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An ounce of good news in the pounds of bad: Obesity drops a wee bit

FRIDAY NIGHT HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL SCORES

Fittingly, Brian Gaia didn&#8217;t hesitate to say it. Penn State players are eager to show off one thing in particular in Saturday&#8217;s opener.&#8220;The tempo,&#8221; the senior center said. &#8220;We gave a little glimpse in the spring game. But that was at half-speed. We&#8217;re going to ramp that speed up.&#8220;(People) are going to be surprised how many plays we&#8217;re going to run in a short period of time.&#8221;Yes, the curtain comes up on Joe Moorhead&#8217;s scheme at 3:30 p.m. when MAC cellar-dweller Kent State comes to Beaver Stadium. Penn State&#8217;s new offensive coordinator has had the better part of a month to get things up and running.Now it&#8217;s time to test drive the no-huddle, spread system.For his part, James Franklin didn&#8217;t want to set expectations too high right at the start when there will undoubtedly be some kinks to work out.The vibe from Penn State&#8217;s third-year head coach this week was one of cautious optimism. One that&#8217;s interested in results.&#8220;My focus is on, let&#8217;s get to the stadium and let&#8217;s allow people to form opinions based on what they see,&#8221; Franklin said.&#8220;But yeah, I think whenever you have a running back like Saquon Barkley and whenever you kind of have the pieces of the puzzle starting to come together like we do, I do think there&#8217;s excitement, and I want people to be excited. But I want them to be excited based on what they see in the stadium on Saturday.&#8221;Kent State is also in wait-and-see mode. The Golden Flashes have had to mostly rely on film from Moorhead&#8217;s previous stop &#8212; FCS Fordham, where he was the head coach &#8212; to prepare.The Flashes&#8217; woes are predominately on offense. Coach Paul Haynes has a defensive background and that side of the ball was resilient last year despite getting little to no scoring support.&#8220;The first game is always tough, and then when you see new offenses and things like that, it makes it even tougher,&#8221; Haynes said on the weekly MAC teleconference. &#8220;It kind of goes back to what we do &#8230; making sure that we get lined up and making sure that we get the calls in so our kids can play.&#8221;THREE AND OUTCreating some roomPenn State is expecting to face a familiar strategy &#8212; a defense that loads up the box to stop the Lions&#8217; ground game.&#8220;If I&#8217;m going into this game and I&#8217;m Kent State &#8230; my defense is going to be designed to take Saquon Barkley out of the game and make a new quarterback beat you,&#8221; Franklin said. &#8220;So we&#8217;ve spent a lot of time going over the defenses that we&#8217;ve seen on film.&#8221;The running back is at peace with that.&#8220;I feel like if you&#8217;re going to load the box, go ahead. I welcome you to,&#8221; Barkley said. &#8220;We have a lot of playmakers &#8212; they&#8217;re going to step up when the time is called.&#8221;All of this is to say that the Lions will need Trace McSorley to make good decisions in his first start at quarterback.It will be up to the sophomore from Virginia to control the pace of the game and back off what should be an aggressive Kent State defense.Franklin said he isn&#8217;t concerned with any nerves for his quarterback, whom he dubbed &#8220;Steady Eddie.&#8221;&#8220;I don&#8217;t plan on having a conversation with him,&#8221; Franklin said. &#8220;His approach has been the same, really, for the last two years. &#8230; He&#8217;s a guy that doesn&#8217;t get too high, doesn&#8217;t get too low. He&#8217;s kind of the same guy.&#8221;Three&#8217;s CompanyThere&#8217;s much more uncertainty on the other sideline.True freshman Justin Agner is in line to start under center for the Flashes, but Haynes said he plans to also use Mylik Mitchell and George Bollas, who started for part of last season but struggled.&#8220;Picking Agner, it&#8217;s not saying that he&#8217;s our for sure starter for the rest of the year,&#8221; Haynes said. &#8220;We&#8217;re still trying to wait and see which one of these guys takes the bull by the horns and moves forward. Competition only makes you better.&#8220;It&#8217;s not a situation where they make one mistake, they get pulled.&#8221;BTN updateCable subscribers throughout Luzerne County will be able to watch Penn State&#8217;s opener on Big Ten Network without issue.Service Electric Cablevision, which serves Hazleton, negotiated a new deal with BTN parent company FOX on Friday afternoon to return the network to all of its customers, including those in Sunbury and Birdsboro.The contract between the two sides had expired at the start of the month and BTN had been briefly unavailable in those areas.&#8220;We have reached an agreement with FOX to restore the Big Ten Network to all channel lineups,&#8221; the cable company announced on its website. &#8220;We appreciate the support and patience of our customers throughout the negotiation process.&#8221;The main issue was a familiar one. Since the channel started up in 2007, BTN has not backed off from its demand to be carried on basic cable plans in all Big Ten states. This creates wider access to the network but also an increase in the cable bill for more people.Some confusion had existed in and around Wilkes-Barre, which is serviced by the similarly named Service Electric Cable TV and Communications &#8212; a different company that was not in dispute with BTN.<style>
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<div class="neCaption">The public will get its first look at the offense installed by Joe Moorhead (right) in Saturday&#8217;s opener against Kent State. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/web1_AP699788418413.jpg</photo0><caption0>The public will get its first look at the offense installed by Joe Moorhead (right) in Saturday&#8217;s opener against Kent State. </caption0><photoCredit0>Joe Hermitt | AP photo, PennLive.com </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Derek Levarsedlevarse@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta>PSU GAMEDAYKent State (3-9, 2015)at Penn State (7-6, 2015)3:30 p.m. SaturdayBeaver StadiumTV: Big Ten NetworkLine: PSU by 21.5</factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</shirttailMeta></div>

Curtain ready to come up on Nittany Lions’ new offense