start bench cut these three pen day running backs in college can you tell me who penate football's playing this weekend sorry [Music] what welcome back into the Penn State pulse I'm your host Dylan Dawson I'm all moved into the new apartment feels great to be back in State College and it is finally here welcome to game week we are recording this episode on Wednesday night August 28th uh just 3 days before this matchup where number eight Penn State travels to Morgantown to take on West Virginia in the season opener this game will be a noon kick on Fox the spread has been interesting to follow um that opened around PSU by 13 or 14 and that now sits down at 8 as I'm recording this so there has been a lot of money coming in for the Mountaineers uh an important stat to note Is that West Virginia is 0 and4 against the spread in its last four games against ranked teams shout out Josh Pate for finding that one all right let's jump into some WVU players to watch Penn State won this matchup last season by the score of 38- 15 in Beaver Stadium but many think this year could be a different story so I'm going to give you guys a few names to to keep an eye on and that could be a Difference Maker for West Virginia on Saturday um so the first name to mention is obviously West Virginia quarterback Garett green he struggled last season with accuracy as he completed passes at about a 53% clip uh reports are though that he did have a pretty good off season um regardless of where he stands there in that passing game though he is someone who can absolutely beat you every single game with his legs he is a quick and Elusive Runner so the net lons will probably have to assign a spy on the majority of defensive Downs U Moving On The Donaldson and white running back Duo starting with CJ Donaldson he will return for them at halfback and standing at about 62240 that is not an easy tackle to make um he went for 81 yards and a touchdown in 2023 against Penn State and about 800 yards and 11 touchdowns on the whole season um his complimentary piece who hails from my hometown of York PA is Jahim white and white is quite literally the opposite style of back as he is about 57 195 and he went for about 850 yards and four touchdowns in 2023 he did that on slightly over a 100 carries too which averaged out to 7.7 yards per carry so he's more of their big play guy whereas Donaldson is kind of just that Bruiser who can help in those goal line and short yardage situations the next name I wanted to mention and the final offensive name here is Rick Darius farmer who is a true freshman wide receiver that they flipped from pit which is pretty interesting considering that that's a pretty strong rivalry between uh pit and West Virginia um but yeah Rick Darius he goes by DayDay farmer uh he's had a very nice offseason according to a lot of reports out of Morgantown and he could be their big play guy from the jump uh he's still a bit undiz standing at 511 165 70 uh but it's been said that he has the speed to make up for it moving on to the defense Aubry Burks is probably their best player on that side of the ball uh the 5 foot1 safety from Florida posted 48 tackles four passes defensed two interceptions one and a half sacks and one forced fumble last season so he's just kind of all over the field for them um he's going to be in the back of that defense kind of leading them he's a very experienced veteran so I expect him to do his best to keep them in the game on Saturday and then looking down along that defensive line Shawn Martin is the Difference Maker there uh he stands at about 65300 and is a force for the Mountaineers uh he doesn't necessarily pad the stat sheet but he's constantly forcing pressure on the passer and especially clogging those rushing Lanes he wears number 91 um I can almost promis there will be at least one play Saturday that makes you go who was that and it'll be Shawn Martin so let's jump into some predictions in this second segment of the podcast first I'm going to try and call the first touchdown of the season for Penn State and that was between two guys for me and it's two guys who I think will have a huge impact on this game Saturday and that is tight end Tyler Warren and running back KRON Allen so I'm going to lock this in right now your first nitty line to score a touchdown this season will be KRON Allen KRON should be used a ton in this game uh especially in those goal line situations I I think he actually ends up getting more carries than Nick Singleton but Nick gets more snaps overall um AK is going to work Nick into the pass game a bunch and I believe we'll see that from the jump this season starting in a few days against WVU my second prediction is going to come on the defensive side of the ball West Virginia ran for 146 yards on Penn State last season um they didn't exactly have their way with psu's front but they were able to consistently generate chunk plays in The Run game West Virginia lost a ton of Talent on their offensive line this past off season um mostly to the NFL draft and that includes Elite Center Zack Frasier who is now a Pittsburgh Steeler um they have the talent in their backfield that running back Duo I mentioned earlier is great probably a top five or six duo in the country um but I think PSU returning all four of their top D tackles from last season combined with the Mountaineers throwing a lot of offensive linemen with less experience in there will result in a fairly dominant performance from Penn State's Rush defense so prediction number two Penn State holds West Virginia under 100 total rush yards this Saturday all right my final prediction before I take a stab at this final score involves the ever evolving roller coaster that is the PSU wide receiver room so I'm going to single uh one guy out and I'm going to say that Liam Clifford leads all Penn State wide receivers in receptions against West Virginia he's had from all reports an awesome offseason and seems ready to not only start but be a meaningful contributor in pretty much every game um I still have Trey Wallace at wide receiver one on the season I'm pretty bullish on that um if you've seen any of these other podcasts where I talked about him he was probably supposed to be wide receiver one last year before he actually got hurt um but uh tying this back to Clifford give me a strong game from lean Clifford to open the season all right and then to close us out we have the final score prediction I do think this is a fairly sloppy game from Penn State um for one they're breaking in all three new coordinators in their first season here as well as the second reason which is the projected weather forecast um that is supposed to be high 80s pretty humid showers in the morning and then a very high chance of rain um around noon or 1 p.m. is when it should start so maybe the rain holds off until later in the game um but we'll likely see a lot of this game played in wet conditions so I'm going to say that West Virginia keeps it close in the first half at least but the nitty lions are able to just sort of lean on them um kind of what Michigan's been doing to teams the last two years and just finish out with a win to open the season so give me Penn State 27 West Virginia 17 I leave on Friday morning with some friends so I can't wait to get down in Morgantown and hopefully kick off this season in the right way which would be with a mark in the wind column so that is going to do it for today's episode thank you so much for tuning in to the Penn State Paul I'm your host Dylan Dawson and I'll see you in Mor town [Music]