Kurt Streeter: Come on Penn State, you can do better than that ... right?
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Wait a sec, hold on a minute, what in the name of William Penn and Mayor Frank Rizzo is going on?
This was supposed to be a classic: a tense, tight affair between two teams that were just a few regular season field goals away from appearing together in the national title game. This was supposed to be a scrum inside a telephone booth, a dog fight, a battle royale -- and I was the mistaken fool who predicted USC would score three touchdowns and LOSE by three. Ouch.
The first half ended with the USC team and Trojans fans riding such a high of emotion that I worried for a moment about their sanity; particularly the big burlies on the team who, en masse, lined up on the sidelines after that last TD made it 31-7, jumping around like they were on battery powered pogo-sticks, eyes crazed, sweaty hair flying.
31-7? Forget the prayers, I’m in the press booth and from what I hear Mr. Paterno is sitting in a suite nearby, so I’m thinking of knocking on his door and delivering a lecture: this is not how you beat SC. Your cornerbacks don’t let the Trojans receivers lope around the field like this is a flag football game and your linemen don’t treat Mark Sanchez like he has a severe case of the chicken pox, and you don’t cough-up penalty after penalty on big plays. No beating SC that way. None.
Maybe the Trojans are just too good. Certainly appears so. Then again, the way that first half looked, it appears UCLA is a tougher team than Penn State, and that’s a pretty rough assessment of JoePa’s boys. Maybe they took too much to heart the advice I offered in a print column a few weeks back; maybe they did indeed spend their off hours in Malibu, flirting around, eating hot dogs, lazing about on the beach, ... Maybe they did all this, and to supreme excess. Tell you what, they’re playing like it.
It’s 31-7 and there’s nothing right now to make me think Penn State can come back. Looking over at the solemn, shocked faces of the Penn State crowd right now -- they’ve gone quickly from apoplectic to horrified -- it sure looks like I’m not the only one thinking this way right now.
-- Kurt Streeter
