Welcome back into the Penn State paulse I'm your host, Stylan Dawson. I'm all moved into the new apartment. Feels great to be back in state college and it is finally here. Welcome to Game Week. We are recording this episode on Wednesday night, August twenty eighth, just three days before this matchup where number eight Penn State travels to Morgantown to take on West Virginia in the season opener. This game will be a noonkick on Fox. The spread has been interesting to follow. That opened around PSU by thirteen or fourteen and that now sits down at eight as I'm recording this, so there has been a lot of money coming in for the Mountaineers. An important stat to note is that West Virginia is zero to four against the spread in its last four games against ranked teams. Shout out Josh Pate for finding that one. All right, let's jump into some WVU players to watch. Penn State won this matchup last season by the score of thirty eight to fifteen in Beaver Stadium, but many think this year could be a different story. So I'm gonna give you guys a few names to keep an eye on and that could be a difference maker for West Virginia on Saturday. So the first name to mention is obviously West Virginia quarterback Garrett Green. He struggled last season with accuracy, as he completed passes at about a fifty three percent clip. Reports are though, that he did have a pretty good offseason regardless of where he stands there in that passing game, though, he is someone who can absolutely beat you every single game with his legs. He is a quick and elusive runner, so the Netty Lions will probably have to assign a spy on the majority of defensive downs. Moving on the Donaldson and White running back duo, starting with CJ. Donaldson. He will return for them at halfback and standing at about six two to two, that is not an easy tackle to make. He went for eighty one yards and a touchdown in twenty twenty three against Penn State and about eight hundred yards and eleven touchdowns on the whole season. His complimentary piece, who hails from my hometown of York, Pa is Jaheem White and White is quite literally the opposite style of back as he is about five to seven one ninety five and he went for about eight hundred and fifty yards and four touchdowns in twenty twenty three. He did that on slightly over one hundred carries too, which averaged out to seven point seven yards per carry. So he's more of their big play guy, whereas Donaldson is kind of just that bruiser who can help in those goal line and short yardage situations. The next name I wanted to mention, and the final offensive name here is rick Darius Farmer, who is a true freshman wide receiver that they flipped from Pitt, which is pretty interesting considering that that's a pretty strong rivalry between Pitt and West Virginia. But yeah, Ric Darius, he goes by dayde Farmer. He's had a very nice offseason according to a lot of reports out of Morgantown, and he could be their big play guy from the jump. He's still a bit undersize, standing at five to eleven one sixty five one seventy, but it's been said that he has the speed to make up for it. Moving on to the defense, Aubrey Burks is probably their best player on that side of the ball. The five foot eleven safety from Florida posted forty eight tackles, four passes defense two interceptions, one and a half sacks, and one forced fumble last season, so he's just kind of all over the field for them. He's going to be in the back of that defense kind of leading them. He's a very experienced veteran, so I expect him to do his best to keep them in the game on Saturday. And then looking down along that defensive line, Sean Martin is the difference maker there. He stands at about six five, three hundred and is a force for the Mountaineers. He does necessarily pad the stat sheet, but he's constantly forcing pressure on the passer and especially calgging those rushing lanes. He wears number ninety one. I can almost promise there will be at least one place Saturday that makes you go, who was that? And it'll be Sean Martin. So let's jump into some predictions in this second segment of the podcast. First, I'm gonna try and call the first touchdown of the season for Penn State, and that was between two guys for me, and it's two guys who I think will have a huge impact on this game Saturday, and that is tight end Tyler Warren and running back k Tron Allen. So I'm gonna lock this in right now. Your first Knite line to score a touchdown this season will be k Tron Allen. K Tron should be used a ton in this game, especially in those goal line situations. I think he actually ends up getting more carries than Nick Singleton, but Nick gets more snaps. Overall. Ak's gonna work Nick into the past game a bunch, and I believe we'll see that from the jump this season, starting in a few days against WVU. My second prediction is going to come on the defensive side of the ball. West Virginia ran for one hundred and forty six yards on Penn State last season. They didn't exactly have their way with PSUs front, but they were able to consistently generate chunk plays in the run game. West Virginia lost a ton of talent on their offensive line this past offseason, mostly