Hey CFN, you forgot about Penn State

While the Nittany Lions' relatively young excursion into the realm of college football as show business hasn't pissed off too many in the mainstream, Penn State's blatant exploitation of a few cool gimmicks in 2005 to try to recreate the excitement of that once-in-a-lifetime season is teetering on inclusion into this conversation, finally discussed by Pete Fiutak at CFN:

"And it takes things to a whole other level if you jump around a lot after a big play … Oooooooh, black helmets (Georgia). Ooooooh, playing Enter Sandman when the team runs into the stadium (Virginia Tech). If you have to rely on gimmicks to jack your team up, as opposed to being better at blocking, tackling, preparing and executing, your team probably sucks. When the attempts to fire everyone up don’t work, they look that much sillier."

How could one not immediately think of every big Penn State home night game from 2006 thru this season? We can only hope this upcoming weekend that it all changes with a win over Ohio State. But then again, would it be really as big of a win as we thought it would be coming into the season? The last time Penn State won a huge, like national title contention huge, night game in Beaver Stadium was against the No. 6 Buckeyes in, you guessed it, 2005. Basically, all those bells and whistles thrown around by the branding department have done squat to actually influence the product on the field during those big games. No. 4 Michigan 2006? 17-10 loss. No. 1 Ohio State 2007? 37-17 loss. Super-mega-revenge-game Iowa 2008? 21-10 loss. All night games on national television. All losses.

I'm just sayin'...