The End of September

The NL playoff race only got wilder on Saturday. During the Penn State v. Illinois game, the Mets finally got their act together and destroyed Florida 13-0. More interesting was John Maine's no-hit bid, which looked like destiny until a pathetic chopper to 3rd broke it up with 2 outs in the 8th inning. In the Marlins' defense, they did have a couple of hard-hit balls turn into outs earlier in the game, so I guess it was karma that a soft chopper put a stop to Maine's magic.

Later in the day, after Penn State's loss (more on that in a bit), Philadelphia got shut down by Matt Chico, and a couple of errors gave Washington the 2 runs they needed to close out the game. Had Philly held Washington to just a 2-0 lead, the game could've been lot more interesting, but alas, they fell victim to the same kinds of mistakes that the Mets have been making for the past 2 weeks. That's life I guess.

While the Philly game was ending, Milwaukee pinch hit with Tony Gwynn Jr. against his dad's old club with the tying run on 2nd base in the bottom of the 9th. Amazingly, the young Gwynn doubled against Trevor Hoffman to tie the game for the Brew Crew, who really had nothing to play for. They later won the game in the 11th, which puts pressure on the Padres to win today.

To make things even more dicey, Colorado stayed alive with a win over the Snakes, who clinched the NL West with the San Diego loss. Throw in all the NFL games, and this Sunday is going to be one of the most exciting days in sports this year.

Of course, it will take a lot to top Saturday's excitement, what with all the College Football upsets going on. Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas all fell, and USC barely held on against Washington. Unfortunately, fans in Happy Valley had a hard time enjoying any of this, thanks to the Lions falling short on the road again. Although the Illini had a couple of TD drives in the first half (as well as a kick return for a score), Penn State's defense tightened up in the 2nd, giving the offense great field position on a number of occasions. Here's what happened:

1st and 10 @ ILL 40 => 20 yard FG
1st and 10 @ ILL 44 => PUNT
1st and 10 @ ILL 27 => INTERCEPTION
1st and 10 @ PSU 36 => INTERCEPTION

After that came the drive in which Morelli fumbled trying to rush for the 4th and 13. Admittedly, the pass he made to Derrick Williams on that drive was amazing, but as you can see from the numbers above, we could have used some of that earlier. The end result was PSU getting outscored 6-3 in the 2nd half. Ugh.

I know a lot of people are going to give up on the Nittany Lions' season, but I still have hope. The only two other road games are @ Indiana and @ Michigan State. The home games are all against overrated teams like Wisconsin and Ohio State. If PSU takes those, they could climb back into the polls, and eventually towards the top of the Big 10 standings. So it's not time to panic (yet), even if Morelli is giving us Zach Mills flashbacks 5 games into the season.