The Obligatory PSU Podcast

With the NFL season upon us, the guys follow up on the last show about former Penn State players who survived cuts to make a professional roster by giving Brandon Noble a platform to share his own journey of Happy Valley to the pros. Like several current Nittany Lions, Brandon had to take the tougher path of an undrafted free agent. He explains the process of going from Big Ten champ and Fiesta Bo...

When James Franklin arrived at Penn State, he listed preparing his players for a shot at the NFL among his top goals, and the program has had great success sending alumni to the next level. With the 2020 NFL season about to commence, numerous Nittany Lions survived cuts to make pro rosters and practice squads: against-the-odds warriors like Trace McSorley and Jason Cabinda, decorated vets such as...

After plowing through the festering heap of college football "news" from this week - from unsolicited phone calls from the POTUS to unfounded Twitter rumor-mongering from oddly-named accounts - the guys move to swapping stories and fondly recalling their favorite traditions and rituals of a game week in Happy Valley. Brandon goes in depth about the experiences of his playing days and how the team...

Thanks to pretrial action for a lawsuit that presumably stands little chance of actually succeeding in court, we can finally confirm that there was, in fact, a vote by university leaders to cancel the 2020 Big Ten season, that it was 11-3 in favor, and (probably) that Penn State's Eric Barron joined with the majority. So why did it take the threat of litigation to squeeze this info out of the conf...

What better time for a classic Obligatory digression than the pretend start of a non-existent football season? As the gang assembles (like The Avengers, but very different) to begin filming Season 5 of The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show (game optional in 2020), Chris, Mike the Mailman, and Kevin (actually joining from the car ride back to Happy Valley) link up to record the podcast. Predictably, the...

Place your bets. Mike the Mailman sets the official Obligatory over/under on weeks until Penn State becomes the latest to make the move to remote learning. With students returning to Happy Valley and bringing the bad press with them - East Halls twerking parties, suspended fraternities, and the student body president calling for online classes on CNN - Brandon, Chris, Kevin, and Mailman spend time...

Some technical issues held up release of this latest episode, recorded literally as the first news of the Big Ten season's cancellation reached the public. The late-breaking news fit perfectly, however, with the knowledge and background of previously-scheduled guest Dr. Scott Kretchmar, a distinguished Penn State emeritus professor of Kinesiology. Dr. Kretchmar reacts to the prospect of a Fall wit...

The first week of August brought more Penn State and college football news than we've had in like three months - from the release of the Nittany Lions' 2020 schedule to the announcement that the Beaver Stadium bleachers will be empty for the games. Micah Parsons opted out; the Big Ten's players united, and a PSU starter blocked Kevin on Twitter. The guys welcome in one of the hardest workers on th...

Enough of these wide-ranging conversations with interesting guests; time to get back to the basics of Obligatory. With Brandon Noble off for the day, Mailman, Kevin, and Chris get the stage to themselves. A conversation that begins with technical glitches and discussion of frozen pizza commercials from 30 years ago strays into an explanation from Kevin about the fascinating backstory behind some o...

Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn Sate football since 1999, as the long-time Nittany Lions beat reporter for The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and most recently for Sports Illustrated’s Penn State channel . Mark joins Brandon, Chris, and Mailman to sift through the shifting signals and steamed hams regarding the chances for college football in 2020. After the requisite (obligatory?) concl...

It's never a bad time to welcome in the hosts of our sister podcast "Let's Talk Penn State." Steve Garguilo and Tim Buckley join the show to talk about the process of producing a Penn State-centric show with even less football content than Obligatory , their days in the Penn State Blue Band, becoming the go-to podcast of Appalachian State fans everywhere, and the unfortunate, inevitable cancellati...

A Texas native, Chad Washington picked Penn State site unseen after meeting a campus recruiter. After arriving in Happy Valley, he experienced snow, wrote for the Daily Collegian, and like so many others, quickly embraced life a Nittany Lion. After graduation in 1998, Chad worked for outlets like CNN and Gannett Newspapers and covered the college football programs at Houston, Rice, Louisiana-Lafay...

