Blue White Illustrated

Four-game winning streak distances Penn State from listless debut H MAKING THE GRADE | ow quickly a narrative can change. Just a few months ago, Penn State was being urged by some in the national media to give up on football, at least for a while. Said NBC's Bob Costas in July, "The pow- ers that be at Penn State should have the good graces to suspend the foot- ball program." But a few months later, some of those very same commentators were softening their views. Costas was one of them, telling ESPN Radio on Oct. 10 that in the upcoming perjury trials of Tim Curley and Gary Schultz "an al- ternative version of events will be pre- sented. Then the public will have to judge how credible [Louis] Freeh's conclusions were." The narrative on the football field has changed, as well. After suffering a season- opening upset loss to Ohio and booting away a potential victory at Virginia, the Nit- tany Lions seemed headed for the dis- mal year that so many were expecting in the aftermath of their troubled off- season. But going into their bye week, they were one of the hottest teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, having won four in a row. ESPN's Kirk Herb- streit went so far as to call Bill O'Brien the unofficial midseason na- tional coach of the year. Blue White Illustrated has come REPORT CARD MIDSEASON COACH OF THE YEAR? ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit said Bill O'Brien is the leading candidate for national coach of the year at the halfway point of the season. John Beale around on this team, too. The Lions' first two performances had us won- dering whether we'd been wildly opti- mistic in predicting anywhere from nine to seven victories this season. Would Penn State win any of its eight conference games? All of a sudden, it seemed like an open question. But the four-game winning streak

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