[NU Sports] report from State College

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> I think it may be overstatement to say we've never
> had the talent to  compete 
> with elite football schools.  Our record in the Big
> Ten  championship years 
> certainly illustrates a reasonably high talent

I'm not sure about that - if you judge talent by who's
good enough to play at the next level, we really
didn't have much talent on those teams either. If
anything, our talent has gotten slightly better since
the mid 1990s, with an NFL player or two every year.
But in 1995, Bates was our only real legit NFL
prospect while the teams we were playing had much,
much more talent.

Thankfully, in college football, talent isn't
everything. We used innovation on offense in 2000 to
close the talent gap and tremendous teamwork and a
high football IQ on the field and sidelines in 1995.
In 1996, well, we just had a never-give-up attitude.

> several years.  Penn State is at best just an
> average Big Ten  offense.  Giving 

Don't sell PSU's offense -- or defense -- short. They
have returning talent at wideout and running back and
a lot of speed. If their young QB matures into his
role, they're easily a top 20 team. As for the D, they
lost a lot but are still quite stingy and certainly
played well enough to beat OSU and even Notre Dame -
the O just gave those games away with turnovers and
mistakes.

I'm not happy with our season so far, but I'm
certainly not surprised either. We all knew the
situation going into this season and what I'm really
looking for from Fitz now is the ability to hold this
team together and make noticeable improvement
throughout the rest of the season. Especially at the
quarterback position (though a step-up game by the
O-line would really be appreciated).

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!

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