/Sings in Carrie Underwood voice: ‘I’ve been waiting all day for a Saturday noon kick between two bad football teams…’
It’s here: Penn State and Michigan in a format that you’ve never quite seen it before. Two not very good teams trying to be slightly less bad in front of nobody for the sake of pride and other things like retention bonuses and scholarships. This game usually means a lot more than it does this weekend, but wins are wins and losses are losses.
So here are five things to watch as Penn State and Michigan take the field at noon this Saturday.
1. Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
You can pick which of the original trilogy you want to watch but may as well start at the beginning. You might able to fit in two movies if you’re efficient with your viewing. Return Of The King is really quite excellent as well if you want to cheat and skip to the ending. To be perfectly honest Mordor has a better offense than both of these teams.
Something about watching Sam and Frodo squeak through the hordes of orcs and trolls is a bit like watching a wheel route slice through coverage and it’s really quite pleasing. Then there are the Ents, large slow moving trees that beat things with brute strength and institutional wisdom, which basically makes them Wisconsin.
Who doesn’t like an afternoon spent watching the power of good overcoming evil?
2. Quarterbacks
Back to football, and checks notes, yes absolutely nothing has changed between these two teams. Both are trying to figure out their quarterback situation and both are having a mixed bag of luck in that department. For Penn State it’s a hybrid tossup between the guy who keeps throwing the ball to the other team and the guy who runs so much he’s only kind of a quarterback. Sean Clifford (the first of the two) is more likely to be the primary threat here, but time will tell how long that lasts before the other guy (Will Levis) gives it a go for a series or two, or three.
Michigan isn’t far behind but Cade McNamara seems to be the guy now, maybe.
3. The Michigan Factor
You could make a roundabout argument that Penn State winning this game, and none of its other three would be the most important non-Ohio State win it could get. Jim Harbaugh has to be on the hot seat (right?) and adding another loss to his resume and potentially sending another Big Ten East rival into a further tailspin couldn’t hurt the cause. Of course Penn State has to show up and play well, but the motivation is there both in a general sense and in the sense of playing a rival of sorts. Neither program might think of the other as its primary nemesis, but neither is going to deny the value of winning this game. Somewhat obvious -winning is good.
4. New Guys
Okay so Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes aren’t ‘new’ but they’re about to be the only running backs Penn State has if Devyn Ford can’t go. Obviously this isn’t technically true, but it may as well be. With injuries popping up across the board, keep an eye out for some new faces finally getting their shot. Sometimes young guys, or older vets with less playing time aren’t ‘better’ than their starting counterparts, but they might bring a spark to the equation with a new sense of purpose that comes with an increased role. Do new faces bring a new energy? Can Brenton Strange help Penn State bounce back at tight end?
5. Cool Runnings
I love this movie. It’s honestly one of the more underrated sports movies out there. A Jamaican bobsled team overcoming the odds to compete in the Olympics is the kind of feel-good thing we need to be watching as the world slowly burns and dies. Safe to say we could all kiss the lucky egg.
Nothing says good time quite like the scrappy underdog sticking it to the man at very high speeds on an icy death track. Penn State and Michigan could both use a fair dose of that ‘I feel pride, I feel power’ speech.
