August 26th, Print Edition
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Friday Pregame Update – Youngstown State
Penn State kicks off a much-anticipated 2010 season against Youngstown State University at noon on Saturday in Beaver Stadium.
Youngstown State is coming off a 6-5 season, but has a new face in the form of head coach Eric Wolford. Wolford will make his debut with YSU on Saturday, as will redshirt freshman quarterback Kurt Hess.
This will be the second meeting for the Nittany Lions and the Penguins. YSU traveled to Beaver Stadium in 2006 for the first time and suffered a 37-3 loss.
The game will be televised on the Big Ten Network with Eric Collins, Chris Martin, and Charissa Thompson commentating. Continue Reading
Encouraging signs emerge from camp as Lions brace for a challenging season
It’s been an honor and a privilege covering Penn State football for the past 26 years for Blue White Illustrated. But, at times, it can become frustrating, particularly when preseason practice gets into full swing following Joe Paterno’s Media Day news conference. Continue Reading
No Time to Waste
The Class of 2011 has been slow to develop, but Penn State can still recover if it moves quickly
One would think after an 11-2 season, a bowl victory over LSU and a recruiting effort that received widespread acclaim as the best in the Big Ten, everything would be in place for Joe Paterno and his coaching staff to recruit their third consecutive top-15 class. Continue Reading
A Homecoming of Sorts
Philly native Anthony Fera returns to his home state to help the Lions fill an urgent need
Glance at Penn State’s football roster, and you’ll quickly notice redshirt freshman kicker Anthony Fera is one of just three players who lists Texas as his home state. Continue Reading
THIS OLD HOUSE
Now in its 50th year, PSU’s iconic home, Beaver Stadium, has stood the test of time
Joe Paterno has made some pretty good calls over the years. Sure, you can quibble with a draw play here or an off-tackle there or Guman up the middle on fourth-and-goal in the You-Know-What Bowl. But the man has 394 major-college victories in his career, which is 394 more than the rest of us do. Continue Reading
Rally in the Valley
New coach Eric Wolford looks to put the Penguins back on top of their conference
Eric Wolford cut his teeth as a coach by working under some of the best coaches and for some of the best programs in college football. Now he’s using that experience for his biggest challenge. Continue Reading
All the Right Moves
A shrewd plan, decades in the making, gave the Nittany Lion football program room to grow
In late March of 1959, as Penn State’s 14,600-plus students were streaming out of town for their annual spring break and the football team was about to start spring practice, a small battalion of bulldozers, steam shovels, grading machines and other heavy construction equipment began clearing a 60-acre cow pasture on the far eastern fringe of campus. No one realized at the time that the site would one day be an American landmark – the second-largest football facility in the country – and the home of a record-breaking, legendary coach. Continue Reading
The Sound and the Fury
Penn State’s rowdy home can be inhospitable to opponents, but they wouldn’t have it any other way
Sure, it’s an impressive thing to behold, thousands of T-shirts arrayed in a vast expanse of white that arises from the perimeter of the field and swirls upward and outward, deep into the night, part blizzard, part hurricane. But you can see white T-shirts at Walmart. What impressed Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi the most when he emerged from a tunnel underneath the northwest stands of Beaver Stadium and stepped into middle of one Penn State’s famed White Outs last September was not the sight of it but the sound. Continue Reading