‘Linebacker U’ has a problem at the linebacker position in 2008. That, essentially, is what Penn State’s Joe Paterno admitted earlier this week, and he is correct. For the first time in a very long time, the Nittany Lions do not have a big-time, playmaker at the spot and that will almost certainly undermine any plans of contending for the Big Ten Conference title this fall.

“If I had to put a ‘one, two, three’ on my question marks (coming into the season), the first one on the defense would be linebackers,” Paterno said.

It’s nothing personal against the three projected starters, but who is really getting excited with the prospect of fielding players like Josh Hull, Tyrell Sales and Bani Gbadyu -- especially after the position has been recently anchored by three of the greatest linebackers in PSU’s storied history?

“There was a time when we lined up (Paul) Posluszny, (Dan) Connor and (Sean) Lee,” Paterno said. “We've got a bunch of kids that are really going to be good, but there are a lot of things they're going to have to adjust to.”

In other words, there is no Connors or Lees in the mix right now. Connor and Posluszny are in the NFL and Lee is sidelined for the season while recovering from a knee injury. A fifth-year senior, Sales is the lone returning starter, but he’s had a largely unimpressive college career. Hull has made great strides and is a tough, determined player, but he is, after all, a former walk on. Gbadyu showed flashes of promise as a freshman last season, but he will be making his first college start in Saturday’s opener.

The young backups, like Chris Colasanti, Navorro Bowman and Michael Mauti are very promising prospects, but are probably a year away from making an impact. That’s when Lee is expected to return fir his senior season.

As you can see, the future looks pretty bright. The present, however, is a major concern. – NEIL GEOGHEGAN.

Penn State released its latest depth chart on Aug. 25 and there was absolutely no insight into who will be the starting quarterback for Saturday’s opener. Senior Darryl Clark and sophomore Pat Devlin are both listed on the top line.

Head coach Joe Paterno may be waiting until his first teleconference on Aug. 26th to announce a decision, but that’s doubtful. The guess here is that he will take the suspense into the game in order to get an edge on Coastal Carolina … as absurd as that sounds. This is almost a certainty: both will play in the season’s first outing.

All of the other starting positions have apparently been settled, except at right cornerback, where Lydell Sargeant and A.J. Wallace are listed as even. There are no surprises in the other starting spots. The only noteworthy starters include Josh Hull at inside linebacker and Mickey Shuler at tight end (the talented but troubled Andrew Quarless is listed as the third stringer). – NEIL GEOGHEGAN.

A quick glance at the Big Ten’s non-conference football schedule indicates that Penn State will likely be the least prepared squad of all the league’s upper echelon teams when it heads into conference play on Sept. 27.

That’s because the Nittany Lions have, once again, an almost embarrassingly weak pre-conference slate that is, clearly, inferior as compared to the other Big Ten programs that have legitimate bowl aspirations and beyond. The only others with a similarly unimpressive string of tune-up games are Indiana, Minnesota and Northwestern, the three teams that are expected to finish in the basement of the 2008 standings.

Penn State’s non-conference schedule would be a complete joke if it wasn’t for a Week Two clash with Oregon State. But don’t give Penn State too much credit for playing this game. The Beavers (9-4 in ’07) are only coming to Happy Valley because they did not require the Lions to make a return trip to Corvallis. app

The remaining non-league games are against Coastal Carolina, Syracuse and Temple, who were a combined 11-24 a year ago. Like Youngstown State in 2006, Coastal Carolina is a Div. I-AA program, and like Florida International last fall, its program is in its infancy (established in 2003). Temple is improving under head coach Al Golden but the Owls have just eight wins in the last five seasons.

And the lone road trip is to Syracuse, which was 2-10 in 2007. And with only seven victories since 2005, it is a program in the midst of the worst stretch in history.

All of the other upper-tier Big Ten programs will play at least one challenging road game:
-- Conference favorite, Ohio State, has a Sept. 13 showdown at Southern Cal.
-- Michigan travels to South Bend to take on Notre Dame.
-- Michigan State opens the season at California.
-- Wisconsin plays at Fresno State.
-- Iowa visits Pittsburgh.
-- Illinois tackles Missouri in St. Louis.
-- And even Purdue has a more adventurous slate, playing at Notre Dame and hosting Oregon. And unlike PSU, the Boilermakers will be making a return trip to Oregon in 2009.

This fall, the Lions face a brutal mid-season stretch that includes four Big Ten road games out of five, including games at Purdue, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Iowa. Will they be prepared to play a quality team in a hostile environment? -- NEIL GEOGHEGAN.

It took more than a year for it to happen, but Comcast subscribers within the Big Ten Conference’s eight-state footprint can finally catch a glimpse of the Big Ten Network in their homes starting on Aug. 15.

But in the Philadelphia area only, there is a caveat: you have to be shelling out extra cash each month for Comcast’s premium digital package in order to get BTN. If you are unsure about your current cable viewing status, turn to channel 257. If all you see is static, you are out of luck. But don’t forget, if you simply lived in any other part of Pennsylvania, or in seven other states in the Midwest, you would not be watching a test pattern right now. That’s because those areas get BTN as part of their standard cable package.

If you have helped to make Verizon FiOS one of the nation’s top-10 video distributors just three years since its debut, you are in luck. The Big Ten Network will be made available to you in both standard and high definition very soon.

What does it all mean for Penn State fans? If you get BTN, you won’t be forced to go to a sports bar or else miss three regular season football games this fall like you did a year ago while the network and cable operators squabbled. The Nittany Lions’ season opener on Aug. 30 against Coastal Carolina is the first of at least three PSU games that will be televised by BTN in 2008. The others: a Sept. 20 clash with Temple and at least one conference clash.

At 9 p.m. on Aug. 21, BTN will offer a rare look inside a Penn State football practice during a 90-minute Big Ten Tonight: Penn State Football Practice report. During its inaugural year, the network also provided coverage of 22 other Nittany Lion programs, including 19 men’s basketball games, a dozen women’s basketball games and six matches of the 2007 NCAA Champion women’s volleyball team. – NEIL GEOGHEGAN.

Very few, if any, preseason prognosticators believe that anybody other than Ohio State is going to win the Big Ten football crown this fall. The Buckeyes were supposed to be in a rebuilding mode in 2007 but went on to win the conference title for the second straight year and made an appearance in the national championship game.

On paper, Ohio State should be even better this fall. But that certainly hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm at Penn State for the upcoming season. On Aug. 1, PSU announced that due to unprecedented demand for tickets, the 22nd ranked Nittany Lions will playing before sellout crowds in all seven home games this season.

For the second consecutive year, more than 93,500 season tickets have been purchased. More than 15,000 student season tickets for freshmen, sophomores and juniors sold out in approximately three minutes after going on sale in June. According to Bud Meredith, Director of Ticket Operations, 99 percent of current season ticket holders renewed their seats for the 2008 season.

It all means that the Lions will almost certainly lead the nation in home attendance this fall because Beaver Stadium is, temporarily, the nation’s largest facility with a capacity of 107,282. The perennial No. 1 – Michigan Stadium – will lose about 1,500 seats and will hold just 106,201 this season due to a renovation project, but will eventually gain an additional 5,000 by the time it is finished by 2010.

Don’t look for Penn State to heavily publicize its brief stay atop the attendance race. Beaver Stadium could fall to No. 3 in the next few years as Tennessee is also planning to increase capacity of Neyland Stadium. – NEIL GEOGHEGAN