PSU Women's Volleyball starts 2010 at No. 1

How dare they not get all 60 first place votes:

The three-time defending national champion Penn State women's volleyball team heads into the 2010 season as the preseason favorite in the AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25 Poll the organization announced today. The seven-time defending Big Ten Champions earned 1,456 total points and 40 of the 60 first place votes.

Nebraska is ranked second heading into 2010 having garnered 1,384 points and 16 first place votes. Following the Cornhuskers is Texas (No. 3), who Penn State defeated in the 2009 National Championship match, Stanford (No. 4) and Hawaii (No. 5).

Shocked, SHOCKED! I tell you. [that's sarcasm, people]

I don't know about anyone else out there, but the 2010 national title match against Texas was one of the most exciting sporting events I've ever watched on television--no exaggeration, folks. Penn State was on the ropes, but proved just why they are now the three-time defending national champs.

Here's to another championship season!

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The 1994 Big Ten Championship Game: Penn State vs Nebraska

What if Penn State and Nebraska had duked it out, on the field, for the 1994 national championship? These two programs would never have been printed, that's for sure.

1992... that's two years before 1994, folks.

Nebraska was apparently ready and willing to join the Big Ten, had it offered the Cornhuskers membership after Penn State joined the league in 1990.

"A dig through World-Herald files shows that Devaney spoke with Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany in 1992 about that league adding another team in light of the addition of Penn State in 1990 as the 11th member."

Well ain't that swell. All this crap could have been taken care of 18 years ago. Two things to note about the 1992 timeframe...

1. It could have created a Big Ten title game (12 teams), just as the SEC was beginning its own two-division alignment. The first SEC Championship Game was played in 1992.

2. Nebraska surely would have entered into conference football play by 1994. In either the same, or separate divisions, Penn State and Nebraska would have naturally met in the regular season at some point. Not only would this have allowed for the biggest game of the season, but just imagine if both 11-0 teams faced off as No. 1 vs No. 2 in the Big Ten title game. Surely that would have been in the "Game of the Century" annals.

But oh, it gets much better than that. You know who was chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the early 1990s? Our very own Penn State prez, Graham Spanier. Even way back when, Nebraska was still the head honcho when it came to moving and shaking the college football landscape.

A three-month chain of events in late 1993 and early 1994 — all involving football TV rights deals — “put the Big Eight in a vulnerable position," then-NU Chancellor Graham Spanier said, “and the Southwest Conference in even a more vulnerable spot."

So what if Nebraska moved to the Big Ten in 1992, when Devaney spoke with Delany (who's names sounds uncannily alike, I might add)? Would the 1994 college football season even have the reputation it does today? Who would have actually won the game? Would Spanier be Penn State's current president? Would the Big Ten move to instant replay much sooner? Would Anthony Morelli not throw three pick-sixes against Ohio State?

One may never know. But it's fun to pretend.

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