Penn State Returns to Hockey Valley to Take On Kent State

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Kevin McGuire is a national college football writer for Examiner.com and covers Penn State football on a daily basis.

In case you missed it, Penn State has pulled back the curtain to become the only school in Pennsylvania to support a fully funded ice hockey program. Could this have any chance of helping to get the Flyers and Penguins to square off in a future Winter Classic? Who knows? But let's stick to football today...

Penn State needs a game like this week’s scheduled game to lick their wounds from a tough defeat against top ranked Alabama. The Nittany Lions turned the ball over to Alabama three times in Alabama territory and could not come up with a big play when it really counted in losing 24-3. This week should see Penn State get the offense back on track, albeit against a much more inferior opponent.

The Nittany Lions return home this weekend to host Kent State (1-1) a week before welcoming Temple to Beaver Stadium for what is shaping out to be a fine intra-state match-up. For Penn State to feel good about themselves again they will need to see improvement on defense. Last week’s sloppy effort saw many missed and poor tackles against a bruising Alabama running game. The pass defense was also exploited by the Crimson Tide but Penn State’s remaining opponents may not have the weapons they faced in week two, so there should be some mild improvement in that particular area.

Penn State is 2-0 all time against the Golden Flashes, with the last meeting needing the Nittany Lions to dig out of an early 10-0 hole in 2003. Fans should expect to see freshman quarterback Rob Bolden continue to grow this week as he took nearly every snap in the Alabama game to cement himself as the quarterback for this team.

Today’s game can be seen on ESPN2, with a 12:01 p.m. kickoff scheduled.

To keep up with all of McGuire’s coverage follow him on Twitter @PSUExaminer.

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