to the NFL Draft, and that includes elite center Zach Frazier, who is now a Pittsburgh Steeler. They have the talent in their backfield. That running back duo I mentioned earlier is great, probably a top five or six duo in the country. But I think PSU returning all four of their top d tackles from last season, combined with the Mountaineers throwing a lot of offensive linemen with less experience in there will result in a fairly dominant performance from Penn State's rush defense. So prediction number two, Penn State holds West Virginia under one hundred total rush yards this Saturday. Oh right. My final prediction before I take a stab at this final score involves the ever evolving roller coaster that is the PSC wide receiver room. So I'm going to single one guy out and I'm gonna say that Liam Clifford leads all Penn State wide receivers in receptions against West Virginia. He's had, from all reports, an awesome all season and seems ready to not only start but be a meaningful contributor in pretty much every game. I still have Trey Wallace at wide receiver one on the season. I'm pretty bullish on that. If you've seen any of these other podcasts where I talked about him, he was probably supposed to be wide receiver one last year before he actually got hurt. But tying this back to Clifford, give me a strong game from leam Clifford to open the season, all right, and then to close us out, we have the final score prediction. I do think this is a fairly sloppy game from Penn State. For one, they're breaking in all three new coordinators in their first season here, as well as the second reason, which is the projected weather forecast that is supposed to be high eighties, pretty humid, showers in the morning, and then a very high chance of rain around noon or one PM is when it should start. So maybe the rain holds off until later in the game, but we'll likely see a lot of this game played in wet conditions. So I'm gonna say that the West Virginia keeps it close in the first half at least, but the Nitney Lions are able to just sort of lean on them kind of what Michigan's been doing to teams the last two years, and just finish out with a win to open the season. So give me Penn State twenty seven, West Virginia seventeen. I leave on Friday morning with some friends, so I can't wait to get down to Morgantown and hopefully kick off this season in the right way, which would be with a mark in the win column. So that is going to do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning into The Penn State Pulse. I'm your host, Dylan Dawson. I'll see you in Morgantown.

Welcome back into the Penn State paulse I'm your host, Stylan Dawson. I'm all moved into the new apartment. Feels great to be back in state college and it is finally here. Welcome to Game Week. We are recording this episode on Wednesday night, August twenty eighth, just three days before this matchup where number eight Penn State travels to Morgantown to take on West Virginia in the season opener. This game will be a noonkick on Fox. The spread has been interesting to follow. That opened around PSU by thirteen or fourteen and that now sits down at eight as I'm recording this, so there has been a lot of money coming in for the Mountaineers. An important stat to note is that West Virginia is zero to four against the spread in its last four games against ranked teams. Shout out Josh Pate for finding that one. All right, let's jump into some WVU players to watch. Penn State won this matchup last season by the score of thirty eight to fifteen in Beaver Stadium, but many think this year could be a different story. So I'm gonna give you guys a few names to keep an eye on and that could be a difference maker for West Virginia on Saturday. So the first name to mention is obviously West Virginia quarterback Garrett Green. He struggled last season with accuracy, as he completed passes at about a fifty three percent clip. Reports are though, that he did have a pretty good offseason regardless of where he stands there in that passing game, though, he is someone who can absolutely beat you every single game with his legs. He is a quick and elusive runner, so the Netty Lions will probably have to assign a spy on the majority of defensive downs. Moving on the Donaldson and White running back duo, starting with CJ. Donaldson. He will return for them at halfback and standing at about six two to two, that is not an easy tackle to make. He went for eighty one yards and a touchdown in twenty twenty three against Penn State and about eight hundred yards and eleven touchdowns on the whole season. His complimentary piece, who hails from my hometown of York, Pa is Jaheem White and White is quite literally the opposite style of back as he is about five to seven one ninety five and he went for about eight hundred and fifty yards and four touchdowns in twenty twenty three. He did that on slightly over one hundred carries too, which averaged out to seven point seven yards per carry. So he's more of their big play guy, whereas Donaldson is kind of just that bruiser who can help in those goal line and short yardage situations. The next name I wanted to mention, and the final offensive