Monday, September 04, 2006

Penn State Wins Opener

Posted by slider at 9/04/2006

Penn State Zips up opening week win on sloppy field.

Anothony Morelli looked very good and the Nittany Lions got the win, but there are some serious questions about the offensive line's run blocking. The ground game was all but non-existent. You can't win the Big 10 with out a running game. On the bright side, after the way Notre Dame played this week, being undefeated going into the Ohio State game is not so far fetched. Other bright spots for the Lions: Dan Connor's 13 tackles and 2 sacks made him Big 10 Defensive Player of the Week; Jordan Norwood picked up where he left off last season, and it appears he will give Deon Butler and Derrick Williams a run for their money as a "go-to" receiver for Morelli; The defense played very well as a whole. This was one of the biggest question marks coming into the season; Although run blocking was a problem, the offensive line was able to give Morelli enough time to do significant damage.

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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.