Former Foes: the odds & ends edition

Time for one final look back at Penn State's past competition. Most of the our former foes have already hung it up for the season but a few were in action last week and there was at least on important game on the schedule. So how did the few teams on our previous schedule fare?

Oregon State (8-4)

Oregon State was riding a 7-game win streak into a home game against bitter in-state rival Oregon with the dreams of a Rose Bowl berth and rematch with Penn State riding in the balance. Masters of their own destiny, win and the Beavers were in, lose and rest slim hopes on UCLA beating USC the following week. Yeah, things didn't turn out so well. It was a one-sided demolition as the Bruins Ducks scored the first touchdown and the game was never closer than an early 3 point lead which ballooned into a 65-38 beatdown. Oregon rang up 694 yards of total offense with a decent balance of 385 yards on the ground and 309 yards through the air. Oregon State turned the ball over 4 times (2 ints, 2 fumbles) and couldn't keep pace. Oregon had two running backs over the century mark paced by Jeremiah Johnson who rushed for 227 yards on only 12 carries. The Beavers now have to pray that UCLA can pull off a big upset and take down the unstoppable Trojans who would eat your children if they could because they are such a kick-ass team and don't deserve to be in the Rose Bowl because it's way beneath them and it's almost like a prison sentence for them, hell they may just throw the game (HT: RUTS at BSD) just so they don't have to play in the Rose Bowl, because they like… own it and stuff.

The ironic part is that whoever winds up as the Big 12's third-place team -- Texas, Texas Tech or Oklahoma* -- will probably provide a better game than Penn State. By beating the Bruins, the Trojans actually condemn themselves to a lesser bowl opponent.

Syracuse (3-9)

How did the Orange celebrate their shocking last minute upset victory over Notre Dame? By going out and laying an egg against Cincinnati in a 30-10 loss. To be fair, Cincinnati is the Big East champ (stop chuckling they are). The Beerguts er… Bearcats nearly doubled the Orange in yardage (412-211) and held Syracuse to only 59 (!) yards passing. On the bright side of things, Orange running back Curtis Brinkley finished his career with more rushing yards (2,132) than Jim Brown (2,091). Gotta say that's impressive.

Temple (5-7)

The owls finished out their season with the most wins since 1990 beating it's-only-Akron 27-6. Temple finished 2^nd in the MAC east division at 4-4, winning 4 games in conference play for the second consecutive year. If you think back to the two crushing losses to Connecticut and Buffalo, games that temple lost on the last play of the game, if Temple wins those two they are a bowl team. Al Golden definitely has this team pointed in the right direction. With 10:15 remaining Akron tied the game but Temple went on to score 21 points over the final 8 minutes paced by senior quarterback Adam DiMichele who ran for a team-best 57 yards with 2 TD's and passed for 220.