Big Ten Notebook: Players thrilled to have title game
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Penn State coach Joe Paterno on the Big Ten's expansion: "I have a lot of confidence that the people who are going to make the decision will give it the thought that it's going to take to do a good job and will come up with something that will be good for the Big Ten."
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CHICAGO -- Penn State cornerback D'Anton Lynn is excited about the prospects of the Big Ten implementing a championship game in December 2011.
"It's really cool," Lynn said Tuesday before the Big Ten kickoff luncheon. "Next year will be my senior year, and it will be the first year of the Big Ten championship game. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to play Nebraska, too.
"I'm real pumped up about a championship game. None of us like that long gap after our last [regular-season] game until the bowl game. We've been at home watching two weeks of football the last couple of years, and no one really likes that."
Senior guard Stefen Wisniewski from Central Catholic High School likely will be playing in the NFL next season, but he said a title game is long overdue.
"As a player, I just think that would be an awesome game to be a part of at the end of the season and they crown a champion," he said. "I'm kind of down a little on the whole co-champ thing. I think that is kind of lame."
There has been much speculation about where Penn State might end up when the Big Ten goes to two new six-team divisions next season once Nebraska joins.
"What the makeup of each division is, I really haven't had a chance to give that that much thought," coach Joe Paterno said. "... there's some old rivalries, some traditions. There's a lot of things that have to go into this.
"I have a lot of confidence that the people who are going to make the decision will give it the thought that it's going to take to do a good job and will come up with something that will be good for the Big Ten."
Curt Warner's Penn State career rushing record has stood for 28 years, but tailback Evan Royster needs only 481 yards this season to eclipse Warner's mark of 3,398.
"It is kind of surprising [that the record has held up so long]," former Penn State quarterback and current ESPN college football analyst Todd Blackledge said. "I don't say this just because he was my teammate and roommate, but Curt was the best I've ever seen. He was a tremendous football player. Now, he had some great offensive lines those years, with [Mike] Munchak and [Sean] Farrell.
"I like Royster a lot. He's better than people give him credit for. His average per-carry for his career is, like, 6 yards [actually 6.1], which is incredible. I don't think the offensive lines at Penn State since he's been there have been quite as dominant as our offensive lines were, so what Evan's done is quite impressive."
Tom Osborne, former Nebraska coach and current athletic director, believes the Big Ten is a better fit for the Cornhuskers than the Big 12, which it will leave after this season.
"We won't see tremendous financial rewards for some time, so that's not why we did this," Osborne said. "It's certainly not because we're mad at anybody or afraid of competition.
"It's simply a matter of feeling comfortable with what we know of Big Ten culture. Our ideals and aspirations matched up pretty well."
First Published August 4, 2010 12:00 am
