It’s funny how we, as fans, can take news from another source and embrace it, because hey, they said something good about or program.  Or, if it sells us short, even if just in our own heads, we can laugh it off as being rediculous, premature, and irresponsible.  Like how I chastised ESPN for jumping the gun with their preseason predictions a little while back.  Of course, back in June, it would be carelessa to even try and rank the 119 teams in NCAA’s Division-1 Bowl Subdivision (or whatever they’re calling it these days), much less for ESPN to play out the season, and suggest bowl destinations for 68 lucky teams.  Now, ESPN just happened to rank Penn State between Fresno State, and some team that lost to Navy last year, so for all of us optimistic Penn State fans, it was easy to blow off the articles.

But now that’s its July, ESPN’s college football coverage can be relevant again.  It’s just coincedence, of course, that this time they’re praising us.  We head over to Adam Rittenberg’s blog, which, frankly, is a good read for a fan of any Big Ten team, where he tells us something we should already know: Penn State has a pretty darn good Offensive Line and a flat-out awesome Defensive Line. This of course, is hardly a revelation.  Penn State’s O-Line was great last year, and we return all five starters.  Meaning, of course, that we should be #1.  When you’re just as good as the #1 team in the rankings, and you return all five starters, while they don’t, maybe you should be the #1 team.  But I won’t kill Rittenberg, because #2 is not a bad place to be.  And as far as the our work in the defensive trenches, well, we saw Maurice Evans turn into a stud last year with 13 sacks, and we know we’re going to get solid play at the least from Josh Gaines and Aaron Maybin.  If Chris Baker can keep his head on straight, Penn State will offer tremendous depth up the middle, with Ogbu and Odrick rotating through.  Penn State is crazy deep in the defensive trenches, and anything short of a #1 ranking would have been an affront to the unit.  I mean, even Rivals just gushed about them in their Penn State preview

But does this tell us anything we don’t know?  Look, Penn State is going to have be great in the trenches, on both sides of the ball.  We’ve known this to be true since last season.  We also know that we’re going to get some very good play, on the defensive front, from our secondary.  Captain Anthony Scirrotto, one of approximately 4.3 billion Penn State football players reported as having off-season issues, whether they were in fact real or imaginary, led the Big Ten in interceptions last year, and even though Justin King left for the greener pastures of the NFL, Penn State returns three starters to the secondary.  Oddly enough, Penn State’s lone area for concern on the defensive side of the ball is in the Linebackers.  I know, I’m the last one to point out the irony, but for Linebacker U to have to worry about its linebacking corps is like Florida State having trouble finding cleats for their players.  But even with our issues at LB, defense is not our problem for 2008.

When it comes to offense, we know what we’re going to get from our wideouts.  That is awesome production, coming in at #2 in Rittenberg’s WR/TE rankings for the Big Ten.  It seems like Jordan Norwood, Deon Butler, and Derrick Williams have been at Penn State forever, but this will be the last hurrah for the trio.  Hopefully our quarterback, whoever it will be (Daryll Clark) will get them the ball.  As far as our running game goes, it should be fine.  Look, Evan Royster is no Tony Hunt.  He’s not even Rodney Kinlaw.  And Stephfon Green is still the definition of an unknown quantity.  But Royster did impress in limited action last year, and Green is crazy fast.  We should get solid production, at the least,out of our running backs this year, who are running behind one heck of an offensive line.   Rittenberg is even more impressed, ranking our running game #3 in the conference, even adding that he could knock us up a peg or two.

Which just reminds us one more time that quarterback is going to be the make-or-break position for Penn State this season.  Even though some suggest that our situation is a conundrum, I’m fairly positive that Daryll Clark will be our starting quarterback for Game 1 against Coastal Carolina, Game 2 against Oregon State, and so on.  Some have compared Clark to Michael Robinson who didn’t do much, other than lead Penn State to a BCS Bowl win using a Spread Offense that Jay Paterno is trying to reinstall for 2008, under a cool new name.  The offense is clearly being catered to Clark, who formerly was a QB sneak specialist, as he exhibited in the Alamo Bowl, with his 6 rushes for 50 yards.  With a very good defense, great wide receivers, a more-than-competent running game, and a phenomenal line in front of him, if Daryll Clark can play good football, Penn State has the chance to have a special season in 2008.  If he can go off and have a Heisman-caliber season like Robinson did back in 2005, Penn State just might surprise all the critics and win the Big Ten.  But if Clark struggles, this could be a very dissapointing season, one that might give Graham Spanier enough ammo to get rid of Joe Paterno.