We are in Radio City Music Hall for the first round of tonight’s NFL Draft. Penn State standout Devon Still is hoping to hear his named called in the next few hours, and he is one of 26 players who was invited to the Big Apple to attend the first round. A defensive tackle, Still was the 2011 Big Ten Defensive player of the year and was also a first-team All-American in his senior season. Some analysts have Still as a first-round pick, some do not. Anyway, here are some of our predictions on what we think will go down tonight in New York.
Dan Norton
Will Still get picked tonight?: Yes
Where?: 25th to Denver.
Why?: Still has a lot of upside that complements his well-developed ability to stop the run. NFL teams would probably like to see him get a little faster, but it’s no reason to not take the All-American in the first round.
Tim Gilbert
Will Still get picked tonight?: Yes.
Where?: 25th to Denver.
Why?: Even though Still had a few subpar performances at the end of the season, he is still a first rounder in my opinion and I think he fits Denver’s needs on its defensive line.
Stephen Pianovich
Will Still get picked tonight?: Yes.
Where?: 21st to Cincinnati.
Why?: Still has all the credentials (Big Ten defensive player of the year, All-American, 17 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks last season) and if the draft was a few months ago, there was little question Still was going in the first round. Still did not have a great combine, but he has the versatility and talent that should attract a team to take him in the first 32 picks.
We were going to predict the top five picks of the draft, but we all had the same top five. The following is our consensus top five.
The late Joe Paterno is the recipient of the 2012 Dick Enberg Award presented by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), Penn State athletics announced today.
Paterno's son Jay will accept the award for the former head coach on June 25th, at CoSIDA's annual convention, in St. Louis, Mo.
The award, named after sports broadcaster Dick Enberg, recognizes those "whose actions and commitments have furthered the meaning of the Academic All-America Teams Program and/or the student-athlete while promoting the values of education and academics," the CoSIDA's website reads.
Paterno is now the fourth major college coach to win the award, joining former Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit and others, including as President Gerald Ford.
Paterno, who died of lung cancer on Jan. 22, is the winningest coach in the history of Divison I football, as he led the Nittany Lions to 409 wins from 1966-2011 before getting fired on Nov. 9 in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal. After the firing, his name was removed from the Big Ten Championship trophy.
"On behalf of everyone in the Paterno and Penn State family we are honored by Joe Paterno's selection as the 2012 Dick Enberg Award recipient," Jay Paterno said. “…It is an honor for my father to be associated with a great professional in Dick Enberg as well as the distinguished previous winners.”
After a 2011 season which featured no home games at night, the Nittany Lions will turn on the Beaver Stadium lights in 2012.
Penn State will host Ohio State for a 6 p.m. showdown on Oct. 27, and the game will be broadcast on either ESPN on ESPN2.
The Ohio State contest will be one of two prime time games the Lions are set to appear in for the upcoming season, the other being an Oct. 20 game at Iowa. The kickoff is set for 8 p.m. when Penn State travels to Iowa City and the game will air on the Big Ten Network.
The Lions downed both the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes last season, and both games were decided by less than 10 points.
Penn State only played in one night game last season — a 34-24 win on Oct. 22 over Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.
The last time the Lions hosted a night game was in the 2010 season when Penn State won a 41-31 shootout over Michigan on Oct. 30.
The two night games are the only games that have a kickoff time set so far for Penn State’s 2012 season. The other 10 regular season games for the Lions have still yet to be determined.
Penn State will be welcoming a brand new opponent to Beaver Stadium in 2014.
University of Massachusetts Athletic Director John McCutcheon announced that his Minutemen will visit the Nittany Lions on September 20, 2014, filling out Penn State’s non-conference schedule for that season. The two schools have never played before.
UMass, located in coach Bill O’Brien’s home state, is moving from the Football Championship Subdivison to the Football Bowl Subdivison for the 2012 season, joining the Mid-American Conference.
Penn State’s 2014 schedule will start with Temple on Aug. 30 and Akron on Sept. 6. Then, the Lions will play at Rutgers on Sept. 13 and return home to play UMass on Sept. 20 before Big Ten play begins.
This is the first opponent added to a future schedule of Penn State since O’Brien took the reins of the program on Jan. 7.
The addition of UMass means Penn State will open the next three seasons with four non-conference games. In 2012, they will begin with Ohio at home, Virginia on the road, and Navy and Temple at home. For 2013, Penn State will play Syracuse at New Meadowlands Stadium, then Eastern Michigan, Virginia and Kent State at home.
