ALTOONA, Pa. -- Welcome to our new weekend primer feature, a Saturday morning overview of what's going on at Penn State across multiple sports.
Football will always be the primary focus of everything we do here Penn State-related. But like with our Friday top 5, this is another place where we can feature other Nittany Lions programs. Believe me, I see all the comments looking for more wrestling coverage, and this will be another place where we will have a good but of it.
Because ...
• Penn State wrestling is unstoppable, and another national championship seems inevitable
The top-ranked Lions clobbered Michigan, 30-8, Friday night in the first of two dual meets at the Bryce Jordan Center this season. The meet attracted a sold-out crowd of 15,975, which is ... staggering! More on the BJC in a bit.
Penn State is now 9-0, and there's really no reason to believe the Lions will lose a dual meet all season. Now, No. 2 Iowa visits the BJC on Friday (8:30 on BTN), and the Hawkeyes are almost always the Lions' biggest threat. But c'mon, it's hard to believe that Penn State would lose that kind of marquee match at the Jordan Center.
About the only surprising thing that happened Friday was that Greg Kirkvliet, No. 1 at 285, lost a tough match to No. 2 Mason Parris, 3-1, after giving up a late takedown. The Lions' only other loss was by freshman Gary Steen at 125.
Penn State has another dual Sunday against Michigan State at Rec Hall. There are six dual meets left in the regular season.
The Lions are the reigning national champions and have won nine national titles since Cael Sanderson took over as coach in 2010. That included four in a row from 2011-14 and another four in a row from 2016-19.
This year's team not only has four No. 1 wrestlers who can lead the way -- Roman Bravo-Young (133), Carter Starocci (174), Aaron Brooks (184) and Kirkvliet -- it also is setting the table for the future by starting four freshmen -- Shayne Van Ness (149), Levi Haines (157), Alex Facundo (165) and Steen.
With that lineup of superstars leading the way, along with defending national champion Max Dean (No. 4 at 197), there's just no reason to doubt that this team will win a 10th national championship. Anything could still happen, such as injuries or sudden slumps by individuals, but the Lions are so loaded at the top that you gotta figure they'll have at least three or four individual national champs to carry the load.
What a dynasty Penn State has going on in wrestling, which I've said for several years now is the most dominant program in all of college sports.
• Thanks for all the feedback about BJC vs. Rec Hall
I asked in the Friday top 10 for fans to weigh in on this topic and how many meets should be held each year at the Jordan Center. The response was outstanding, and you should go check it out if you haven't already done so.
Friday's crowd of 15,975 was the sixth largest in NCAA history for an indoor dual meet. Penn State holds the record for biggest crowd of 15,998, set against Iowa in 2018, and Friday's visit by the Hawkeyes could end up breaking that mark.
• It's Saquon vs. Sanders again today, this time in the playoffs
The Eagles host the Giants in the NFC playoffs Saturday night at 8:15. It should be a good game, but as always when these two meet, I'm focusing in on the running back battle between Saquon Barkley and Miles Sanders.
I've said this for years: Saquon is the most physically gifted player I've ever covered in college football. It's amazing what all he can do, and it's been seven-plus years now since we first got to see it at Penn State in 2015.
But I'll be honest, I've always had a soft spot for Sanders. Imagine having to live in Barkley's unbelievably large shadow, which Sanders has had to do now for six years. He came to Penn State in 2016, and despite being the No. 1 running back recruit in the country himself, he had to sit for two years and watch Saquon get all the attention as a household name in college football.
It's been the same thing in the NFL, where Barkley has continued to garner more attention and is one of the faces of the league. The guy is a superstar, and when he's done playing, I can see him go on to have a great broadcasting career, or maybe an acting career, or whatever else he wants to do.
Sanders, meanwhile, has always just kind of been in the background a little bit, even though he's an outstanding running back in his own right. Sanders actually had more yards rushing his final season at Penn State than Barkley did in his final year (1,274 to 1,271).
Barkley came back from injury this season and has been terrific for the Giants, ranking fourth in the NFL in rushing with 1,312 yards. Right behind him in fifth place is Sanders, with 1,269 yards. I mean, even finishing fifth in the league in rushing isn't enough for Sanders to escape Barkley's shadow.
One area where Sanders can break through, however, is by winning a Super Bowl. The Eagles have a much better team than the Giants, and Philly seemingly has all the pieces in place to win a Super Bowl this season. If that happens, Sanders would finally get some bragging rights over Saquon.
• Any football news this weekend?
It's doubtful Penn State would name a new wide receivers coach this weekend. The school usually does that kind of stuff on weekdays. But you never know. The Taylor Stubblefield news broke last Sunday.
I expect things to slow down from a football perspective for a bit. No more players will be entering the transfer portal for a while because the window is closed until May. So, outside of coaching changes, there may not be a whole lot of hard news.
Now, I will still have a bunch of football stories each week. That will never change. There's always stuff going on to analyze or that will impact Penn State.
Plus ...
• Be sure to check the site Sunday
I'll have a story on my football season record prediction for 2023. There are a whole bunch of things to consider, so really anything from 8-4 to 11-1 could be on the table.
• Penn State hoops at home Saturday
The Lions host Nebraska at the BJC at 2:15 p.m. Saturday. There shouldn't be much need to analyze this one as the Lions shouid be keenly focused on getting a win over a bad opponent to move back to 4-4 in the Big Ten.
The latest bracketology by ESPN's Joe Lunardi has Penn State now as the second team out of the field of 68. There's still a lot of work to do for this team.
• All four of our college basketball teams play Saturday
Along with Penn State hosting Nebraska, Pitt hosts Florida State in a key game, Duquesne is home against Fordham in Atlantic 10 action, and Robert Morris visits Green Bay.
This is the first time all season that all four of the college basketball teams we cover are playing on the same day.
Corey Crisan will have the Pitt game covered from the Pete, and he's doing a tremendous job on that beat. The Panthers should make the NCAA Tournament, as long as they win the games they're supposed to win from here on out.
The plan is for me to write a Duquesne game story for every game. We've done that all season, and the readership has been pretty good.
I have not been writing a story off of each Penn State game, simply because I've been so focused on football. Now that things should be getting more quiet in football with the transfer portal window closed, I'm planning on doing more of the individual game stories. More along the lines of top takeaways from the game.
I have not been doing many Robert Morris game stories of late. I want to, and feel badly about not having more on the Colonials. I actually love mid-major college basketball. But the readership hasn't really been there when I was doing game stories, and as with everything, I have to focus most of what I do on stories that move the needle with more readers.
• Hockey team looks to rebound
The Penn State hockey team lost at home Friday night to Notre Dame, 2-1.
The Lions host the Irish again tonight at 5 in the annual "wear white" game at Pegula Ice Arena.
• Volleyball off to great start
Penn State men's volleyball is 5-0 for the first time since 2009 and ranked No. 4 in the country. The Lions beat No. 5 Pepperdine on Friday night, 3-1, at a tournament in Austin, Texas.
Penn State plays No. 8 Stanford tonight at 8 to wrap up its stay in the Texas tournament.
