Feel a little strange this week?  Weakness?  Headache?  You may even have symptoms of depression, anxiety, or craving according to Wikipedia's "withdrawal" article.  You're not alone: it's happens to most of us in the days following the first weekend without football since the beginning of August.  And no, the Nordic Combine and Women's Hockey are not going to scratch that itch.

There's good news and there's bad news.  The bad is that you still have about a month until the first days of spring practice in the Big Ten.  For Penn State fans like myself, you have to wait until March 26.  The good news?  For those of you interested in Penn State, I think I can help ease the pain by offering another opportunity to wildly reasonably speculate on our team's success next year on the defensive side of the ball.

My approach here is to to look at things in the macro, not contingent upon any hypothetical depth chart and without focusing on things like "individual players."  We'll have all spring and summer to examine starting lineups and specific team matchups.  For now, we'll take a broad, bird's eye view of Penn State's recent defensive performances and see how they may project into success on the field in 2010.

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Congratulations to the Penn State women's volleyball team, which won its third consecutive NCAA Championship in dramatic fashion yesterday.  After dropping the first two sets to Texas, the Lions rallied and won three straight sets and their third straight crown.

Penn State has now won 102 consecutive matches.  That's the record in the sport.  Only the University of Miami's tennis program, which won 137 straight matches in from 1957-64, holds a longer winning streak in any NCAA sport.

Buoyed by my DVR and the BTN, I consumed more Big Ten football this year than ever before. I watched almost every single Indiana game (yeah..I know) and I even caught those random non-comf's throughout the year. One team almost always slipped out of my dedicated football viewing schedule however -

Penn State

I rarely watched even one half of any given Nittany Lions contest. Reasons for my lax viewing abound beyond my non-PSU fandom...

Don't forget to go back and submit your Bowl Prediction sheet for another chance to win a prize. For winning the regular season OPC, Seattle Hawkeye won...a hat. You may win...something cooler. Hardest bowls to pick so far are Stanford-Oklahoma and PSU-LSU.

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As we begin preparing for the year in which the Big Ten shocks the college football world by winning five of its seven bowls, let's learn about the opponents.  Oh sure, we could turn to the fans of our opponents and ask them questions about their beloved cats, birds, and bees.  But this site was founded upon the idea of rivals.  That's why we're talking with our opponents' rivals. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

As we look at the Capital One Bowl, Juco All-American (with an assist from The Ghost of Jay Cutler) of the outstanding Ole Miss blog Red Cup Rebellion was kind enough to answer these five questions about the hated LSU Tigers.

1.  LSU gets plaudits and constant media love for having the best defensive linemen year in, year out. How did the Ole Miss offense attack the front four of LSU?

Honestly, this question may not be reasonable this season. Sure, LSU still has good defensive limen. DE Rahim Alem and DT Drake Nevis are both very talented. However, when the AP voted for the SEC first and second team defensive lines, neither of them appeared on the list.  What that means is that, in the eyes of the SEC media, LSU doesn't have a single defensive lineman who ranks in the top 11 in the conference. That's unheard of in Baton Rouge.

Still, as I mentioned above, Rahim Alem and Drake Nevis are quite good at what they do. Alem is a pass rusher who hasn't had a great year but is still ferocious off the line. Nevis is a quick defensive tackle who can collapse the pocket or disrupt the run. What Ole Miss did to defeat them was to run misdirections right at Alem, who struggles against the run, and run as far away from Drake Nevis as we could. It helped to have Dexter McCluster running the ball. Perhaps Penn State could find a quarkback of their own before the bowl game.

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Things that make non-BCS games interesting, interesting meaning "this game will draw my attention even though I have a family and the stakes aren't particularly high":

- Gambling

- Huge fan bases that travel well

- Storied programs for cool bowl flashbacks and highlights

- NFL-caliber players on either side of the ball

- Intriguing offensive/defensive match-ups

Assuming that none of you gamble, I would argue that only a handful of non-BCS bowls really stick out to me using this or any other criteria. Stanford-Oklahoma (who wants to watch a white person succeed from the running back position? ME - oh and millions others)...Miami (FL) v. Wisky (Fast v Slow?)...Virginia Tech-Tenn (maybe in 1999-2000)...OSU-BYU (Lots of crisply thrown short passes)...and of course Penn State-LSU in the Cap One. When pressed, I put my slight Big Ten homerism to the side and think that it's either Stan-OK or PSU.

