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A full house for annual UNICO showdown

Our Opinion: Save the irem and scrap the eyesores

<p>Oh, they&#8217;ve talked about it. For Penn State coaches and players, there&#8217;s no ignoring the game in Columbus that kicks off before their own.</p><p>For James Franklin and his staff, the key has been &#8220;not to harp on&#8221; Michigan&#8217;s trip to Ohio State, which will be wrapping up shortly before the Nittany Lions host Michigan State on Saturday.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not like we just put our head in the sand and act like these things aren&#8217;t going on,&#8221; the Penn State coach said. &#8220;We discuss them as a program, we discuss them as a staff with the players. Let people get off their chest what they need to get off their chest and make sure we&#8217;re approaching things the right way. The way the players want to approach it, as well as the coaches.</p><p>&#8220;Once again, we&#8217;ll get our focus back to the task at hand, which is Michigan State.&#8221;</p><p>Which is important regardless of what happens in the the Horseshoe. Beating the Spartans would almost certainly land the No. 7 Lions into a New Year&#8217;s Six game &#8212; the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl or even the Rose Bowl.</p><p>But if the Buckeyes manage to beat their archrival, the stakes for Penn State shoot up even higher.</p><p>Wins by Ohio State and Penn State would give the Lions the Big Ten East title, sending them to Indianapolis on Dec. 3 to face No. 6 Wisconsin for the conference championship. The Badgers play Minnesota on Saturday but already clinched the division thanks to Nebraska&#8217;s loss at Iowa on Friday.</p><p>The winner of that game would have a strong case to be selected for the College Football Playoff.</p><p>Ohio State is a touchdown favorite over the Wolverines, who may have to start backup quarterback John O&#8217;Korn because of an injury to Wilton Speight. That game kicks off, by tradition, at noon.</p><p>&#8220;However that game plays out, it&#8217;s going to have an impact on our future,&#8221; Franklin said. &#8220;But it can&#8217;t impact how we play on Saturday. That&#8217;s the important thing.&#8221;</p><p>For Penn State players, it&#8217;s a matter of temptation. Quarterback Trace McSorley said he wished it was the Lions and Spartans who played first.</p><p>Some will follow the game. Some won&#8217;t. But ignoring it entirely? Good luck.</p><p>&#8220;Am I going to take a look at the Ohio State game? No,&#8221; running back Saquon Barkley said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s 2016. (There&#8217;s) media. You can see the scoreboards and everything. You&#8217;re going to be a little aware.</p><p>&#8220;I feel like as a team we can&#8217;t focus on that. We can only control what we can control, and that&#8217;s Michigan State right now. If it&#8217;s meant for us, the rest of it will take care for itself.&#8221;</p><p><strong>THREE AND OUT</strong></p><p><strong>TV debate</strong></p><p>In that vein, don&#8217;t count on the Ohio State-Michigan broadcast appearing on the Beaver Stadium videoboards before the game.</p><p>In an effort to get more people into the stands before kickoff, Penn State has started showing games on their $10 million investment. In this case, however, Franklin is concerned about the effect it would have on his players, who would be going through warm-ups while the fourth quarter is being played in Columbus.</p><p>Franklin has softened his stance a bit this week, but would still prefer not to show it.</p><p>&#8220;Early in the week, I did not want it on. But then I addressed it with the team,&#8221; Franklin said after Wednesday&#8217;s practice. &#8220;Now that we&#8217;ve addressed it, I&#8217;m probably a little bit more open to it. But I still think it&#8217;s going to be a distraction during warm-up. So my gut would be no. I&#8217;d prefer not to.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;d prefer to hand out mini TVs to everybody that comes into the stadium as a bonus to get them there and not put it on the (videoboards),&#8221; he deadpanned. &#8220;Do you think (athletic director Sandy Barbour) will go for that?&#8221;</p><p><strong>Sparty&#8217;s sorrow</strong></p><p>As for the game that actually will be played in Happy Valley, it&#8217;s tough to know exactly how much energy Michigan State will have left.</p><p>The Spartans certainly looked the part of the reigning Big Ten champion last week against Ohio State. They were a missed 2-point conversion in the fourth quarter away from pulling a huge upset, losing 17-16.</p><p>Instead, the Spartans come to town at 3-8, with their lone Big Ten win coming two weeks ago against lowly Rutgers. It&#8217;s fair to wonder if Michigan State emptied its tank against the Buckeyes.</p><p>&#8220;After our first game this year, we had a bye. So we&#8217;ve gone 11 straight weeks,&#8221; Spartans coach Mark Dantonio said. &#8220;Eleven straight weeks as coaches and as a program (of) grinding. It takes a toll on people mentally, physically, emotionally. But our guys have done a great job of handling that.</p><p>&#8220;But it&#8217;s tough. And it&#8217;s tough to respond and rebound after a loss, a tough loss, in all situations. We&#8217;ve done that, and we will continue to do that. And I expect our guys to play very well going over to Penn State, and that&#8217;s the goal.&#8221;</p><p>The Spartans have been without star defensive tackle Malik McDowell for the last two weeks, and the likely NFL-bound junior was not on the depth chart this week.</p><p>At quarterback, Dantonio will likely rotate drop-back senior Tyler O&#8217;Connor with scrambling junior Damion Terry.</p><p><strong>Salute to seniors</strong></p><p>Penn State will honor 18 players before kickoff &#8212; 12 seniors and six junior walk-ons who will not return for their final season of eligibility.</p><p>Among those juniors is Berwick grad Zach Ladonis, who made the team as a long snapper on a tryout in 2013 while working toward a degree in aerospace engineering.</p><p>The full list of senior day honorees: LB Brandon Bell, WR Gordon Bentley, OL Tom Devenney, OL Derek Dowrey, OL Brian Gaia, OL Evan Galimberti, WR Gregg Garrity, SS Malik Golden, P Chris Gulla, Ladonis, OL Wendy Laurent, OL Paris Palmer, RB Irvine Paye, DL Evan Schwan, CB Jordan Smith, LB Von Walker, LB Nyeem Wartman-White and LS Tyler Yazujian.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Safety Malik Golden is one of 17 Nittany Lions who will be honored during senior day ceremonies on Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_golden.jpg</photo0><caption0>Safety Malik Golden is one of 17 Nittany Lions who will be honored during senior day ceremonies on Saturday. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_barkley.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Running back Saquon Barkley said he&#8217;s going to try not to follow updates from the Ohio State-Michigan game before Penn State&#8217;s kickoff. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_barkley.jpg</photo1><caption1>Running back Saquon Barkley said he&#8217;s going to try not to follow updates from the Ohio State-Michigan game before Penn State&#8217;s kickoff. </caption1><photoCredit1>Abby Drey | AP photo, Centre Daily Times </photoCredit1></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>Michigan State (3-8, 1-7) at</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>No. 7 Penn State (9-2, 7-1)</strong></p><p>3:30 p.m., ESPN</p><p>Beaver Stadium</p><p><strong>Line</strong>: PSU by 11</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%;"> 1Vc-dk3wMQA</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=1Vc-dk3wMQA</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>

Penn State has huge opportunity against Spartans