At Last! The Penn State Preview!

After 101 conference predictions, loads of cheerleader comments, some love from Souvenir City, we're here: the Penn State preview.

Because Penn State's our team (in case you hadn't guessed!), we thought we'd leave the team we really wanted to write about until last....

Firstly, let's talk about the receiving corps....

Anyone who's received a call from the VFA during this off-season (thanks Sean Fitz@Blue White Illustrated!) will know that we're a little worried about Penn State's wide receiving corps. In fact, we're absolutely crapping it.

I mean, how do you replace all-offensive threat Derrick Williams, receiving legend Deon Butler and scarily solid wide receiver Jordan Norwood?
Will Brett Brackett, Graham Zug, Andrew Quarless, Chaz Powell and Justin Brown be able to pass the test? We won't really know fully in the 60 minutes of the opener against Akron, but we'll have a pretty good idea.




And the quarterbacks?

Right, so Darryl Clark is now a proven quarterback. He's great. Apart from the Iowa and USC games, he was fantastic. I love the fact that JoePa might let him run a little more, although I'm not crazy that the backup quarterback is true freshman Kevin Newsome. Having said that, you've got to give Newsome some match practice - after all he's got Alabama on the schedule in the first game of the season.

And at running back....

Evan Royster's pretty darned good at running back. Stephon Green's got pace too. Watch out for Green when he gets some space. The kid's got speed.

Secondary - rockin' or rocks?

Again, we're asking questions about the secondary. Will AJ Wallace at last live up to his reputation? Can Nick Sukay and Drew Astorino be as reliable as we hope? Or are they going to look slow and disjointed. Again, we'll see against Akron, but at Illinois, we'll know.

The defensive line

Brit Jack Crawford's an animal, and Sean Lee's back, which is no bad thing. Navarro Bowman's going to wreak havoc all season long - it's going to be a long year for opposing quarterbacks and offensive linesman.

The offensive line

Ouch. That's all we can say. If Darryl Clark survives the season without getting concussed, it'll be a minor miracle.

Speaking of schedules....

The easy ones: Akron, Syracuse, Temple, Eastern Illinois, Indiana

The other ones? Potential banana skins. The road trips to Illinois, Michigan and Northwestern certainly won't be easy and the Ohio State home game is not one that's filling us with confidence at the moment. The toughest is going to be the trip to Illinois. If there's any team that'll exploit a weakness in the secondary, it's the Illini, who everyone seems to have written off this year.

Here's a bit of encouragement: