Ticketcity Bowl

DALLAS - Penn State quarterback Rob Bolden took the field for the TicketCity Bowl on Monday with a chance to prove himself. But he walked into the locker room a few hours later with a line of statistics that did little to please the Nittany Lions faithful. On a day when Houston signal-caller Case Keenum carved up Penn State's defense, Bolden completed less than 27 percent of his passes (7 of 26), racked up only 137 passing yards, and threw three interceptions to just one touchdown in a 30-14 loss to the Cougars.

Curtis Drake, the former West Catholic High star who has had an unsettled career as a Penn State football player, reportedly is awaiting a decision on whether he will be allowed to participate in voluntary summer workouts because of academic issues. The Centre Daily Times quoted a source as saying that Drake, a redshirt junior who was moved from wide receiver to cornerback during the spring by new head coach Bill O'Brien, is anticipating word on his status. Quoting sources, the newspaper also said quarterback Rob Bolden, who is believed to be third in a three-man battle for the starting job behind Matt McGloin and Paul Jones, has not enrolled in summer school nor participated in recent workouts, leading to speculation he may transfer.

PENN STATE coach Bill O'Brien released his first depth chart Tuesday, but hinted there will be more fights to win starting jobs in the preseason than the chart indicates. O'Brien named senior Matt McGloin his starting quarterback last week, but said "a handful of other positions are the only ones that I feel are set at this point. " "There will be a lot of position battles to determine starters during training camp," O'Brien said in a statement. The depth chart shows four positions where there is no clear No. 1. The most interesting is at middle linebacker, where incumbent starter Glenn Carson is considered even with fellow junior Khairi Fortt, who was slowed during spring practice by a knee injury.

DALLAS - Penn State's Gerald Hodges sat with his parents in the living room of their Paulsboro, N.J. home last week, just talking and watching an NFL game. Hodges' father, Gerald Sr., put the television on mute. The verdict on a long-lingering decision was about to be reached. That day, Hodges, a junior All-Big Ten weakside linebacker, finally decided that he would forego entering his name into the NFL Draft and return to Penn State for his senior season. "I feel as though I'm ready, but at the same time I just owe it to my teammates and I just feel as though God feels that I'm not ready," Hodges said after practice Saturday, recalling the conversation he had with his parents last week.

HASTE MAKES waste, be it in a student-athlete's study habits or the selection of a head football coach. That was the message conveyed by Penn State's acting athletic director, David Joyner, in a video interview posted yesterday on GoPSUsports.com. In his 7-minute, 45-second question-and-answer session with Tony Mancuso, a reporter for the website, Joyner explained the university's seeming lack of urgency in naming a permanent successor to Joe Paterno, who was fired by the Board of Trustees on Nov. 9 in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

WHOA. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Before you go all "We Are" on everyone, consider that it could have been worse. You . . . Me . . . . . . Detroit. As late as yesterday afternoon, no less a sage than Jerry Palm of CollegeBCS.com called it a real possibility, that Jerry Sandusky's alleged misdeeds, and a lack of good ones on the part of Joe Paterno and Penn State brass, would flush the Lions' 9-3 season to literally the last Big Ten bowl invite available - The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl on Dec. 27. So chill a little now that your unfairly bewitched football team heads to Dallas for a Jan. 2 bowl against a Houston team that until Saturday had a single-digit ranking and a chance to play in a BCS bowl.

JOE PATERNO broke his pelvis Saturday night in a fall at home and was hospitalized yesterday morning, a source close to the Paterno family confirmed. Paterno will not need surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. However, Paterno will remain in the hospital while his pelvis is healing to continue his treatments for what his family has described as a treatable form of lung cancer. Paterno's injury was first reported by the Associated Press . Paterno, who turns 85 on Dec. 21, injured his pelvis when he was run into on the sideline by wide receiver Devon Smith during a preseason practice in August.

DALLAS - Jay Paterno looked drained in a crowded hallway at the Cotton Bowl, as if the recent events at Penn State finally had crashed down onto him. "The last two, two-and-a half months . . . I've been to hell and back in a lot of ways, more so for our kids," said Paterno, the son of former head coach Joe Paterno and quarterbacks coach, who may have coached his last game Monday in the Nittany Lions' 30-14 loss to Houston in the...

LOOKS AS if you can cross Tony Dungy and Iowa's Kirk Ferentz off the list to be the next coach at Penn State. Dungy, the former Super Bowl-winning coach with the Indianapolis Colts, told USA Today , "I'm flattered when people mention my name, but I'm really in the parent mode right now. " Dungy, an NBC analyst, said his son, Eric, is a freshman wide receiver at Oregon and "I don't see doing anything other than [that] for the next 4 years. " Ferentz is represented by agent Neil Cornrich.

DALLAS - With each day that passes, it becomes increasingly likely that Rob Bolden will start at quarterback for Penn State in Monday's TicketCity Bowl against Houston. Starter Matt McGloin did not practice again on Thursday and his status remains up in the air. The redshirt junior from Scranton has not practiced since Dec. 17 when he suffered a concussion and a seizure from a post-practice scuffle with wide receiver Curtis Drake , a West Catholic sophomore who will not play Monday.