Odds & Ends

So we're a bit behind on actual Penn State news lately. We blame the turkey:

Good for watching football, bad for writing about it.

Anyway, we're back from our post-Thanksgiving hangover with some news on the team, including post-season awards and the likely Rose Bowl matchup with USC.

Leading off, Penn State cleaned house in All-Big11Ten honors. Here's the list:

First Team

• Daryll Clark
• Derrick Williams
• A.Q. Shipley
• Gerald Cadogan
• Rich Ohrnberger
• Kevin Kelly
• Navorro Bowman
• Aaron Maybin
• Jared Odrick
• Anthony Scirrotto
  

Second Team

• Deon Butler
• Evan Royster
• Lydell Sargeant
• Stephen Wisniewski
  

Honorable Mention

• Jeremy Boone
• Tony Davis
• Josh Gaines
• Dennis Landolt
• Jordan Norwood
• Mark Rubin
• Tyrell Sales
  

Yikes. Look at the number of linemen on those lists. That shows you what a force both lines could be this year. Also, Joe was named Big11Ten Coach of the Year. Hey, we love Joe, but it's ironic that a dude who does probably the least amount of coaching in the conference wins Coach of the Year.

In a related story, James Laurinaitis was named Big11Ten Defensive Player of the Year. E!SPN's Big11Ten Blogger Adam Rittenberg had this to say about that choice:

James Laurinaitis is a future College Football Hall of Famer and a sure-fire first-round NFL draft pick. He's an excellent football player. He should not have been named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. That award should have gone to Penn State defensive end Aaron Maybin. No one else is really in the discussion. Maybin was flat-out dominant this season. I don't care if he's just a sophomore. Base the award on merit, not on reputation or name recognition or having a nice back story.

We rarely agree with people from E!SPN, but Rittenberg really hit the nail on the head. This is a case of voters not doing their homework and voting for a name, not a performance. Maybin was a beast out there all year, and while Laurinaitis is a good player, he didn't impact games the way Maybin did this season.

Speaking of Maybin, he's a finalist for the Chuck Bednarik Award for the top defensive player in the nation. Penn State has a death grip on this award, as it went to Dan Connor last year and Paul Posluszny the previous two years. We hope this doesn't turn out the same way as the Big11Ten Defensive Player of the Year, because Laurinaitis is one of the other two candidates for the Bednarik (Ray Maualuga of USC is the other). It would be funny if Maybin won this one but didn't win POY in his own conference.

In other award news, a record five Nittany Lions made the Academic All-America team. Gerold Cadogan, Josh Hull, Andrew Pitz and Mark Rubin earned first team honors, while Stefen Wisniewski made the second team. Kudos to those guys.

Now we move to the Rose Bowl, where by now you've heard that Oregon State got smoked 65-38 by Oregon in the Civil War on Saturday. The big change coming from that game is that USC will head to the Rose Bowl barring a loss to 4-7 UCLA this weekend or some kind of insane BCS shakeup (insane shakeups are always possible with an insane system). This is what we wanted: a chance to prove something on a national stage against an elite team. Now the team needs to go to Pasadena and not blow it like another Big11Ten we all know and love.

Speaking of Ohio State, Oregon State's loss likely means the Buckeyes will get yet another BCS bowl bid this year. Just be thankful that it's not the national title game.

Just one final note: we were waaaaaayyyy off on our prediction of the Georgia-Georgia Tech battle on Saturday. Had we known that Georgia has no idea how to defend the option (or how to tackle, for that matter), we would've chosen differently. Trev Alberts referred to that game as a classic battle. If you enjoy a general disregard of defense by two teams, then yes, it was definitely a classic.

We'd talk more about the Rose Bowl today, but we have a solid month to do that. That's all for now.