Thanks go out to Muha who reminded me that Carroll H. Cook (Pitt ’54) had a chat yesterday.

Beano kicks off the 2006 season with little to say about Penn State, which I read as a good thing. He mentions them once as part of a Notre Dame answer:

David (Wooster, OH): Beano, what will be the biggest question mark for the Irish this year? I think it will be LB. Most say DB but those guys are all back and Charlie has addressed the DB play this past season.

SportsNation Beano Cook: Number one, Notre Dame has material. These are not kids who only had Ivy League players…Notre Dame has players that a lot of people wanted and the schedule is favorable, plain and simple.

and again in another question, this time also relating to Notre Dame.

Marc (Princeton, NJ): How do you explain ND playing in the Championship game when they are going to lose to Penn State on Sept 9th?

SportsNation Beano Cook: We will see. If they lose to Penn State then you are probably right, they will not be in the title game. The Nittany Lions will be better than people think.

Heh.

I do wonder what he means by “better than people think” because I don’t know what do people think about this year’s team. I think the Lions are in for 8 to 10 wins.

It is too early to tell if Beano’s powers of jinxing-in-the-form-of-praise have returned completely. It used to be a lock that the opposite of what Beano said would happen when it came to Penn State, but he has been inconsistant lately. We shall see….