PSU Nittany Lions

Before this season, a win against Temple would be nowhere near the top of Penn State's goals board.

Temple has been barely a bump on the road to bigger and better things for Penn State. The Lions haven't lost to the Owls since 1941, and never at Beaver Stadium, where Saturday's game takes place. Temple has dropped 36 of its past 37 games to Penn State -- seven Lions wins were vacated between 2003-2011 because of NCAA sanctions -- including 29 straight defeats.

While the Temple program has made significant strides in recent years and has posed a much greater challenge for its big brother to the west, the Nittany Lions always have aimed higher -- for Big Ten titles, national titles and bowl wins.

There will be no Big Ten title for Penn State this season. No bowl win, either. Penn State can officially win the Leaders division, but NCAA sanctions have limited the Lions to 12 regular-season games.

So yes, the Temple game is bigger, perhaps more than ever before.

"You have a lot to play for every single week," Penn State coach Bill O'Brien said. "Especially this week, being at home again, you've got 100,000 people that are going to show up and want to watch you play well. We only get 12 opportunities, and we only have nine more, so we've got to go out and play well every single week."

O'Brien talked this week about how, "a healthy Penn State football program is good for college football." In many ways, the 2012 season is a three-month checkup for Penn State.

What's the health of the Nittany Lions program? No program is immune to the type of sanctions the NCAA leveled, and Penn State already has been weakened by roster departure. Still, it's O'Brien's job to keep Penn State in relatively stable condition. After two tough losses left the Lions reeling, they recovered nicely last week and smashed Navy by 27 points.

Saturday afternoon brings another very public trip to the doctor for Penn State. Even though Temple is no longer a doormat, if the Lions can't maintain the status quo against the Owls, they'll add more doubt about their future well-being.

"We'd like to go out and make a statement and show that we're back on track," sophomore linebacker Mike Hull said. "It is a big deal for the seniors, going out, not losing to Temple."

It's a very big deal to senior linebacker Michael Mauti, who wants to leave the Penn State program in the best shape possible before he departs. Mauti has played brilliantly through the first three games, leading the Lions in tackles with 33, including two for loss and a sack, to go along with a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and a pass breakup.

Mauti had arguably his best game as a Nittany Lion last year at Temple, recording three tackles for loss and a diving interception in the fourth quarter that set up the game-winning touchdown drive as Penn State escaped Philly with a 14-10 win. The year before, Temple led Penn State 13-9 at halftime before falling 22-13 in State College.

"It's been close the last couple of years," Mauti said. "... We know they're going to come in here fired up. They're right in Philly, so they're right in our backyard. It'll be a close game, and we're going to have to make sure we play four quarters of good football to beat a team like that."

Temple comes in at 1-1 and has had two weeks to prepare. Mauti and his fellow Lions defenders are preparing for what he called the "Tim Tebow offense," a system orchestrated by Steve Addazio, the Owls head coach and a former Florida assistant, and led by a big, dual-threat quarterback in junior Chris Coyer.

Mauti stopped short of calling Temple a rival, and to be fair, most rivalries are more balanced than this one (Penn State leads the series 30-3-1, 7 wins vacated).

But in a season unlike any other at Penn State, the Temple game means more. If nothing else, to show that these Lions aren't on the verge of flat-lining.

"It's going to be a challenge," Mauti said. "I think our guys are always up for it."

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Another open practice, another question at tailback.

Bill Belton missed the beginning of Wednesday's open practice, but Derek Day stretched and practiced with the running backs. Day is recovering from a separated shoulder, and he's still questionable for Saturday.

Day's recovery is ahead of Belton's, according to Bill O'Brien, but the coach still couldn't guarantee either would play Saturday. If neither tailback can go, Penn State will likely go with what worked last week: Michael Zordich and Curtis Dukes.

Zordich got the nod Wednesday with the first-team offense near the goal-line, while Dukes watched from the sideline.

"These guys get beat up during the season. They're running backs," O'Brien said Tuesday. "That's the nature of the position, so the next guy has got to be ready to go."

Zordich and Dukes took turns catching short passes from the quarterbacks and practiced a few drills with assistant coach Charles London. Zordich showed good hands and balance, but Dukes and Zach Zwinak struggled staying in-bounds on throws near the sideline.

On one play, Zwinak caught the ball on the run and slipped while he cut -- leaving about a foot-long divot near the sideline.

Open tryouts: While practice was under way, about 70 students gathered inside neighboring Holuba Hall in hopes to make the football team -- likely as part of the scout team.

O'Brien said he hoped to find a few defensive backs or linemen, but it's clear he wouldn't turn down a kicker. With Matt Marcincin's departure last week -- and Sam Ficken's struggles -- Penn State could certainly use another place-kicker.

Strength and conditioning coach Craig Fitzgerald timed some players, while another man told the potential walk-ons the theme of the day was "follow directions."

Injuries: Left tackle Donovan Smith also did not appear during the 30-minute open window of Wednesday practice.