The scoring system in Saturday’s Blue-White Game was so confusing that even the scorekeepers were befuddled by it.
Though the official final score of the game was 77-65 in favor of the defense, The Daily Collegian discovered that the offense actually scored 67 points.
In the scrimmage, the offense was awarded six points for a touchdown, three points for a field goal, a point for a PAT, two points for a play of more than 15 yards (called an “explosive play”), and two points for gaining two consecutive first downs.
Upon further review, the Collegian found that the offense had 12 big plays (24 points), six consecutive first downs (12), four touchdowns (24), four PAT’s (4) and a field goal (3).
That adds up to 67 points, not 65.
“It’s certainly possible that we could have missed something,” team spokesman Jeff Nelson said.
Who knew Coach Bill O’Brien’s would be so complex that the scorekeepers couldn’t even keep up with it?
Redshirt senior linebacker James Van Fleet tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) at practice Wednesday, Blue White Illustrated reported today.
As is typical with most ACL tears, Van Fleet is likely out for the season.
Van Fleet had 10 tackles last season, including one for a loss. Anticipated to be a backup, Van Fleet's injury hurts Penn State's depth at linebacker.
Van Fleet has been a significant player in coverage on special teams. In 2010, he returned a blocked punt against Indiana for a touchdown.
Entering his final season, Van Fleet was in a position to make the biggest impact on defense in his collegiate career. He has always been known for his hard-nosed work ethic, walking onto the team as a freshman.
His loss puts pressure on potential starters to stay on the field and stay healthy. Reserves Michael Yancich and Mike Hull now have to pick up some slack.
Both have been praised by their teammates. Tailback Silas Redd said Hull is, pound-for-pound, the strongest player on the team.
This year's Blue-White Game will feature a new scoring system.
Opposed to years past, when Penn State's spring scrimmage was scored like a traditional football game, the 2012 version will award points for more than just touchdowns, field goals and point after touchdowns.
It will be defense vs. offense for the Nittany Lions on Saturday, with the defense in Penn State's blue uniforms and the offense wearing white. The quarterbacks will be wearing red, as they have in past Blue-White Games.
The new scoring system will still award six points for an offensive touchdown, three points for a field goal and one for an extra point.
But it will also give the offense other chances to fill up the scoreboard. Any play of 15 or more yards will result in Penn State's offense getting two points, and the offense can also get two points from getting two consecutive first downs.
The defense can score points in the following ways: scoring a touchdown (seven points), forcing a turnover that doesn't result in a touchdown (six points), recording a sack (four points), forcing a three-and-out (one point), and making a tackle for loss (two points).
The 2012 Blue-White game is scheduled to kickoff at 2 p.m. on Saturday and it will give fans their first opportunity to see new coach Bill O'Brien roam the sidelines at Beaver Stadium.
Offensive lineman Andrew Nelson (Hershey), like most of the other seven commits in coach Bill O’Brien Class of 2013, is bleeding blue and white already.
The 6-foot-5, 270-pound Nelson, who committed to Penn State on Sunday only one day after receving his offer, comes from a Penn State family. His father David graduated Penn State in 1984, and Andrew’s aunt and uncle also went to Penn State.
Here are some of the potent quotables from Nelson’s interview:
- He was initially recruited to Penn State last summer by defensive line coach Larry Johnson. For Nelson, Johnson made him feel at home at Penn State from the get-go. “I know him from camp last year where me and him had a great time,” Nelson said. “Me and him developed a relationship before I developed a relationship with any of the other coaches…he’s just such a great guy, and even though he’s not my position coach, just having him on the staff is something I couldn’t turn down.”
- Andrew’s given first name is actually David, like his father. David played a little football himself, but he was no Andrew. “Well, I played football growing up, but not past high school,” David chuckled. “Andy’s a big kid, but I was nowhere close.” Still, David is a big mentor for Andrew.
- Andrew didn’t want to get into anything Sandusky-related. “I’m going to get a great education and play football,” Nelson said. “All that political stuff is not stuff that I really have anything to deal with.”
- Nelson said he’s excited to be joining O’Brien’s already impressive recruiting class. “I’m very excited,” Nelson said. “Coach O’Brien had an amazing offense in New England...we kind of have, as a recruiting class, a goal to set, because Penn State’s defense has always been amazing, but now it’s our chance to turn the offense around and make it something really special.”