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Here's my confession: I started working on a preview article in which I was writing why and how Iowa would upset Penn State.  Then, I got nervous.  I worked on a similar article last Fall and killed it before publishing.  Both times I didn't want to jinx anything.  I'm glad that I didn't.

I wrote a pretty strong column this summer that stated that Penn State wasn't a Top 15 team and that they would end up with an 8-4 record.  I held to that prediction when I wrapped up the summer with the Penn St. Nittany Lions Closing Argument.  At this point, it seems very appropriate to look at where I was right and where I was wrong in those projections.

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(Editor's Note: Never ones to welch, we present for your approval the musings of a real winner.  Having soundly defeated us as our own predictions play this fan has earned the right to hijack The Rivalry, Esq. and recast the front page for her own purposes: in 500 words or less.  Want to be our next guest contributor?  Stay tuned for Week 3 of the Obligatory Predictions Competition.)

IS PENN STATE REALLY A TOP 5 TEAM?

By PATERNOSGRANDDAUGHTER

Week 1 Obligatory Predictions Winner and Special Guest Contributor to The Rivalry, Esq.

Living in Columbus, Ohio, and being a dance teacher who teaches on Saturday mornings and afternoons, I haven't had a chance to actually see Penn State play this season, other than in the highlights on SportsCenter. And let's be honest, when their first two match-ups have been against Akron and Syracuse, ESPN isn't going to devote a lot of time to those highlights, are they?

So all I've had to go on these past two weeks are stat boxes and analysis from my favorite Penn State blog, Black Shoe Diaries. As an avid Penn State fan, the first few weeks of the season always frustrate me because I don't know what the team really looks like.

Evan Royster says, "It's nothing a DVR box can't fix."

Here's a generic assessment from the information I have available to me:

The O-Line needs to buckle down and get tough. Evan Royster is a freak of nature and when I see that his stats against Syracuse were 12 carriers for 41 yards, that makes me very upset. This guy had over 1200 yards last season. There's no excuse for such things. The line has got to make some holes so Royster can get the ball moving. These stats may have got us the W's against Akron and Syracuse, but that's not going to fly in Big Ten play.

The passing game is looking good. Daryll Clark has a completion percentage of 69 percent, which is pretty decent. He has already racked up close to 600 yards in the air. Graham Zug and Derek Moye have slipped into the hugely empty shoes of Deon Butler, Derrick Williams and Jordan Norwood and they both seem to be doing just fine. All the pre-season worries were for not- although I wasn't worried. But like I said, passing alone won't get it done once we hit Big Ten play.

The D is very solid and Linebacker U continues to remain intact. Can't really argue with 2 touchdowns allowed in two games. I always prefer a shutout, but I'm pretty greedy. This team has faced mostly rushing teams, though, so they're going to be tested when they meet the pass. Still, as long as these guys keep holding strong, they could prove to be the saving grace later on down the road.

Here's Hilary's take on NW's near death experience at Ryan Field against Eastern Michigan.

Here's my take on the CMU upset in East Lansing.

The recap of the Forcier Experience in Ann Arbor

Law Buck comes out of his cave, haggard and lonely, to discuss the death of Tressellball against USC.

Summary of the wild Purdue-Oregon game.

I love the Nittany Lions with all my heart. But can someone tell me who is looking at this squad and seeing the number 5 team in the nation? Don't get me wrong, they have played two solid games, but hasn't the whole world been yelling about their strength of schedule this off-season? Is it just the result of upper teams losing or am I missing something?

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little apprehensive as we look towards conference play. I'm certainly not upset by the two victories we've notched, but I definitely see room for improvement if we want to contend for the conference title this season.

But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal – there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. 

-Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

We, The Rivalry, Esq. place before this college football court, the 2009 season of the Penn St. Nittany Lions.  Can this team, with the fewest returning starters in the Big Ten see the success that brought them a Big Ten title last year?  I say to you, ladies and gentlemen of the college football jury, ENOUGH!  Let this court give them the fair assessment that they deserve.

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