O'Brien said if Smith couldn't practice Tuesday, he likely wouldn't play Saturday. Mike Farrell and Adam Gress took over at the tackle spots in his absence.

True freshman linebacker Nyeem Wartman was not dressed and limped with a large ice pack on his knee. Even O'Brien didn't try to hide the severity of his injury Tuesday.

"I wouldn't expect him back for a while," he said.

Kickin' Ficken: Ficken made his first field goal attempt in practice from about 37 yards but missed his second a hair right. He nailed his third.

"I have belief in Sam," O'Brien said Tuesday.

Kevin DiSanto converted his pair of attempts, although they were about 10 yards shorter than Ficken's tries.

Splitting up: Tight ends Kyle Carter and Paul Jones play at a lot of spots as f-tight ends, but it was interesting to see them both split wide -- together -- on Wednesday.

Jones caught a few good passes Wednesday, although the offense kept it simple while the media was watching. McGloin and Steven Bench didn't attempt a pass over 10 yards, but Jones did manage to haul in an over-the-middle pass that was thrown slightly below his waist.

Matt McGloin smiled Saturday and knocked three times when his season stats were mentioned: Eight touchdowns, one interception.

To repel any jinx, he knocked again -- a few minutes later -- when that number was repeated.

"I just haven't been trying to do too much this year, I guess you could say," McGloin said Wednesday.

The fifth-year senior has already tossed as many touchdowns as he did all of last year, when he split time with Rob Bolden. He leads the conference in passing touchdowns, and all those scores came on just 104 attempts.

Last year, he needed more than twice that (231) to find the end zone eight times. And, five times, his passes were completed to the wrong team.

"I haven't been trying to press myself or force myself to make big plays," McGloin said. "I'm the starter and I don't feel like I need to go out there and make big plays to stay in the football game. That's really where it's come from."

McGloin didn't smile much last year. He paced the sideline with doubts about his ability. He lined up under center and believed he needed a big play to line up again in the next quarter.

That changed when Penn State announced the hiring of Bill O'Brien and McGloin was named the spring starter. The red-headed senior sat down with the former New England coordinator, talked about how the old staff worked, and O'Brien told him how this team would be different.

O'Brien continues to work with McGloin every day -- "Except Sunday," O'Brien clarified -- and the fifth-year senior said he feels "like one of the luckiest quarterbacks in the nation."

"Fortunately, I don't have to think about where I would be if this didn't happen," he said. "But I'm glad Coach O'Brien is here. Without him, I wouldn't be half the quarterback I am today."

He's more relaxed. He's more focused. He's a new quarterback.

And, at this pace, his lessons from O'Brien could translate into one of the more memorable seasons in Penn State passing history. No Nittany Lion has ever tossed 25 touchdowns in a season; McGloin is on pace for 32. Only three quarterbacks have passed for more than 5,500 career yards; McGloin is on pace to slide into the No. 2 spot with 5,871.

McGloin started his marathon senior year with a sprint, a pace that could be difficult to maintain. But the fifth-year starter nicknamed "McMoxie" will certainly slide up the record books, especially on a team whose signal-callers have historically handed off instead of dropped back.

"Matt right now is playing unbelievable," defensive tackle DaQuan Jones said.

His arm strength won't wow NFL scouts -- he severely underthrew Allen Robinson on a 45-yard pass last week -- but his teammates lauded intangibles like his leadership. McGloin is directing an offense that returned just one starter and features an all-new cast of receivers.

Despite those obstacles, he's ranked in the middle of the conference in passing yards and passing efficiency. He's not the best signal-caller in the Big Ten. But, if Penn State wins, a lot of that will have to do with McGloin.

And, for the former walk-on, that's a lot to smile about.

Officially or unofficially, Temple has lost every game against Penn State since a 1950 tie. The Owls haven't beaten the Nittany Lions since 1941. Just don't tell Steve Addazio.

"We approach this game like every other game," the Owls' second-year coach said.

And you, Bill O'Brien?

"No. No," the first-year Lions coach said. "At no point in time do I ever address winning streaks. That has nothing to do with this game. Every year is different. I don't know what they were like in 1940, but in 2012 this is an excellent Temple team with a bunch of good players."

It is a Temple team that might finally be ready to knock off its in-state rival, which lost 13 players in wake of NCAA sanctions and started 0-2 before routing Navy on Saturday. The Owls dropped a tight 14-10 contest to the Lions last season in Philadelphia that, along with every other Penn State victory from 1998-2011, was vacated in light of the school's child-abuse scandal. Temple battled Penn State to the end of a 22-13 loss one year earlier in Beaver Stadium, where the Owls have never won.

But Penn State's Big Ten pedigree and Temple's recent rise from the brink of no football to a first-year Big East member still leaves Addazio playing the underdog card when entering State College.

"What happens is obviously our roster is filled with a majority of Pennsylvania players, and Penn State was Penn State," Addazio said. "And so every guy on our roster didn't get recruited by anybody by Penn State, so they come in here and it's a measuring stick, and that fosters a great deal of rivalry into a game. It's just natural that that would happen, you know what I mean?"

