Let me just get this one out of the way first: the Blue-White game is potentially the most over-hyped event in Penn State athletics. Every year, I shake off my hangover and make the walk up to Beaver Stadium. And every year, I am left asking myself why.

I love football — more specifically — I love Penn State football, but the glorified practice that is the Blue-White Game has no value to me. If a player performs well, the pundits will hype him up to unreasonable levels. If a player performs poorly, the pundits will raise the red flags. None of this matters, and watching Penn State’s second team essentially play two hand touch with each other for a few hours just doesn’t pique my interest.

Now that my pettiness is out of the way, here are some observations I took away from the atmosphere this Saturday:

• Silas Redd’s autograph looks like a dick. Seriously. I didn’t take part in the pre-game autograph session, but I saw plenty of kids walking around with this calligraphy scribbled on their programs and footballs. If he didn’t add #25 I would have no idea who the signature belonged to.

• Bill O’Brien is a very angry man. Either that, or he just doesn’t like to smile. I couldn’t find a single picture in all the photo galleries from Saturday where BOB didn’t look like he would kill the next person he saw with his bare hands. Just check here, here, here, or here.

• Half the fans were walking tributes to Joe Paterno. I saw an adult every couple minutes with rolled up khakis and black shoes, and even more “Thank you Joe” t-shirts and memorabilia. I anticipate that this trend will continue through this fall, and possibly much longer. And I’m sure this won’t be the last flower vigil we see for the late coach.

• Guido is gone. Although the Blue Band was occasionally interrupted by mediocre Penn State commercials on the scoreboard, the whole “Great Show” nonsense was almost nonexistent. I know this is most likely only because of the nature of a scrimmage and not because of Guido, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

• The new scoring system is senseless. The points were already skewed to favor the defense, and it showed in the 77-65 final score. Certainly, I care very little which team wins the Blue-White Game, but this scoring system is only slightly less embarrassing than Pitt’s spring game, in which score wasn’t even kept.

• Just when I think Shane McGregor’s hair can’t get any better, it does. Look at these locks. The helmet comes off, yet the golden flow remains in perfect form. How does he do it? The world may never know.

So there you have it. Four hundred words is about four hundred more than I ever care to write about a football scrimmage. See you in 131 days for a slightly more titillating review of the Ohio game. After all, who doesn’t love MACtion?