What Are The Chances Of A Penn State Victory? 99.5%. For those of you worried about Coastal Carolina being another Appalachian State, here's one last quote from Coastal's fearless comedic leader.
"You talk about David vs. Goliath. Everybody's talking about, 'well App beat Michigan last year.' App had more speed than Michigan. App was in better shape than Michigan. Their quarterback ran 4.3. Our quarterback don't run 4.3." -- David Bennett
And seriously, listen to that Bennett press conference. Not only is he wildly entertaining, he's brutally honest about his team's goals and provides excellent perspective on Joe Paterno and exactly what we have here at Penn State.