Blog Chips

Poll Position

Penn State starts the season tied for 9^th with Oklahoma State in the AP Poll.

For those of you that are into that sort of thing, frankly I put little stock in preseason polls, if you look back around week 6 the poll will, most likely, look radically different. Florida received a record 58 first place votes and apparently two AP members living in Texas voted for the Longhorns. Of course Notre Dame is back in the polls, the press loves them some Irish whenever they get the chance.

This probably means we're in for a Hurricane

Penn State will once again try to host "Penn State Football Eve" the night before they kickoff the season against Akron (Friday, Sept. 4^th). It's the sixth time they've done it and it usually means a torrential downpour. Interesting side note in the article:

Four Penn State home games are sold out, with a limited number of tickets remaining for Akron, Syracuse (Sept. 12, 12:00 p.m.), Temple (Sept. 19, 12:00), and Eastern Illinois (Oct. 10), TBA.

Huh. That's interesting, the shit-sandwich parts of the schedule are not sold out, who would have thought that?!?!

Fun with Numbers

Here's an interesting look at PSU's sports revenue compared to other big schools. It's a bit surprising that Penn State's football department only brings in 53.8 mill, I would have expected it to be more. In comparison Ohio State brings in 65.2 and Texas pulls in a whopping 73 mill. I'm thinking Penn State needs to do a better job of marketing themselves because it's difficult to explain why PSU isn't near the top with over 100,000 people packing the Beav every weekend. 100,00 times 60 bucks per ticket times 8 home games is roughly 48 million alone just for the ticket sales.

And you thought you had a good weekend

Matt McGloin, he of the preferred walk-on status, has earned himself a full scholarship.

A redshirt freshman quarterback who joined the Penn State football team last year as a preferred walk-on, McGloin was put on full scholarship by Paterno late Friday, one day after McGloin authored an impressive showing in the team's second scrimmage of summer practice.

We sometimes forget that not all the Penn State players are of the VHT 4 or 5 star variety and many of them are busting their asses just to make the team. For Matt he's living a life that you and I could only dream about and he's been rewarded for his hard work.

His father, Paul, said he was "crying his eyes out" after speaking with his son. His mother, Cathy, said she "really didn't expect it."

"Here's the typical conversation when he calls home," Paul McGloin began. "'What are you doing?' 'Nothing.' 'How's everything going?' 'OK.' That's pretty much the conversation.

"Tonight, I ask him, 'What are you doing?' 'Nothing much.' 'How's everything going?' Then he says, 'Dad, I got a scholarship.' I just told him, 'I'm so proud of you. You've worked so hard for this.'"

It's feel good stories like this that make me love college sports so much.

"I really don't know what to say. I'm just speechless," McGloin said. "I'm really just glad."