2007 PSCG Retreat & #1 Comes to Town

The past couple weekends have both been pretty busy, but for vastly different reasons. Last Saturday (the 20th) was the 2nd annual Fall Retreat for Penn State Christian Grads. The other officers and I had been working for awhile planning out the retreat, and about 20 people from PSCG signed up for it. And like the year before, we held it at the Stone Valley Experimental Forestry Lodge, about 20 miles south of State College, just past McAlevy’s Fort. Even though it’s “close” to State College, it’s in a pretty remote area — so remote that there’s not even cell phone reception down there. It was such a gorgeous drive heading down there on Hwy 26 (and 305), especially as it went up and over Tussey Ridge in Rothrock State Forest. The colors had been a bit muted in town, but once you got outside State College they were absolutely spectacular!
Our guest speakers for the retreat were Bob & Ronda Adgate of the Navigators and Michigan Christian Grads, and the main theme was “Embracing & Igniting Life-Giving Hope Together.” They gave three talks which were all good, and touched on many topics, including how we aren’t full as individuals unless we give — of ourselves, our time, our talents — to others, and how God is a pursuing God. We also had some worship time, some small group and large group discussions, and some personal reflection time, it was good.
In the mid-afternoon we had some free time, which most of us used to go on a hike in the Penn State Experimental Forest just across PA 305 from the lodge. There aren’t any real trails in that particular area, so we just made a 2-hr loop on some narrow, unpaved forest roads that are rarely traveled upon. The leaves definitely were coming into their peak color season, it was a great time for a hike! After climbing up to the ridge-top on the road, it took us along the ridge for awhile, and we were wondering if there was ever gonna be a good vista, we finally came along a hillside quarry that afforded some really pretty views of the rest of Stone Valley. After the hike we played some games (including Settlers and Scrabble), made some s’mores, and had some wrap-up small group time. The whole day was a really great time to get out of State College, relax, reflect and get to know some other people from the group a bit better.

This past Saturday was busy for football reasons. As I’d mentioned in my previous posts, #25 Penn State was hosting the #1 team in the country, Ohio State, and because it was such an important game, ESPN College GameDay chose to come to Happy Valley to do their Saturday-morning show. So Ryan, Frame & Grabon all met up here at 8am to head off to the tailgating lots to park, and then we walked over to the BJC where the GameDay set was built. Even though we got there an hour early we still wound up being quite aways back. By the time the show started at 10am there was a HUGE crowd with tons of signs and flags (I didn’t think the crowd was quite as loud this time, though). Our signs were usually blocked by the signs in front of us, but there was at least one instance where I know my sign and I got on TV for at least 3 seconds coming out of a commercial at around 10:45. Jeff [Frame] managed to squeeze his way forward enough eventually so that his sign got on pretty frequently in the last 30-45 minutes of the show. It’s always fun to be on national TV. 🙂 And the rainy weather stopped before the show started, and it even cleared out for a bit, turning into a nice, breezy day. The rest of the afternoon was spent tailgating.
There was a lot of anticipation about this game, especially since PSU upset OSU here in 2005, partly due to the tremendously raucous crowd from that, the first White Out game. Fans were expecting to have a similar affect on the outcome of the game this year, and were optimistic about the game itself, particularly since Penn State had won 19 of their last 20 home games coming into the weekend. We left the tailgate shortly after 6pm and got to our seats a full 90 minutes before kickoff (a personal record). The crowd was in a frenzy and deafeningly loud right before kickoff and during the 1st quarter. After the Buckeyes scored a field goal on their opening drive, the Nittany Lions responded by marching right down the field on a long, methodical drive, taking a 7-3 lead. We were all surprised at how effortlessly the Penn State offense moved the ball against the vaunted Buckeye defense, and thought it was a sign of things to come. But Ohio State answered with a long touchdown drive of its own, and scored another after forcing a Penn State punt, to go up 17-7. The defense looked to be on the ropes again in the 2nd quarter, but Dan Connor managed to come up with an interception, reinvigorating the team and the crowd. On the ensuing drive, Penn State had a 4th-and-2 from the OSU 38 yard line with about 2 minutes to go before halftime, and with the crowd imploring the Lions to go for it, what does JoePa do? He orders a punt. Ugh. As soon as I saw the punter trotting out onto the field, I thought the game was over, even though it wasn’t even halftime yet. I’d understand the call if we were up by 10, but when we’re down by 10 at home late in the half to the #1 team in the country, when our defense had shown no signs of slowing down OSU’s offense, you simply cannot play conservatively and have a legitimate hope of winning. The 1st half trends continued in the 2nd half, mainly that the Ohio State offense was operating with cold-blooded, ruthless efficiency, moving the ball at will through the Penn State defense (which was ranked as one of the best defensive units in the nation, yet couldn’t put even a hint of pressure on the Buckeyes QB all night), and the Buckeyes bulged their lead to 37-10 late in the 4th quarter, before Penn State scored a meaningless “window-dressing” touchdown on a kickoff return to make the final score 37-17.
In my relatively short time of closely following Penn State football, I have never seen the Nittany Lions dismantled and dominated so thoroughly as they were by Ohio State this weekend. OSU both outplayed and outcoached PSU, and it wasn’t even close. After getting rattled by the White Out crowd in 2005, Tressel had his players ready this time around. Ohio State is an *excellent* team, and I’d have to say they’re the best football team I’ve ever witnessed in person — better even than 2005 Penn State.
Unfortunately it was so windy during the game that it blew trash and recycling all over the tailgating fields, even from people like us that had carefully cleaned up and bagged it before heading to the game. What a mess. The traffic trying to get out of the lots was a mess too, and in a one-hour stretch we moved about 20 feet. Ugh. So I didn’t get home until almost 1am. I was totally wiped out and without a voice (from cheering so hard during the game), and definitely crashed right away.
The short IM flag football season is now done, almost before it started. Two Thursdays ago we scored a 30-0 win against a really bad team. I caught two balls for 2-point conversions in the 1st half (when we took a 22-0 lead), but then in the 2nd half I dropped a perfect deep pass down the sideline that would’ve been a sure touchdown. Sigh. It still felt really good to get into the win column finally. This Thursday we played our final game, and since we were down a couple players, I played wide receiver and defensive end basically the whole game, with only short spells. We played that team tough, falling behind 14-0 at halftime, before storming back in the 2nd to take a 20-14 lead. The other team scored again late to tie it at 20-20, but we lost because they had more first downs than we did. The thing is, we honestly should’ve won, because on the 2-pt conversion attempt after our first touchdown, Moyer scrambled out of the pocket and clearly stretched the ball across the goal line before his flags were tackled. But the ref (who was standing well behind the play, way back at the 10 yard line!) ruled that Moyer dove (which is ridiculous), which is illegal, and that the conversion therefore didn’t count. Officiating in IM games is usually a complete joke, but that was probably the worst call I’ve ever seen in an IM game. If that would’ve counted, we would’ve won 22-20. So while our record is “officially” 1-3, we consider ourselves 2-2. In any case, it’s time to hang up the cleats until next year.