Beaver Stadium

Rob Holmberg waited to do something on a football field he'd always remember. He waited and waited. For five years, to be exact. And when that first memorable moment finally came last Saturday at Beaver Stadium, Holmberg was playing a position he had never dreamed he'd be playing, for a university he never anticipated attending. That's how unpredictable college football can be. Holmberg is a 6-foot-3, 215-pound outside linebacker for Penn State from Mount Pleasant, Pa., who runs with the speed and grace of an antelope.

The wind can howl. Mark Smith won't mind. The rain can pour down. Smith won't mind. The Penn State Blue Band can strike up "Fight on, State. " That's when Smith might start to mind. Smith, a computer expert for a paper company in Wayne, is a graduate of the University of Michigan and a loyal Wolverines football fan. Tomorrow, he will sit in a corner of Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa., watching Michigan play Penn State. It promises to be a lonely afternoon for Smith and his friends.

Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz knows that he has diminished the chances of quarterback Tony Rice in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Rice has passed little this season, and most of the Irish's rushing touchdowns have been scored by running backs Ricky Watters and Anthony Johnson. Also, Rice has stood on the sidelines in the late stages of blowouts, with Holtz giving his backups work. Holtz calls Rice a complete quarterback - a leader, a strong runner and a competent passer. "But I don't believe there's any way in the world that we could get the statistics for Tony Rice that would impress other people without being detrimental to the overall goals of the University of Notre Dame," Holtz said.

Coach: Joe Paterno (44th season, 383-127-3) Last year: 11-2 overall, 7-1 Big Ten Conference (co-champion with Ohio State), No. 8 final national ranking, Rose Bowl loss to Southern California On the Web: GoPSUSports.com Ticket info: Another season opener, another sellout of 107,000 plus in Beaver Stadium. Worth watching: Sean Lee was everybody's preseason All-America at linebacker last season until he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in an April 2008 practice.

The thought is that Youngstown State is being thrown to the wolves, a Football Championship Subdivision member that is headed to Beaver Stadium to play Penn State, the 19th-ranked team among major colleges, before a crowd approaching 100,000. Ah, but the Penguins don't see it that way. The school will make $450,000 for the trip. Eric Wolford is taking part in his first game as a collegiate head coach, and what better way to debut than to have living legend Joe Paterno on the other sideline?

ASSAULT, NOT funny. Stupidity, however, is generally hilarious. This story can arguably be assumed to be the latter. According to an Associated Press report, a Penn State fan, who thought it would be a gas to dress up in Michigan colors at Beaver Stadium, found out you also go black when you Go Blue at Beaver Stadium. The man, whose name was withheld, was assaulted by four unknown Nits fans who mistook him for a Michigan supporter, according to police, after Saturday's 41-31 Penn State win over its Big Ten rival.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - A snow-covered field in Centre County, especially one so near to fetid cow barns and massive Beaver Stadium, seems an odd place to honor the longtime superintendent of a golf course 150 miles away. But here, amid small fir trees on a remote corner of Penn State's vast campus, stands a small fieldstone memorial to the namesake of the surrounding Joseph E. Valentine Turfgrass Research Center. That rock, rising above the mid-January whiteness like an Alpine peak, was dug from the ground at Merion Golf Club's historic 11th hole.

Less than three months removed from graduating from Coatesville High, and three days before Penn State's 1994 opener against Minnesota, middle linebacker Clint Seace couldn't have felt much better. He'd just intercepted a pass during a noncontact drill and was steaming toward the sideline. Not long afterward, he couldn't have felt much worse. It wasn't so much the pain in his right ankle, which had snapped, it was what he saw when he limped into the dressing room after having two screws inserted during surgery.

The questions have become so persistent, so predictable, you can imagine Penn State quarterback Rashard Casey mouthing them as they are asked from the other end of the phone line. Rashard, why aren't you screwing defenders into the ground with those thrilling, elusive, highlight-film runs like you did last year? Rashard, why don't you seem to be the free and easy quarterback that you were last year? Rashard, why aren't you completing your throws at the impressive 63 percent rate that you did last season, when you led the Big Ten Conference in passing efficiency?

Kiera Missanelli is a senior journalism major at Pennsylvania State University Growing up, Penn State's magic was summed up to me in two words: hot chocolate . As a child of a Penn State dad, I was told stories of the magical land of State College on game day. The skies were gray, the clouds low, the autumn trees in brilliant shades of orange and red, and the air chilly. But nothing could defeat a great football team - nor the passion of its fans. My dad lured me in. "When we go to a football game," he said, "you can get a big mug of hot chocolate.