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Nittany Lions on HBO

By Bill Hughes for The 4 min read
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Penn State will be featured tonight on HBO’s 24/7 College Football show.

The show’s production team followed the Nittany Lions last week leading up to the Purdue game and inside footage will be shown during the show. The show airs at 10 p.m.

Rough stretch ahead

While Penn State throttled Maryland in an almost home-field environment two weeks ago and then handled Purdue last weekend, the schedule is about to pick up.

The Nittany Lions play in prime time the next two weeks as they head to Iowa Saturday night before hosting Michigan in a White Out next weekend.

Of the nine Big Ten stadiums that I have been in attendance, Kinnick Stadium is my favorite and the Hawkeyes always seem to play ranked opponents well under the lights.

Penn State will have to play top-notch football to win in Kinnick Stadium, and something tells me Michigan will come looking for a fight next week.

If Penn State is going to continue to climb in the rankings, it has to win both games and then get over a hurdle at Michigan State.

Can Pitt reach 10 wins?

The Pitt Panthers sit at 4-2 and are riding a three-game winning streak.

How many more wins can Pitt pull off in the regular season?

The Panthers are a mere two wins from a bowl berth, and they could conceivably win out.

While it is no guarantee, would it be that hard to see Pitt win its last six games? The Panthers head to Syracuse Friday before hosting an overrated Miami squad to close out play in October.

November sees Pitt go to Georgia Tech, host its kryptonite, North Carolina, travel to Virginia Tech and host Boston College.

The Panthers have a stout defense and are playing better offensively, and anything less than eight wins would be looked down upon considering what lies ahead for the team.

Pitt could silence many critics if it were to have a stellar second half of the season.

The one problem is that it is unlikely the Panthers can reach a second consecutive ACC Championship game as they would have to win out and Virginia would have to lose twice.

Yes, Pitt has to focus on one game at a time, but its fans have a reason to be optimistic when looking ahead, even if caution prevails.

Ex-WVU player to XFL

Former West Virginia University football player Kenny Robinson Jr. is making history.

At some point before the XFL draft next week, the league will announce that Robinson will become the first player with college eligibility remaining to enter its draft pool.

Robinson could use a solid year with the XFL as a springboard to the NFL, and it could open a new avenue for more players to use the XFL as a viable option as opposed to the NCAA route.

The reason Robinson isn’t playing this year for WVU is he committed a student code of conduct violation involving academic fraud and he was booted from the university as a result.

The XFL does not have an age limit, but the league will not actively recruit players from other colleges.

Other top names in the draft include former Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones and former Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook.

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