The first college football game was 112 years from being played when Benjamin Franklin authored a bit of wisdom for "Poor Richard's Almanac" in 1757 that has an odd bearing on the 2010 Penn State season.
"For lack of a nail, the shoe was lost; for lack of a shoe, the horse was lost; for lack of a horse, the rider was lost . . . " Mr. Franklin, in the guise of Poor Richard, wrote, outlining a series of seemingly small but increasingly consequential events that lead to a nation's defeat in war and subsequent toppling of the kingdom.
Not that any single statistic equates to that missing horseshoe nail, but the overall diminishment of the Nittany Lions' usually staunch defense can be traced in large part to a dropoff in the pass rush that must be addressed as Penn State (6-3, 3-2 Big Ten) visits No. 8 Ohio State (8-1, 4-1) on Saturday afternoon. It's a game that should illustrate, one way or the other, whether coach Joe Paterno - fresh off his 400th career victory - and his staff have done enough blacksmith work to preserve what's left of the kingdom. The fact that the Buckeyes are 17 1/2-point favorites would indicate that, despite the Nits' three-game winning streak, some key element is still absent.