You go Nittany Lions!

Did you see that?  Did you see that!  One of the nail biters of the ages.  I'm not a Penn State fan.  And being a Buckeye, need I say what I think of that team up north?  But boy it was a game of games.  Four overtimes.  One of the best kickers misses three in a row.  A blocked field goal.  Penn State down by three.  The fourth overtime.  They try for it on the third down and come up short.  Rather than go for another field goal and take it to the fifth overtime, they go for it.  They make the first down.  And finally a touchdown.

Michigan deserved to lose.  I mean, they had every chance to bring it to a close and blew it.  What was wrong with Gibbons I don't know.  He nailed sixteen field goals in a row up to that point.  But Michigan had squeaked by others this year, teams far inferior to a team of the Wolverine's caliber.  I remember the crazy, hazy days of Jim Tressel, when his approach seemed to be win with the least points possible.  The year we went all the way and won the championship was done so through many an overtime win.  Announcers called it the cardiac ward at Ohio stadium.   There's something about settling for the least win.  Eventually it catches up with you. As it did for OSU.  As it did for Michigan last night.

Though I don't think Michigan's struggles have been because of strategy.  There's just something wrong there.  Something that Penn State and its phenomenally young freshman quarterback were able to exploit.    Just having turned eighteen, and with a national audience watching, it was him running in a touchdown that tied.  Things went nuts from there. After a humiliating loss to Indiana, I suppose Penn State was in it for keeps.

Anyway, well done Lions.  Another undefeated team that deserved to lose finally lost.  We'll see if the Buckeyes learned their lesson from last week about keeping a struggling player on the field until the last.  Against lesser teams you can.  But now the beast will be hungry.  And no matter what, Michigan will be looking to beat Ohio State and make it right since, as of now, that rivalry still surpasses most in all of sports.

Oh, and it's high time the NCAA lift the sanctions on Penn State.  At this point, they are only punishing young guys that did nothing wrong.  Coaches, too.  Sanctions should hurt the team then and there, and the people involved.  They should not amount to taking out an innocent bystander and shooting him.  The haphazard way in which the NCAA dispenses justice should, itself, be examined.  Teams where players have been given prostitutes and money to keep the best playing have gotten slaps on the wrist.  Others where players have committed the crime of crimes by selling football paraphernalia for tattoos (gasp!) have had their entire programs decimated.  And in a horrible case like Penn State that deserved swift and harsh punishment, the punishment should fit the crime (including undoing the record of those involved), but not punish people who weren't even born when the crimes were committed. Just an opinion.