With decades of passionate Penn State fandom and, in the case of Brandon Noble, five years wearing the Blue and White followed by a decade in the pros, the guys have witnessed a lot of incredible talents suit up for both the Nittany Lions and their opponents. In this installment, they reminisce about some of their favorites, from PSU greats like Aaron Harris and Courtney Brown to loathed, but resp...

Shining a ray of Sunshine into dark times. Shane McGregor, who is easily Happy Valley's most recognizable and beloved scout team quarterback, thoughtfully reflects on his five-year (2008-12) journey as the "Forrest Gump" of Penn State football - on the sidelines, in the meeting rooms, and behind the scenes for perhaps the most eventful stretch of Penn State football history, spanning Joe Paterno's...

College football author and journalist Matt Brown (not to be confused with State College's own college football author and journalist Matt Brown ) specializes in covering the deeper stories behind the usual headlines in college football. He joins the Obligatory crew to shed light on a number of issues set to impact the sport's near and long-term future, including COVID-19 and impending decisions a...

In this extended holiday weekend episode, the Obligatory crew welcomes back Chris "Buzzsaw" Adamski of TribLive.com to break down and analyze the carefully chosen words of Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour's latest press conference. What hints, if any, were offered about the fate of college football in 2020 and fan attendance at Beaver Stadium? What media member has the most interesting Z...

In 2020, the Penn State Alumni Association - the largest dues-paying college alumni association in the world - celebrates 150 years of connecting Penn Staters with their alma mater and each other. In this episode, good friend of the show Paul Clifford, now in his fourth year serving as Alumni Association CEO, joins Mailman, Kevin, and Chris to talk about the journey that brought him here to Happy...

In the best of times, a nostalgic walk back down State College's version of memory lane is an enjoyable distraction. These days, after months of quarantine and social distancing and with the complexion of Penn State's 2020 fan experience very much in flux, the diversion is all the more welcome. Brandon, Chris, Kevin, and Mailman each share recollections of some of their favorite Happy Valley resta...

Who knows what the Beaver Stadium attendance policy will look like come this Fall? As the cast's optimism levels about ticket availability continue to seesaw from week to week (hour to hour?), Brandon talks about the multiple risks - strategic and otherwise - of replacing absent crowd noise with live microphones at field level during game broadcasts. The gang also heaps some well-deserved praise o...

Plans. Everybody has them, as Mike Tyson once said, until they start getting punched in the face. Well, "everybody" except maybe Noble, Chris, Kevin, and Mailman. And sometimes plans are overrated. For this installment, the guys just smashed "Record" and left the rest to fate, resulting in a fun and wide-ranging conversation that ended up covering a lot of ground. There's some college football tal...

There's something to be said for 5 to 15 in the college football rankings as the most miserable, polarizing, and frustrating zone to inhabit in all of sports. Your team is recruiting well, developing talent, winning lots of games (into the double digits near-annually), and regularly playing in top tier bowl games. Your squad occupies a position that would be the envy of 90% of fans in the sport, a...

Everything is confusing, uncertain, and, for the most part, terrible. In such volatile times, the Obligatory crew retrenches to the one thing for which they are (arguably) qualified, creating a few moments of levity and camaraderie that offer listeners some respite from what feels like an unending barrage of bad news and depressing images. Life in Happy Valley continues, so Kevin reports back on t...

After many weeks of mostly pessimism over the fate of college football in 2020, the dark clouds seems to be quickly parting, and now at least a somewhat normal season seems to be the most likely outcome. With the credible prospect of football on the horizon, Brandon, Chris, Mailman, and Kevin relish the chance to engage in groundless speculation over what the Fall might bring to Happy Valley? Will...

Always a welcome guest on any Obligatory property, Penn State's resident professor of “Booze and Culture” Dr. Kirk French, who was recently honored as one of six University-wide recipients of the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching (despite his association with our show!), rejoins the show to talk about wrapping up the semester and adapting his recent documentary film release in th...

The things we do for breadsticks... In this installment of the podcast, a full episode's worth of the sort of absurdity that could only emerge from our uniquely absurd times, Kevin Horne recounts his brush with viral social media fame stemming from his blow-by-blow live Tweeting of a very chaotic Mother's Day at the Cranberry Township Olive Garden. Packed with the types of digressions beloved by t...