Penn State Football: Take A Breath, It All Starts Next Week

Somewhere in State College on Friday night a group of the in-town beat writers that cover Penn State will get together for one final moment before the offseason ends and Week 1 begins.

In truth there are harder jobs than covering football. We get paid to talk to athletes, get paid to travel to foreign lands be it Michigan or Ireland, all the while getting the best seat in the house and free food to go with it.

So yes, there are long hours and reasons that the job can stink at times, but I’m not going to tell you anything other than I’m doing what I love.

Even so, Friday marks the end of some moderate level of peace and quiet that the summer has been for those of us who cover Penn State football. No coaches caravan means little news and few updates, an interesting spring practice did little but reinforce Trace McSorley as the now (officially) starting quarterback. The sanctions are over and the court cases have largely lost their relevancy to the football program as it stands today.

Fittingly at 10PM Cal and Hawaii will start the college football season off with the best kind of football, late night football. And so we’ll gather around a TV and watch it, getting excited that this beautiful monster has finally returned. That the long hours are back and the unexpected finishes are here. It would be perfect if the game was a good one, but that’s probably asking too much. Nevertheless we will watch because it’s what we do, even if we’re going to have to pay for the food this time.

And hopefully you’ll come along with us for the ride. This season stands to be one of the more interesting in recent memory for the program. It’s hard to know what to expect, Penn State is in many ways poised to be college football in a nutshell, something fun and exciting, head scratchingly bad at times coupled with unexpected wins and unnecessary losses. Maybe that doesn’t tickle your fancy as someone hoping for a national title run every year, but as someone looking for good stories and a little bit of drama, that sounds pretty great to me.

So rest up, this weekend is the last between now and the end of the season when you can finally take a breath again without something on the line. Maybe that’s hyperbole, or maybe it’s just six months of waiting coming to the surface.

Or maybe it’s just going to be a lot of fun.