Powerhouse PSU Deserves Better than Consolation Bowl against Fake-tanned, Faux-hawked Trojan Bro-tards

By Will Plassky, Sports Beat

Philadelphia, PA-- A 2008 Penn State football season that should have ended with a championship trophy will end instead with roses.

     Closing out their season in Beaver stadium, an unrivaled sports venue that the Lions have vigilantly defended at least since Los Angeles was little more than a graveyard for sabretooth tigers, the mood was bittersweet as Penn State pounded out a win over the Trojans of Michigan State.

USC offensive linemen Zack Heberer and Garrett Nolan, who have been preparing for the Rose Bowl by doing Pilates and teasing their hair.

     Unfortunately for PSU, they won't get the opportunity to cap their season against an esteemed rival from the Big Ten. Instead, the Lions will face an entirely different and assuredly inferior sort of Trojan team in January.

     This team is from California, and you could be forgiven for confusing them with rejects from a casting call for The Hills. You could also be forgiven for thinking that a mistake has been made. "Knowing that in some places, football means what we call soccer, I checked with coach shortly after I heard [about the match-up]" said sophomore DE Aaron Maybin. "It turns out they do play the same sport, not on the same level of course, but they do use the same rulebook."

     It's difficult to imagine this fake-tanned, faux-hawked group of The OC cast-offs even occupying the same stadium as Penn State's venerable squad, but that is exactly the scenario that will take place on New Year's Day. Although the game itself may amount to little more than an especially early scrimmage for the 2009 season, this Lion team will play the hand they have been dealt and take care of business, but that doesn't mean they're not disappointed.

     "The fact that these southern and west coast teams with inbred, cream-puff schedules are given equal footing with real football schools in the sham that is the BCS 'national championship', well, it's nothing short of football socialism," said Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley. Quarterback Darryl Clark added, "Sure, you want to play a team that can give you some competition, but it's really out of our hands at this point."

The talent gap between real football conferences like the Big Ten and glorified junior college intramural leagues like the Pac-10 and SEC may be gradually narrowing, but it is still oceans wide, and in 2008, California is to football as Mexico is to ice hockey. Sure, in Hollywood a bobsled team from Jamaica can get a charismatic coach and make some noise in the Olympics, but in the real world, a football team from California just doesn't have a prayer against one of college football's most esteemed programs.