name here is rick Darius Farmer, who is a true freshman wide receiver that they flipped from Pitt, which is pretty interesting considering that that's a pretty strong rivalry between Pitt and West Virginia. But yeah, Ric Darius, he goes by dayde Farmer. He's had a very nice offseason according to a lot of reports out of Morgantown, and he could be their big play guy from the jump. He's still a bit undersize, standing at five to eleven one sixty five one seventy, but it's been said that he has the speed to make up for it. Moving on to the defense, Aubrey Burks is probably their best player on that side of the ball. The five foot eleven safety from Florida posted forty eight tackles, four passes defense two interceptions, one and a half sacks, and one forced fumble last season, so he's just kind of all over the field for them. He's going to be in the back of that defense kind of leading them. He's a very experienced veteran, so I expect him to do his best to keep them in the game on Saturday. And then looking down along that defensive line, Sean Martin is the difference maker there. He stands at about six five, three hundred and is a force for the Mountaineers. He does necessarily pad the stat sheet, but he's constantly forcing pressure on the passer and especially calgging those rushing lanes. He wears number ninety one. I can almost promise there will be at least one place Saturday that makes you go, who was that? And it'll be Sean Martin. So let's jump into some predictions in this second segment of the podcast. First, I'm gonna try and call the first touchdown of the season for Penn State, and that was between two guys for me, and it's two guys who I think will have a huge impact on this game Saturday, and that is tight end Tyler Warren and running back k Tron Allen. So I'm gonna lock this in right now. Your first Knite line to score a touchdown this season will be k Tron Allen. K Tron should be used a ton in this game, especially in those goal line situations. I think he actually ends up getting more carries than Nick Singleton, but Nick gets more snaps. Overall. Ak's gonna work Nick into the past game a bunch, and I believe we'll see that from the jump this season, starting in a few days against WVU. My second prediction is going to come on the defensive side of the ball. West Virginia ran for one hundred and forty six yards on Penn State last season. They didn't exactly have their way with PSUs front, but they were able to consistently generate chunk plays in the run game. West Virginia lost a ton of talent on their offensive line this past offseason, mostly to the NFL Draft, and that includes elite center Zach Frazier, who is now a Pittsburgh Steeler. They have the talent in their backfield. That running back duo I mentioned earlier is great, probably a top five or six duo in the country. But I think PSU returning all four of their top d tackles from last season, combined with the Mountaineers throwing a lot of offensive linemen with less experience in there will result in a fairly dominant performance from Penn State's rush defense. So prediction number two, Penn State holds West Virginia under one hundred total rush yards this Saturday. Oh right. My final prediction before I take a stab at this final score involves the ever evolving roller coaster that is the PSC wide receiver room. So I'm going to single one guy out and I'm gonna say that Liam Clifford leads all Penn State wide receivers in receptions against West Virginia. He's had, from all reports, an awesome all season and seems ready to not only start but be a meaningful contributor in pretty much every game. I still have Trey Wallace at wide receiver one on the season. I'm pretty bullish on that. If you've seen any of these other podcasts where I talked about him, he was probably supposed to be wide receiver one last year before he actually got hurt. But tying this back to Clifford, give me a strong game from leam Clifford to open the season, all right, and then to close us out, we have the final score prediction. I do think this is a fairly sloppy game from Penn State. For one, they're breaking in all three new coordinators in their first season here, as well as the second reason, which is the projected weather forecast that is supposed to be high eighties, pretty humid, showers in the morning, and then a very high chance of rain around noon or one PM is when it should start. So maybe the rain holds off until later in the game, but we'll likely see a lot of this game played in wet conditions. So I'm gonna say that the West Virginia keeps it close in the first half at least, but the Nitney Lions are able to just sort of lean on them kind of what Michigan's been doing to teams the last two years, and just finish out with a win to open the season. So give me Penn State twenty seven, West Virginia seventeen. I leave on Friday morning with some friends, so I can't wait to get down to Morgantown and hopefully kick off this season in the right way, which would be with a mark in the win column. So that is going to do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning into The Penn State Pulse. I'm your host, Dylan Dawson. I'll see you in Morgantown.