There’s been a lot of Penn State news in the past week or so.
In this week’s edition of Morelli OnLion, we’ll take a look at two former Penn Staters who will be lining up in Super Bowl XLII, find out a little bit about the football team’s latest verbal and talk a little hoops.
There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s roll!
Jay Alford will play in Super Bowl XLII as a New York Giant.
(Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated)
Super Stars
When Super Bowl XLII kicks off on Feb. 3, there will be a couple of former Penn Staters playing in the game, which is being staged in Glendale, Ariz.
The players are from completely different eras. First, there’s tight end Kyle Brady, who is in the twilight of his career. Brady, of course, was a key member of the 1994 squad that went 12-0 and won the Rose Bowl. After being drafted by the New York Jets, Brady moved on to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Now, he’s a New England Patriot.
And although some call them cheaters (count me among them), the Pats are undefeated at 18-0 and will face the upstart New York Giants in the battle for the Lombardi Trophy.
Brady talked at length about playing for the undefeated Pats.
“So far, it’s been a great experience,” Brady said. “Coming up here, I knew that they had a solid team and were only a half away from going to the Super Bowl. They had so much success in the past and I knew this team was going in the right direction.”
But did he ever expect this type of success? Uh, no.
“I didn’t really imagine that it would go this well to this point. Things have been going well and we’ve been performing at a high level every week. We’re good enough to be undefeated, which is a good position to be in but by no means have we been flawless. All of our goals remain ahead of us but so far, the hard work has been paying off,” Brady said.
On the other side of the football, the Giants have rookie Jay Alford, who was drafted out of Penn State last spring. Alford is the long snapper for the New York football Giants and was nearly the goat following a bad snap on Sunday night in the NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field.
However, Alford got a chance to redeem himself and did just that with a perfect snap in overtime. A 47-yard field goal by kicker Lawrence Tynes propelled Alford and the Giants to the Super Bowl.
Can the Giants beat the Pats? Probably not. But the guess here is that much of America will be pulling for the upset.
Verbal No. 13
The Penn State football team landed its 13th verbal when wide receiver A.J. Price gave the Nittany Lions a commitment on Sunday afternoon.
Price is a two-star wideout, according to rivals.com.
Price is from Reston, Va., where he played at South Lakes High School.
He stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 175 pounds. He got an offer from Penn State after catching 32 balls for 816 yards during his senior season.
He also had 11 touchdowns.
He is the 13th member of Penn State’s Class of 2008.
Now, if the Nittany Lions can just land Terrelle Pryor.
Geary Claxton’s season ended with a torn ACL.
(Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated).
Claxton Out
The Penn State men’s basketball team suffered a huge loss this week when senior Geary Claxton tore his ACL in an 80-55 loss to the Wisconsin Badgers.
Claxton was the heart and soul of the Nittany Lions, who began the season with much promise, going 10-4 overall and 2-0 in the conference. The Nittany Lions lost a heartbreaker to Minnesota before getting clobbered by the Badgers and Indiana Hoosiers.
Now, the Lions (10-7, 2-3) must try to rebound without its best player. That means players like Jamelle Cornely, Stanley Pringle, Talor Battle and Danny Morrissey will have to step up.
It certainly won’t be easy.
Penn State has now dropped three straight and will face Purdue on Wednesday at the Bryce Jordan Center.
This was believed to coach Ed DeChellis’ best team in the five seasons that he’s been at Penn State. Now, we’ll find out how well DeChellis and his team can respond to adversity.
Back on Track
Coming off two consecutive losses for the first time all season, the Penn State women’s basketball team faced the prospect of losing their third straight and falling toward the bottom of the Big Ten standings.
It’s still early in conference play, but Sunday’s game against Michigan was about as close to a must-win as a team gets in January.
The Lady Lions found themselves tied with the Wolverines, 33-33, at the end of the first 20 minutes. However, the Lady Lions played perhaps their best half of basketball since the win over Michigan State at East Lansing a few weeks back for a 68-57 win over the Wolverines at the Bryce Jordan Center.
“It was big for us to keep our confidence throughout conference play,”
said Penn State coach Coquese Washington. “Every game is gonna be tough, every game is gonna be like this. It’s going to come down to one team putting together a string during the game — an 8-0 run, a 10-0, that could be the difference. We got one in the second half and we were able to hold onto it.”
The run that Washington spoke of wasn’t 8-0 or 10-0, but actually 10-2. With the Lady Lions (13-6 overall, 4-3 Big Ten) clinging to a 53-50 lead, they started nailing every shot they took. When the dust settled, Penn State held a commanding 63-52 with time quickly winding down.
Michigan (11-6, 4-3) has lived by the three-pointer this season. On Sunday, they died by it.
The Wolverines canned just 5-of-13 from three-point land and had a hard time getting good looks from beyond the arc. Credit Penn State’s tough defense, which looks like it has come leaps and bounds since Thursday’s debacle in which Purdue put up 79 points.
“We did a great job of guarding them. We played some man-to-man.
Basically, we said, ‘when they catch it, be able to touch it.’ If they could do that, (Michigan) probably wasn’t going to shoot it,”
Washington said.
Michigan first-year coach Kevin Borseth, who has turned the Wolverines around just 17 games into his tenure, said that the Lady Lion defense limited the three-point attempts. There were, however, lay-ups to be had.
His squad just couldn’t hit them.
“We had lay-ups. We must’ve had 25 lay-ups and we missed them,”
Borseth said. “We wanted to take threes, but we had lay-ups. In a couple years, we’re going to make every lay-up they give us.”
The Lady Lions are back on the road this week, traveling to Wisconsin (Jan. 24) and Ohio State (Jan. 28).
In addition writing for gantnews.com, Chris Morelli is the editor of Blue White Illustrated, a magazine devoted to Penn State sports. He is also a regular on “Front and Center,” which airs on ESPN Radio in Altoona and State College. E-mail him at morellionlion@gmail.com.