Blue White Illustrated

T H E M O N T H I N . . . I think Penn State is in the process of becoming Indiana, at least for this season. Same sort of offense; same sort of defense. Who would have believed that even last year? Get your mind around it, Penn State fans. It will take some getting used to. But, like it or not, modern college football has finally arrived at this port. A little late, but with emphasis. DAVID JONES PENNLIVE.COM A lot of people are outraged by the idea of honoring Paterno in any way. I am not. It depends on what you believe, right? If you believe Paterno intentionally harbored the evil monster that was Jerry Sandusky in order to protect his foot- ball program, you're going to be disgusted by this latest news. I get that. I re- spect your opinion. But if you don't believe it, you have no problem with recognizing a significant milestone for a man who did so much good for Penn State in ways that went far beyond football. I am in that group. I hope you re- spect my opinion. RON COOK PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE [This year's game] was the highest-scoring Penn State-Pittsburgh game in the 97-game series and the most points scored by the Lions in a loss in their history. Welcome to the new normal at Penn State. "We scored when we wanted to," [DaeSean] Hamilton said. "No one can stop us unless we stop ourselves. There's really nothing anybody can do to beat us. We just have to go out and execute from beginning to end." RICH SCARCELLA READING EAGLE Saquon is one of my great friends and he is a butt-kicker. He never gives up, and I just knew he was going to come back. RYAN BATES on Saquon Barkley's return to action after an early injury vs. Temple This is a di8erent Mike than I saw the last two years just kind of sitting on the bench and being a backup. ... He's con7dent, he's leading, he's having a great year and it's propelling him. TRACE McSORLEY on Mike Gesicki's improvement O P I N I O N S Q U O T E S ! excited for [James] Franklin and just to see where he's going to take the pro- gram. "He's had some powerful recruiting classes. Just to see the direction of where he's taking the thing right now, I know that he's a great coach, so I'm ex- cited about that." Williams was part of two Big Ten championship teams at Penn State, as the Lions won the title when he was a freshman in 2005 and again when he was a senior in '08. He finished his ca- reer with 161 catches for 1,743 yards, ranking fourth in school history in the former category and 12th in the latter. A talented return specialist, he ranks sixth in school history with 4,156 all-purpose yards. As was the case in '05, this year's Nit- tany Lions went into the season with- out a lot of hype. But despite having a first-year starter at quarterback, Williams said he believes the Lions will have an opportunity to pull off some big wins – the kind that he helped de- liver when he was teaming up with quarterbacks Michael Robinson and Daryll Clark. "I think that this team can be scary," he said. "I don't think that they're get- ting a lot of credit right now, especially with a new quarterback. But what I can say from my experience on having a triple-threat offense and triple-threat people [is that] it's dangerous at the col- lege level. To have a mobile quarterback, it's something that can give you an extra edge. "I think that's something that will be different with the offense. I think it's going to be a faster pace than what we were used to seeing. When things break down, we still kind of have our options, and that can be scary in a good way for our fans. "When I was at Penn State, we had dual-threat quarterbacks and then we also had a pocket passer. Both were great, but with a dual-threat quarter- back, it just gives you that extra option when it all breaks down, he can take it eighty-eight and out the gate. You never know." ■

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