The Lions take a drive deep into Purdue territory, but the Boilermakers stop Penn State at the Purdue eight yard line. The Lions settle for a Kevin Kelly field goal, which is right down the middle, more than can be said about Purdue's kickers.

But the field goal ends the half and Penn State takes a 10-0 halftime lead. For lack of a better word or cliche, the Lions' defense has bended a lot, but when it needed to, it solidified at stuffed the Boilermakers.

Penn State gets the second-half kickoff, and just a hunch, the Lions are gonna take over from there.

***

Howdy yall,

this is Wible back in the homebase of State College, after a nice drive to the Penn State 18, the Purdue offense stalled and the Boilermakers missed their second field goal of the day.

The score remains 7-0 Penn State, but the Nittany Lion defense has allowed a lot of yards, just no points thus far. This could turn into a shootout soon.

***

Hello everyone, this is Travis coming to you live from the press box at Ross-Ade Stadium, the site of today's noon game between No. 6 Penn State and Purdue.

The big story today? Joe Paterno might coach from the coach's box again.

Paterno coached the second half of the Temple game two weeks ago from the press box due to a sore leg.

One of Paterno's players is also dealing with a lower body injury. Senior wide receiver Jordan Norwood traveled with the team, but has a hamstring injury and has been downgraded to questionable for today's game. Norwood missed last week's game against Illinois. He was previously listed as probable for today's game.

The team is on the field now, warming up and Norwood is dressed. He looks to be OK. He's running around and stretching out -- something he did not do last week.

On to the players that we know for sure will play today and more specifically, a tale of two linebackers.

Penn State's Josh Hull will play in the middle of the Nittany Lion "D" while Anthony Heygood will anchor the Boilermaker unit.

Penn State is known as Linebacker U, but the best linebacker on the field today might be Heygood.

The Lions lost the poster boy of their defense earlier this season when Sean Lee tore his ACL. Hull stepped in to replace him and has come under fire recently.

Heygood, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound 'backer, is in his fifth year for the Boilermakers and is second in the Big Ten in tackles per game. The Chester, Pa. native averages 10 tackles per game.

I talked to Heygood in Chicago earlier this summer at Big Ten Media Days and he remembered a lot of things going wrong for he and his teammates last year when they visited Beaver Stadium.

Here's what Heygood had to say when I asked him what he remembered about last year's game:

"I remember a lot from that game. A lot of things went wrong for us. I remember the opening kickoff, defense had two personal fouls, fumble on the one yard line, the ref kept the clock going when Selwyn stepped out of bounds."

Heygood admitted he was overly excited at Beaver Stadium and committed a personal foul that hurt his team.

"It's definitely my favorite road game. It's really vicious actually -- 107,000 or 111,000 people yellin' at you and none of them want you to win. It's fun. It's a great atmosphere to play in to get you prepared for anywhere."

Heygood will have to have a big game today at home if the Boilermakers want to have a chance to win this ballgame. The Purdue defense isn't that great. They give up 194.5 rushing yards per game and 244.75 passing yards per game.

Yikes!

We'll keep our eyes on Norwood and Paterno, but I'll be turning it over to Wible back in State College who is going to be blogging the rest of the game.

--TJ