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Osterhout holds International Games Day

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Empty Bowls senior project benefits the food pantry

<p>The PowerPoint presentation is a staple of Penn State team meetings. James Franklin and his coaching staff frequently dig up cautionary tales from on and off the field to show to players, hoping to keep their heads on straight.</p><p>They wouldn&#8217;t have to look hard for something ahead of Saturday&#8217;s trip to Rutgers. Just find any college football story out of Houston, where the upstart Cougars hammered No. 5 Louisville 36-10 on Thursday night, dumping the Cardinals out of the College Football Playoff picture.</p><p>&#8220;I think we let it get to us too much,&#8221; Louisville safety Dee Smith told reporters after the loss. &#8220;We shouldn&#8217;t have paid too much attention to the rankings. Instead of playing our game, we were trying to do too much, in my eyes.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Our focus wasn&#8217;t there today,&#8221; running back Brandon Radcliff said.</p><p>Cardinals coach Bobby Petrino probably summed it up best:</p><p>&#8220;We blew it.&#8221;</p><p>Nittany Lions coaches had to be salivating at those lines. Franklin and his assistants have done everything in their power to keep their players&#8217; minds off of the team&#8217;s No. 8 ranking.</p><p>Nothing like a team ahead of them falling flat to drive the point home. Just in case losses by championship hopefuls Michigan, Clemson and Washington last week didn&#8217;t do the trick.</p><p>The Lions&#8217; road trip is less likely to derail their hopes for a Big Ten title and a possible shot at reaching the Playoff. Whereas Houston was previously ranked in the top 25 and had already beaten Oklahoma, Rutgers has lost seven in a row and has just one win over an FBS team all season.</p><p>In that losing skid, the Scarlet Knights have been shut out three times &#8212; the first time that has happened to a major conference program in eight years. The combined score of those three games against Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State was 185-0.</p><p>So yeah, a little extra reminder courtesy of Louisville couldn&#8217;t hurt.</p><p>&#8220;Regardless of what other teams were able to do, on any given day, anybody can beat anybody,&#8221; linebacker Jason Cabinda said. &#8220;We take this team very seriously.</p><p>&#8220;For us, we know that every team down the stretch is going to give us their best shot. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re expecting to get on Saturday &#8212; Rutgers&#8217; best shot.&#8221;</p><p><strong>THREE AND OUT</strong></p><p><strong>Jersey Boys</strong></p><p>Cabinda and plenty of his teammates have another reason for motivation Saturday. The junior is one of 19 New Jersey natives on the team &#8212; 14 of whom are likely to be on the 70-man travel roster.</p><p>And most of those guys remember the hostile atmosphere that awaited two years ago, when the Lions were the opponent for Rutgers&#8217; first Big Ten game. One group of Rutgers fans even put the names of every Penn State player from New Jersey on a banner under the title &#8220;ENEMIES OF THE STATE.&#8221;</p><p>As it happens, all three of Penn State&#8217;s starting linebackers &#8212; Cabinda, Brandon Bell and Manny Bowen &#8212; hail from the Garden State.</p><p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s pretty cool having all of us in there. We got that Jersey feel,&#8221; Cabinda said. &#8220;It&#8217;s cool. We talk about it all the time and it&#8217;ll continue this week. We&#8217;re going back to Jersey to put on. It&#8217;s awesome. It&#8217;s a great opportunity for us.&#8221;</p><p>The tough part? Trying to hunt down more tickets.</p><p>&#8220;My dad texted me (Tuesday) morning,&#8221; said another New Jersey native, tight end Mike Gesicki. &#8220;He said, &#8216;If you can get a hundred tickets, I can get a hundred people to go.&#8217; So I&#8217;m definitely scrapping for some tickets right now. I&#8217;m asking everybody. Doing whatever it takes.&#8221;</p><p><strong>A rough start</strong></p><p>Before the 2014 game, Rutgers&#8217; coach aimed to fire up his fanbase with rivalry talk and by refusing to refer to the Lions as &#8220;Penn State.&#8221;</p><p>Kyle Flood has since been fired, with former Ohio State and Arkansas defensive coordinator Chris Ash taking over the program.</p><p>&#8220;I was told by a lot of fans when I first got here about a rivalry with Penn State, and that&#8217;s a game they&#8217;d like to win,&#8221; Ash said Monday at his weekly press conference. &#8220;I know our players have a tremendous amount of respect for Penn State and their players. A lot of them know each other.</p><p>&#8220;(Players have mentioned Penn State), but really what we want to create here is every game is a big game. We want tremendous enthusiasm and energy for every game that we play.&#8221;</p><p>There are aspects of the situation that remind Franklin of his first head coaching job at Vanderbilt, a historic doormat in the powerful SEC.</p><p>&#8220;I think (Rutgers is) a talented team that&#8217;s with a new coaching staff and all the changes that come with that, which I can relate to,&#8221; Franklin said.</p><p>The Knights, however, have been very limited on offense ever since losing top receiver Janarion Grant to an injury back in September. Grant was also one of the Big Ten&#8217;s best return men, and the Knights don&#8217;t have anyone who has been able to replace him.</p><p><strong>Charity drive</strong></p><p>Penn State&#8217;s chapter of Uplifting Athletes is looking to raise money Saturday with a touchdown pledge drive in support of research for rare diseases.</p><p>Those interested can visit pledgeit.org/psu16 to donate any dollar amount per touchdown scored against Rutgers.</p><p>Top fundraisers can win jerseys and shirts. In its first two years, the charity event has raised more than $13,000.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Linebackers Brandon Bell (11) and Jason Cabinda are two of 14 New Jersey natives expected to be on Penn State&#8217;s travel roster for Saturday&#8217;s game at Rutgers. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_AP189210719159.jpg</photo0><caption0>Linebackers Brandon Bell (11) and Jason Cabinda are two of 14 New Jersey natives expected to be on Penn State&#8217;s travel roster for Saturday&#8217;s game at Rutgers. </caption0><photoCredit0>Joe Hermitt | AP photo, PennLive.com </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>PSU GAMEDAY</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>No. 8 Penn State (8-2, 6-1)</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>at Rutgers (2-8, 0-7)</strong></p><p>8 p.m., BTN</p><p>Piscataway, N.J.</p><p><strong>Line</strong>: PSU by 28</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse</p></shirttailMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><videoMeta><p><table style="border:none;width:98%;" class="mceItemTable"><tbody><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoID:</td><td id="videoid" style="width:50em;font-size:90%;"> 2EeqUOhYkMU</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoType:</td><td id="videotype" style="font-size:90%;"> YOUTUBE</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">URL:</td><td id="url" style="font-size:90%;"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EeqUOhYkMU</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Embed String:</td><td id="videoembedstring" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Caption:</td><td id="videocaption" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Credit:</td><td id="videocredit" style="font-size:90%;"> Penn State Athletics</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Position:</td><td id="videoposition" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p style="margin-top:10px;font-size:70%;color:#555;">(use the &#8220;for files&#8230;&#8221; link above to associate attached files with this source)</p></videoMeta></div>

Nittany Lions can look to Louisville for motivation heading into Rutgers trip