Happy Valley Saturday...a beautiful day.

Game time was 3:30 p.m., so about noon four of us loaded the cooler full of yuengling lager into a car and headed up to Happy Valley to see the Penn State v. Minnesota game. These are guys I went to high school -- in many cases elementary school -- and college with, and we go back quite a way with long memories of our various embarrassments and misdeeds. It was a good hour's worth of recounting as we rode to the stadium.

Cow pastures and cornfields -- that's what most of Penn State's parking lots are when not used to herd cars. We were a good ways from the stadium.

The lion led the team onto the field.

Penn State's first touchdown. It was a sweet sweet moment, because last year I attended the Iowa game, which PSU lost 6-4, and where their only scoring came on two safeties. Ugly.

I even saw the lights of the goodyear blimp and it read JoePa's a pimp.

Postgame: hanging out on College Avenue picking up undergrads. Ok that's not quite accurate. Actual Post game: looking in every clothing store on College Avenue for Penn State children's clothes.

We are now ranked, and I'm giving myself a few days of bliss before falling into the worry of what may happen next Saturday v. Ohio State and it's crew of mountain man linebackers. Coach Tressel is very determined.

Penn State will not be able to run on OSU the way they ran at will on Minnesota. Robinson didn't make any critical mistakes against Minnesota, but his passing wasn't exactly crisp. He'll need to throw the balls closer to the receivers if PSU is going to win October 8.