Whiteout at Happy Valley
For the third straight meeting between fourth-ranked Ohio State and host and ninth-ranked Penn State at Beaver Stadium, the game will be played tonight and Penn State is going into whiteout mode 107,000 fans, pretty much all of them dressed in white, waving those bright, sparkly pom-poms and screaming themselves hoarse as “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes blares over the loudspeakers.
It is a spectacle.
“You’ve got to be ready for that kind of environment,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said.
Penn State is not Ohio State’s biggest rival, but the Nittany Lions have been in recent years the most serious threat to the Buckeyes for Big Ten supremacy. They have split the last two meetings, dramatic games with the winner going on to a conference championship. The fourth-ranked Buckeyes (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) and No. 9 Nittany Lions (4-0, 1-0) are the conference’s only remaining unbeatens and they play another high-stakes game tonight in Happy Valley a matchup of the two highest-scoring teams in the nation.
“Three of the last four meetings have been decided by seven points or less, so this has been a very competitive series in the four years that we’ve been here,” Penn State coach James Franklin said.
Happy Valley has been anything but welcoming to the Buckeyes since Franklin took over.
On the way to winning a national championship, Ohio State needed overtime to beat Penn State in 2014. Two years ago, Penn State’s fourth-quarter, come-from-behind victory against Ohio State was a breakthrough for Franklin’s program. The Nittany Lions were 1814 in two-plus seasons going into that game against the second-ranked Buckeyes. Penn State is 22-3 since, including a 39-38 loss at Ohio State last season. MONTEZ HELPS COLORADO KEEP UCLA WINLESS >> Steven Montez was 22-of26 passing for 237 yards and a touchdown and ran for two more scores to lead host Colorado over UCLA 38-16. Montez rushed for 81 yards and Laviska Shenault Jr. caught a career-best 12 passes for 126 yards and a touchdown and ran for another score for Colorado (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12).
Joshua Kelley ran for 124 yards for UCLA (0-4, 0-1), which is looking for its first win in the Chip Kelly era. The Bruins have lost their first four games for the first time since 1971.
SUN DEVILS LOOK TO EXTEND BEAVERS’ LONG ROAD LOSING STREAK >> Arizona State coach Herm Edwards is pointing to Oregon State’s offense as a reason the Sun Devils cannot afford to overlook the Beavers tonight.
“There’s a team when you watch them on tape they play in a lot of high-scoring games, believe it or not,” Edwards said. “They have actually scored 128 points thus far in four games.”
It’s Oregon State’s defense that helps make Arizona State (2-2, 0-1 Pac-12) such a big favorite. The Beavers (1-3, 0-1 Pac12) are last in the conference in every significant defensive category. So it would be a big upset if Oregon State was to end its 21-game road losing streak in Tempe. BYU CONTINUES PAC-12 TOUR >> Chris Petersen got a firsthand look at BYU’s Tanner Mangum many years ago when the quarterback was a high school star in Idaho and Petersen was still in charge at Boise State.
When Petersen started looking at film in preparation for today’s game between No. 11 Washington (3-1) and No. 20 BYU (3-1), his memories of Mangum came flooding back, along with the realization of just how long it’s been since Petersen was trying to get Magnum to Boise State.
“I cannot believe he’s still playing college football,” Petersen said. “I’m like, ‘Huh?’ But he was an awesome kid back in high school even. Just really liked him.”
Mangum and the Cougars (3-1) have been one of the big surprises during the first month of the regular season. Taking down the Huskies (3-1) on the road and picking up a second road win over a team ranked in the top 12 would certainly vault BYU into an entirely different conversation. As it stands, the Cougars’ ranking this week is their highest since 2015 when they reached No. 19 after starting 2-0. Washington allowed a passing touchdown to Auburn on the first possession of the season. The Huskies have not allowed a passing TD since.