~ya'll are amazing. Look, you may very well beat Texas in sept. but to call this a virtual slamdunk is ignorant at best. Rankings can be argued, atmospheres can be argued, the passing ability of VY can be argued. The difficulty of this game between tOSU and UT CANNOT BE ARGUED. Texas is returning almost their entire team as is tOSU, both are top 5-10 teams and both will be ready to play. To put the longhorns in the same category as psu shows very little knowledge of college football over the past 5 years.
I'm putting Texas and PSU in the same category for a few reasons: 1) Playing at the Horseshoe early in the season is VERY tough for almost any team, especially one that has a few questions. I'm sure Selvin Young is a great back, but he is unproven; 2) Ohio State's coaches have a good track record of preparing the team for big matchups, especially non-conference games (2002: Washington State, scUM, Miami; 2003: Washington, Kansas State; 2004: NC State, scUM, Okie St.); 3) Penn State has a kick-ass defense; if they had had any offense whatsoever the last several years they would have made a few nice bowl appearances; 4) PSU has played us very tough lately, especially in State College; and 5) Penn State will have longer to develop a consistent offense and better their chances against us.
All these factors put an early road game for Texas at the Shoe on at least a similar level as a mid-season trip for tOSU to State College.
P.S. I have a lot of respect for Texas. I'm sure my calling them a possible slamdunk has something to do with the Longhorns "on paper." When the teams hit the field you can throw all that out the window. It just seemed to me that tOSU has an above-average chance to win this one, that's all.