USC is a train wreck.

Penn State is a train wreck.

The schedule will bring these two teams together on Saturday in Happy Valley. It is the world famous whiteout game. Everyone but me and a few hundred other USC fans will be decked out in white.

I hope USC wins, but it doesn’t really matter. For the Trojans it is a lose-lose situation. If they win the game, that gives Lincoln Riley more juice —please, no juice box jokes— to continue as USC’s coach. That is a lose. If USC loses the game to a bad Iowa Sta…er, I mean Penn State team it is one more embarrassment for a team and fanbase getting used to such things.

There may be less excitement for this particular whiteout game than ever before.

Penn State is struggling to sell all of its tickets. Prices on ticket sites have been severely reduced to what most would consider a reasonable price.

 


USC fans who bought tickets via the university paid $300 for upper tier seats. Many USC fans have said they aren’t making this trip with that ticket price, plane ticket, having to stay as far away as Harrisburg just to find a slightly reasonable hotel room, travel to the game, and more ancillary costs.

Ticket prices plummeted 61% in the past week. It will not be a sellout.

Two struggling teams don’t help matters, a bad out of conference schedule for Penn State didn’t help build excitement, but truth be told, college football may be pricing itself out for the every day fan.

 


Sources tell me that even some Lettermen at Penn State are irritated with the direction of ticket prices at the school.

I will be at the game Saturday. I will be decked out in cardinal and gold.

A year ago I was super excited to attend this game and see the Trojans in person. Six months ago I was still excited for the game. This summer I was still ready to roll. Now, Lincoln Riley has drained all of my excitement. It will be fun to hang out with some of my oldest friends, but as for any expectations for my Trojans, there are few.

Ironically, my Penn State friends feel almost the exact same way. The only difference is they go rid of the coach they were sick of, while USC is stuck with their own personal James Franklin.

Franklin lost, which made Penn State fans giddy, except he lost to Pitt so it was somewhat tempered giddiness. 

I diagnosed USC’s issues under Lincoln Riley two weeks ago in this space. Nothing changed since that point. A loss to Oregon in a statement game atmosphere, with the usual suspect defense not being able to get off the field. This past Saturday the Trojans narrowly averted a disastrous loss to a bad Washington team with a late game red zone stop. Another issue that has been brewing reared its ugly head. Heisman hopeful quarterback Jayden Maiava looked awful. Awful enough that Maiava sprinted off the field at the end of the game to avoid postgame interviews. It was bizarre behavior.

Needless to say, a loss to Penn State wouldn’t make most Trojan fans blink an eye. It might, in a twisted way, make them happy to know another nail in Lincoln Riley’s coffin would be hammered home.

Penn State fans come into the game with their own building angst.

Two straight bad losses has the Matt Campbell era off to a rocky start. Blowing a 17 point lead to a mediocre Wisconsin team at home and getting bludgeoned by Northwestern —a much improved Northwestern— doesn’t endear you to Nittany Nation.

There are a few things that have led to this fate.

First, blowhard Penn State AD Pat Kraft led a cluster of a coaching search. Firing James Franklin early in the season was supposed to give Kraft the jump on prospective hires. Instead they went through most of Kraft’s Rolodex, finally landing on Kilani Sitake of BYU. Kraft got coach blocked by the Crumbl Cookie CEO, and quickly pivoted to the only coach left he had not spoken to. Matt Campbell quickly accepted the job.

Campbell was hired far too late to salvage much of a recruiting class, so instead he brought a huge swath of his Iowa State roster with him to Happy Valley via the transfer portal.

An uber easy 2026 schedule had Penn State fans salivating at the thought of squeezing into the playoffs in Campbell’s first year. Campbell has embraced the Paterno culture, built years ago by the legendary coach. Thus, fans welcomed Campbell with open arms. Now five games into his first season those arms aren’t so open.

I, too, thought Penn State had a chance to rip through their schedule, and if you told me back in August that Washington and Michigan would be average at best teams and USC would be a sinking ship, I would have put a dollar or two on Penn State making the playoffs.

The reality is we were all fools. The players Campbell brought from Iowa State weren’t all that good. That includes overrated Rocco Becht. These are the same guys that lost 4 games in the Big 12 a year ago and eked a couple close ones out by the skin of their teeth. Transferring that to the Big Ten wasn’t going to work very well. Remember, Campbell had no choice after hiring search guru Kraft hired him as his eighteenth choice.

I still think Campbell is a good coach. I maintain, as I have from the day he was hired, the biggest question with Campbell is whether he can recruit the elite type of players required at a school like Penn State in a conference like the Big Ten. That question won’t be answered immediately.

The reason I still favor Penn State in this game is simple. It is far more likely that Matt Campbell coaches up his players this week to start addressing their weaknesses than it is for Lincoln Riley to suddenly —after five long years— have his team prepared to play a Big Ten game on the road. Add in that USC is flying three time zones and Penn State defensive coordinator, D’Anton Lynn, went up against Riley’s offense in practice for the past two years. 

Penn State is favored in Vegas at the time of this typing. Nittany Lions fans are baffled as to why that is the case. Read the above paragraph and you will have your answer.

A USC loss to this particular Penn State team, devoid of much talent and while USC is littered with 4 and 5 star players, could and should be a death knell for Lincoln Riley.

It almost makes me want to wear blue and white.

As it were, I would rather sit in Beaver Stadium naked and unaware of how uncomfortable I am making those seated nearby feel. So, as Trojan fans always do through really, really thick and really, really thin, Fight On.

Tweet of the Week

We should all be on the same drugs as PJ Fleck. Boat rowing on a high right now.

 



The Weekly Shiny Penny

AB is a little like old school Charlie Sheen. Still winning, and still shiny.

 


A Penny For My Final Thoughts…

The Pittsburgh Steelers used to be the gold star standard of NFL franchises. Now they look like a poorly run 7-11.

The Joey Porter, Jr escapade may finally be the thing that breaks the dam. It was a dam with many cracks already. Porter should have been treated like the young star he is, especially by a team that has a scant amount of young talent. The team did sign three young players to new contracts, all of them second tier guys. I love Darnell Washington, Nick Herbig, and Keanu Benton. They all are important players on this team. But they aren’t nearly as important as a shutdown corner like Porter.

Porter handled the situation poorly. He got the immature gene from his daddy.

Who cares?

Players often handle contract standoffs poorly. Players feel disrespected easily. The team is allegedly in control of the situation, and in this case the Steelers could have avoided all of this. Put there money where their mouth is. We are contenders, we are contenders, we are contenders, blah, blah, blah. Then stonewall your most important defender.

Art Rooney II and to a lesser extent his lackey GM Omar Khan are bringing this franchise to its knees. The Steelers are not contenders. They were never going to be contenders. Rebuilds happen quick in the NFL, if you are willing to acknowledge the need for rebuilding. That has yet to happen with Steelers ownership. One thing is for sure, Joey Porter should have been a cornerstone of that rebuild.

Mike McCarthy acknowledged yesterday that there is some fracturing in the locker room.

The Steelers dam is bursting, and it is likely to get ugly.

Just my two cents…