Gameday Skull Session: Get Dumped Then, Penn State

By Kevin Harrish on October 30, 2021 at 7:59 am
James Franklin shows us the moon in today's skull session.
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I have never been less threatened by Penn State.

It's no real secret that the Nittany Lions usually play Ohio State close than any team in the Big Ten, but I still try not to get too worked up about it.

I mean, as close as these games often are, Penn State has only won this matchup once in the last decade and it was because of a fluke blocked field goal and at the end of the season the College Football Playoff Committee decided Ohio State was "unequivocally better" anyway.

The reality is, playing Penn State usually requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief. It's like playing a video game you know you're going to win or watching Star Wars when you know damn well Luke's going to destroy the Death Star in the nick of time again. The suspense is undeniably there, but the threat isn't.

Unfortunately, I can't even do that this year because Penn State is the hottest of messes. The Nittany Lions are coming off of two losses, but not the motivating kind. No, they've been the kind of losses where your team looks like complete dogshit and you aren't sure if you even want to watch the next game. They managed just 2.1 yards per carry on offense while giving up 360 yards on the ground to Illinois, then lost in overtime because they couldn't score a two-point conversion on SEVEN TRIES. That kind of bad. Think 2011 Ohio State but without much upside about the future, either.

And then there's James Franklin, who is so distracted by USC coaching rumors that he referred to Ohio State as "Illinois" multiple times in a press conference and mentioned playing in "The Big House" on Saturday night, all while ironically trying to prove how locked in he was on the game at hand. But don't worry, he supposedly made it all better with a long-ass response that still answered no questions and still included phrases like "there's a lot of moving parts."

Meanwhile, Ohio State is looking like a damn death machine performing at its absolute best. The Buckeyes have by far the best offense in college football by pretty much every metric you can find, a scoring defense that's up to No. 18 in the country, and an average margin of victory of almost 47 points the past two games.

And it's not like Ohio State is going to be sleepwalking into this one. The Buckeyes are playing like they've got something to prove, have had this game circled all year, are hosting a billion recruits and are rolling out their fresh new Red October unis in a Halloween "Scarlet Out" atmosphere that looks almost surreal.

Even at Penn State's best, Ohio State annihilates them in this game. Toss in all the other stuff and the fact that the Buckeyes seem to earnestly believe this is a big game, and this is going to be unsafe for work. Put the kids to bed so they don't have to witness this; it's going to be ugly.

Side note: I didn't even have to do any sort of creative photoshop for today's Skull Session header because it turns out James Franklin literally showed his ass at a press conference one time, and there's no artificial reality I can create that's more hilarious than that.

Word of the Day: Annihilate.

 TODAY'S MENU. I'm not going to lie to you and say today is the best slate of college football this season, but there's certainly going to be quite a bit to hold you over until the main course.

Matchup Time (ET) TV/Mobile
#2 Cincinnati at Tulane 12:00pm ESPN2
Indiana at Maryland 12:00pm BTN
Texas State at Louisiana 12:00pm ESPNU
Bowling Green at Buffalo 12:00pm CBSSN
UCF at Temple 12:00pm ESPN+
Texas at #16 Baylor 12:00pm ABC
#9 Iowa at Wisconsin 12:00pm ESPN
#6 Michigan at #8 Michigan State 12:00pm FOX
Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech 12:00pm RSN/ESPN3
Miami (FL) at #17 Pitt 12:00pm ACCN
UMass at Liberty 12:00pm ESPN3
Rutgers at Illinois 12:00pm BTN
North Texas at Rice 2:00pm ESPN3
#22 Iowa State at West Virginia 2:00pm ESPN+
Hawaii at Utah State 3:00pm Spectrum PPV
Missouri at Vanderbilt 3:00pm SECN
Washington State at Arizona State 3:00pm FS1
Texas Tech at #4 Oklahoma 3:30pm ABC
TCU at Kansas State 3:30pm ESPNU
Purdue at Nebraska 3:30pm ESPN2
Southern Miss at Middle Tennessee 3:30pm ESPN+
Florida State at Clemson 3:30pm ESPN
ULM at Appalachian State 3:30pm ESPN+
Colorado at #7 Oregon 3:30pm FOX
Minnesota at Northwestern 3:30pm BTN
FIU at Marshall 3:30pm Stadium
Boston College at Syracuse 3:30pm RSN/ESPN3
Louisiana Tech at Old Dominion 3:30pm CBSSN
#1 Georgia vs. Florida (in Jacksonville, FL) 3:30pm CBS
Charlotte at WKU 4:00pm ESPN+
Duke at #13 Wake Forest 4:00pm ACCN
Wyoming at San Jose State 4:00pm FS2
Arkansas State at South Alabama 5:00pm ESPN+
UTEP at Florida Atlantic 6:00pm ESPN+
Georgia State at Georgia Southern 6:00pm ESPN+
Oregon State at California 7:00pm P12N
Boise State at Colorado State 7:00pm CBSSN
#12 Kentucky at Mississippi State 7:00pm SECN
#10 Ole Miss at #18 Auburn 7:00pm ESPN
Kansas at #15 Oklahoma State 7:00pm FS1
#19 SMU at Houston 7:00pm ESPN2
Arizona at USC 7:00pm ESPNU
Louisville at NC State 7:30pm ACCN
North Carolina at #11 Notre Dame 7:30pm NBC
#20 Penn State at #5 Ohio State 7:30pm ABC
UCLA at Utah 10:00pm ESPN
Virginia at #25 BYU 10:15pm ESPN2
Fresno State at #21 San Diego State 10:30pm CBSSN
Washington at Stanford 10:30pm FS1

 PERFECTION. Y'all remember that one time J.T. Barrett went full god mode down the stretch against Penn State? Cause I was in the stadium, and I'm not sure I'll ever forget.

As cool as this was, I think it would be much cooler if C.J. Stroud would just *start* the game 16-for-16 and remove all doubt right off the bat. Cool? Cool.

By the way, if y'all haven't watched the director's cut of this game in a while, you've got some time to kill before game time.

 THE CORRECT PICKS. Guaranteed 5-0. Parlay it, pay your rent. Let's go.

  • Texas +2.5 against Baylor. Texas is extremely undervalued in this game after two losses to current top-15 teams in games that they frankly should have won. I think the Longhorns are the better team in this matchup and I'll gladly take them as underdogs.
  • Michigan vs. Michigan State under 50.5. Neither of these teams has any interest in scoring 25+ points, much less both of them. Y'all know this. This one is candy.
  • Michigan -4 against Michigan State. I don't think either one of these teams is terribly good, but I think Michigan is noticeably the least bad, specifically on offense. I think the Wolverines should actually be favored by more like 7 points, so I'll gladly take 4.
  • North Carolina +3.5 against Notre Dame. I think Notre Dame is significantly worse than its record and I think North Carolina is significantly better than its record. I think the Heels might actually be the better team in this matchup and the public riding heavy with Notre Dame only convinces me even more.
  • Ohio State -18.5 against Penn State. Look, I haven't been shy about this the past few weeks, so y'all shouldn't need an explanation here. I think Ohio State is going to absolutely throttle every team in faces the rest of the regular season, and that starts tonight with Penn State. The Buckeyes are going to roll in their Red October unis.

 SONG OF THE DAY. "All Day" by Kanye West.

 NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A Texas nurse is sentenced to death for fatally injecting four heart patients with air... Reality TVs absurd new extreme... Walmart room sprays were causing deadly infections... Long live forever renting... I joined a cult believing I'd be closer to God, but then I was castrated... The United States' most haunted hotel... Why we love pumpkin spice, according to science...

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