A season-opening rout of Villanova gave way to a Sept. 8 letdown against Maryland. Addazio turned up the intensity during Temple's bye last week, implementing a more physically demanding set of practices.

He blamed himself for easing up a bit with a banged-up roster but does not want to make that mistake again, aiming for progress over preservation.

"Right now I think what's most important is that we develop," Addazio said. "I knew we'd be young, I knew this would be where we would be, so I like our practice. I think our players feel good about what we've gotten done right now. We're playing at a high-speed level as opposed to a low-speed level, and that's how you improve. You can't improve the other way, you just can't. You can get away with it with a veteran team but not a young team."

Addazio and O'Brien used to cross paths as college assistants and have developed a mutual respect for one another as rare Northeast-born coaches. But in the early stages of their first head-coaching jobs, neither sees the history between their programs as relevant to Saturday's contest.

"We're going to go in there and we're going to play as hard as we can play, and that's our mindset, not what the stats are, not how many years," Addazio said. "It just doesn't mean anything to me because when we go in the stadium, each guy's going to have to buckle his chin strap.

"It's going to be one guy against one guy and 11 against 11, that's what it is."

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Bill O'Brien has stressed the importance of walk-ons this season -- and today's weekly news conference was no different.

Penn State will hold open tryouts Wednesday evening at Holuba Hall, and O'Brien said he hopes to unearth a handful of contributors.

"I'd say, positionally, hopefully there's some DBs in the crowd there," O'Brien said. "That's the position right now that we're looking for. Other than that, I just want to get out there and see if we can go out and find some good football players."

Thirteen players have left the team since July 23, when the NCAA levied unprecedented sanctions against Penn State, and those departures have created depth issues. O'Brien has just two place-kickers on the roster following Matt Marcincin's departure last week.

On defense, true freshman Da'Quan Davis played in three games and now boasts more experience than most of the secondary's backups.

"Males or females, I'm not sure how many will show up," O'Brien said. "But we'll see after practice tomorrow."

Injuries: O'Brien remained mostly mum on injuries to his tailbacks, but he said Derek Day was slightly ahead of Bill Belton in terms of recovery. He said they're both day-to-day.

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One of the key questions lingering from the NCAA sanctions against Penn State was how the $60 million fine levied against the school would be used.

The NCAA announced on Tuesday that it has set up a 10-member task force to determine the guidelines for applying that $60 million toward child sexual abuse prevention and victim treatment programs. That task force will also appoint an independent third-party administrator to choose which groups get funding.

Under the sanctions, Penn State must pay $12 million annually over a five-year period. The NCAA said Tuesday that at least 25 percent of those annual payments will go toward organizations in Pennsylvania, and that those programs will receive the first round of funding. Pennsylvania House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody has said all of the money should stay in the state.

No Penn State-run programs are eligible to use the money, but the school will have some say in where the fines go. That's because Penn State was allowed to appoint two of the 10 members on the task force. They are Dr. Craig Hillemeier, vice dean for clinical affairs in the college of medicine, and Nan C. Crouter, dean of the college of health and human development.

University of California-Riverside chancellor Tim White will serve as chairman of the task force.

Paying out $60 million is a painful sanction for Penn State. But if anything good can come from the Jerry Sandusky scandal, it could be that this money funds programs that prevent or comfort child abuse victims.

There are only 14 weeks in the college football regular season. This is one of them.

That's about the nicest thing I can say about this week's slate of Big Ten games, which makes me yawn every time I scroll through it. But that's not to say there aren't any interesting contests on tap. Here's a quick preview of what's coming on Saturday in order of most to least interest (all times ET):

No. 18 Michigan (2-1) at No. 11 Notre Dame (3-0), 7:30 p.m., NBC: No doubt this is the headliner of the week, a game that has taken on even more prestige given the strong start this season by the Irish. Can the Wolverines do what Purdue and Michigan State couldn't and topple the Golden Domers? They do have Denard Robinson, who has caused more nightmares in South Bend than the bogeyman. With the game under the lights at Notre Dame Stadium, this should be a whole heap of fun.

Syracuse (1-2) at Minnesota (3-0), 8 p.m., Big Ten Network: A game that didn't seem all that interesting in the preseason now looks like maybe the second-best option for Week 4. The Gophers look to get to 4-0 but will have to do so without the injured MarQueis Gray. The Orange are 1-2 but played Northwestern close and hung with USC, and they rank third in the nation in passing yards behind Ryan Nassib. This will be a real test for Minnesota.

Temple (1-1) at Penn State (1-2), 3:30 p.m., ABC: The Nittany Lions finally got a win last week against Navy and need that mojo this week to avoid losing to Temple for the first time since 1941. The Owls didn't inspire a lot of confidence in losing to Maryland last week, but they nearly pulled off the upset of Penn State last year in Philly.

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