Gametime: 4:30 pm

Records: Northwestern: 5-3 (2-2); Penn State: 7-1 (3-1)

(just noticed we never changed it from Minnesota two weeks ago. whoops)

Series Record: PSU leads 9-3

TV: ESPN

Audio: Here

Weather: High of 48, 10% chance of rain.

We're not sure there's much that could make us less interested in this game. It's after a win against Michigan, a game in which we thought the team may have really hit their stride, and it's the weekend before the now-biggest game on the schedule -- Ohio State.

Last week the Penn State defense dominated the Wolverines on all but the opening drive. They lead the Big11Ten in just about every category and Northwestern doesn't seem like the team to shake things up this weekend.  If anything, we may have expected Michigan to be the team to move the ball on them. Instead, PSU kept them 170+ yards below their average for YPG and 27 points below their PPG. They also forced a handful of turnovers and a safety.  Offensively, Clark is coming off of one of his best career performances. He tied his high in passing TD's with four, and was distributing the ball well, racking up 230 yards. Royster also added 100 yards on 20 carries and the Lions got 23 more yards from Brandon Beachum who was filling in for Stephfon Green.

Of course, all of that stuff was last week.

This week it's about this Northwestern team that's going to be running into this suddenly machinelike PSU team. What do they have?

Well, they have Mike Kafka who's completing 66% of his passes and has 9 TDs and 7 INT. Not a great ratio.  His favorite target is a guy named Zeke Markshausen who has 553 yards on the season, but only 2 TDs.

What's even less impressive about this Northwestern team is that their leading rusher is also their quarterback. He has 206 yards.

Yeah, Northwestern is taking a running by committee approach, but you still need to have someone averaging better than 25 yards per game if you want to have any measure of success in the Big11Ten. Just like Minnesota two weeks ago, if you want to win you have to be able to run and stop the run. Northwestern rushes for just over 120 yards per game, good for second to last in the conference.

On the other hand, they're allowing only 117 yards per game on the ground, good for fifth in the conference. They're 6th in pass defence with 220 ypg.

Their pass offense is the sole bright spot, as it's second in the conference averaging 270.4 ypg.

After last week, we have a whole lot of conference if the defense shutting down just about anyone. Bowman is playing like a beast, Sean Lee will be more and more of a presence each week, and the guys who have stepped in at the secondary positions have been playing well. We're also pretty sure the offense is to the point where they can score at will on certain teams. Northwestern is one of those teams. This has trap game written all over it, but trap game's don't happen when you have a team with an excellent coaching staff that keeps the team prepared.

3 Bold Predictions:

• Lee with 10+ tackles.
  
• Royster will rush for 125+.
• Half of the stadium is PSU fans.

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