TSN attacks the Nits.

[The Ancient Enemy]

"The Sporting News Blog" has PSU as the 3rd most likely "flameout" of teams ranked in the preseason top 15.

They say:

"3. Penn State. QB and RB return, but all three wide receivers are gone and Penn State has had a horrible streak of offensive skill position recruiting; the one big recruit they did reel in threatened someone with a machete and is no longer on the team. Also, Penn State has the least experienced offensive line in the Big Ten. It's not like the Big Ten is great this year, but I'd be leery of those things in combination with Jay Paterno, last year be damned."

Well, here we go...

1. You are doing 2 things with the remark about skill-position recruiting: 1) Giving all your faith to a site run for entertainment purposes, and 2) dismissing the opinions of a coaching staff who has consistently made lower-ranked recruits into great players. In addition, Norwood and Butler graduated as 2 of the most productive WR's in the history of the university. Neither were highly regarded. Norwood was a 0-star CB.

2. "One big recruit" at an offensive skill position was supposedly Chris Bell. Machete? Really? A machete, really?

3. The shot at Jay. Look, I am on the fence with Jay as much as everyone else is. But Jay Paterno is one of the major reasons why PSU has rebounded in recruiting and especially rebounded on the field. He invented this offense, and they won the conference 2 of the past 4 years. He also is the reason Robinson was so good, and turned Clark from a 2-star QB to all-conference. With Morelli... Jay has made it known... subtlely... that the offense had to be dumbed-down for him. Even still, they won 19 games with him as a starter in 2 seasons. I am definitely leery of Jay taking over the OC duties in a year or so (and probably the eventual HC duties) but c'mon now... the guy HAS done a decent job, in retrospect.

As far as a"flameout", I dont think they will, if by nothing than grace of scheduling alone.