Monday, September 18, 2006

Lions Freeze Penguins


As I said at the beginning of the week, you never lookas good in these games as you want to. Penn State got the win and had the opportunity to play some young players in perparation for next week's Big Ten opener with #1 Ohio State. However, their overall performance left a lot to be desired. In particular, Anthony Morelli looked quite pedestrian after two big games in his first two starts.

Tony Hunt led the way with 143 yards rushing on 18 carries and 1 TD. True freshman, A.J. Wallace, added a score on a 76-yard reverse. A lot of guys got in on defense, but Paul Posluszny finished with 8 tackles to lead the Nittany Lions. Ed Johnson picked up 2 sacks, and Anthony Scirrotto and Lydell Sargeant each picked off a pass.

No comments:

I'm often asked, “What the heck is a NITTANY Lion? Why not just the Lions? What are you Penn State fans trying to pull?” Well, with a little help from the Official Penn State Football Site I offer the following:

Penn State's athletic symbol, chosen by the student body in 1906, is the mountain lion which once roamed central Pennsylvania. H.D. “Joe” Mason, a member of the Class of 1907, conducted a one-man campaign to choose a school mascot after seeing the Princeton tiger on a trip with the Penn State baseball team to that New Jersey campus. A student publication sponsored the campaign to select a mascot and Penn State is believed to be the first college to adopt the lion as a mascot.

Since Penn State is located in the Nittany Valley at the foot of Mount Nittany, the lion was designated as a Nittany Lion. In regional folklore, Nittany (or Nita-Nee) was a valorous Indian princess in whose honor the Great Spirit caused Mount Nittany to be formed. A later namesake, daughter of chief O-Ko-Cho, who lived near the mouth of Penn's Creek, fell in love with Malachi Boyer, a trader. The tearful maiden and her lost lover became legend and her name was given to the stately mountain.

And no, Penn State didn't always have those plain blue and white uniforms. The school's original colors were dark pink and black. However in 1890, as a result of the pink portions of school uniforms fading to white from exposure to the elements, the black was changed to blue and the rest is history.