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Psu football

By Derek Levarse dlevarse@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter
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Sales of everything orange spiked dramatically on Thursday in State College.

Not because of the Illinois fans just arriving in town, but from Penn State players and fans cheering on Oregon State against No. 1 USC that night.

“You would’ve thought we were Oregon State alums,” grinned senior captain A.Q. Shipley, who watched the Beavers’ 27-21 upset win with teammates Anthony Scirrotto, Rich Ohrnberger and Doug Klopacz.

It was the first of a string of improbable upsets that saw four top-10 teams lose during the weekend.

And Penn State, which outgunned Illinois 38-24 on Saturday night, was one of the biggest beneficiaries.

The Nittany Lions made their top-10 debut when the new rankings were released Sunday afternoon, jumping up six spots to No. 6 in both the Associated Press poll and the coaches poll.

It’s the team’s highest ranking since finishing the 2005 season at No. 3 in the country.

No doubt the fact that Penn State dismantled giant-slaying Oregon State 45-14 three weeks ago boosted its rise.

“We were just watching the game and couldn’t believe what was going on,” said Daryll Clark, who hosted a crowd at his apartment to watch the game but wasn’t about to get carried away.

“But what happens, happens. That didn’t have anything to do with us. A lot of people say, ‘Well, Penn State must be for real’ and everything like that. You know, in our minds, we feel like we can beat one of the best teams in the country, but we don’t feed into that because that game was on Thursday. We had a game (Saturday). We still had to come out and take care of business.

“There were a lot of upsets this week. We’re just glad we weren’t one of them.”

Besides the top-ranked Trojans, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Florida and No. 9 Wisconsin all went down in Week 5. The Lions passed those four teams, as well as Texas Tech and BYU, both of which were idle this weekend.

With the Badgers’ loss, Penn State is now the highest ranked team in the Big Ten. Ohio State is at No. 14 and Wisconsin is No. 18.

Coach Joe Paterno had his usual concerns about joining that lengthy list of upset victims but said this team’s attitude helped to allay those fears.

“It’s a problem you face all the time, particularly when things have been easy for you, and that was a little bit in the back of my head. ... But this is a good group of kids,” he said. “I’ve said that many times. I really like this squad. I think they listen and they understand what it will be like and that it will not be easy.

“I think we’re making good progress. I don’t want to go overboard, but we are getting close to being a really good football team.”

That mindset that Paterno was talking about was evident by listening to Shipley.

For as much as he rooted for the Beavers to beat USC, he knows not to read into their big win too much.

“If we played Oregon State at a different venue, at a different time, I mean, it could be a completely different outcome,” he said. “We played well that night and they maybe didn’t play their best game.

“You can’t say, ‘OK, because Oregon State beat USC, we’re the No. 1 team in the country.’ That’s not the way football works.”

Keeping composed like that will be critical for Penn State in October. Because while the Lions (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten) passed their first big test by holding off Illinois, the upcoming schedule isn’t exactly favorable.

This week they travel to Purdue to begin a stretch of four out of five games on the road. That includes night games at Wisconsin and Ohio State sandwiched around a home tilt against Michigan, which has beaten Penn State in nine consecutive games.