er 2.3. The second streak followed the spot-fixing scan

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Penn State plans to formally honor the late Joe Paterno on Saturday by having the co-captains from his first Nittany Lions team participate in the coin toss and by airing video presentations on the impact to student-athletes, the university said Thursday.?Penn State announced on Sept. 1 that it planned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Paternos first game at the school -- a 15-7 win over Maryland on Sept. 17, 1966 -- but declined to provide any details at the time.?The decision to honor the longtime coach sparked widespread debate. Paterno was fired in 2011 amid the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandalThe Nittany Lions host Temple on Saturday at noon. ?Current Penn State coach James Franklin sidestepped questions Tuesday about the event, saying, All of those decisions, like Ive stated before, theyre for the administration. Our focus is on Temple.In a written statement Thursday, athletic director Sandy Barbour said, Coach Paterno wanted academic success not only for his players but also for every student who came through Penn State. Together with his wife, Sue, they helped countless students become leaders and earn a Penn State diploma. Our plans are consistent with the wishes of the Paterno family as well, with a focus on the players and their accomplishments at Penn State and beyond.Mike Irwin and John Runnells, captains of the 1966 team, will be hand on for the coin toss. Barbour said further in-game introductions of players will take place, along with video presentations on the impact to student-athletes.A Penn State spokesperson declined to comment further.The Paterno Foundation, which is not affiliated with the university, announced earlier this week that several hundred former Nittany Lions football players are expected to attend a private event Friday to celebrate the coachs career. The event will take place at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, which is near Beaver Stadium.Sue Paterno announced plans for the lettermen reunion last November.Warren Hartenstine played on Paternos first team in 1966 and was one of a handful of former players to help the Paterno family organize Fridays reunion. As he prepared to leave his Maryland home for State College on Thursday, he described his emotions in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. He said he understands and accepts that Paterno has become a polarizing figure.Coach Paterno, I think in many ways was naive about everything in the world except football and human growth, Hartenstine said. We were the fulfillment of what his lifes goals were. He adopted my family, my college roommates, everyone. You were just very special to him. How to respond to the accusations? Theres a sense of impossibility about it.But Hartenstine said he doesnt consider the reunion a celebration of Paterno. Rather, its about recognizing the achievements of players who were a part of the coachs Grand Experiment that placed an emphasis on academics.The emphasis has been not so much on Joe Paterno, Hartenstine said. This is about the men of the Grand Experiment. (Sue Paterno) repeats it over and over again that the accomplishments of lettermen are what this is a celebration of. I shouldnt even say lettermen. There are walk-ons that were there, some on our team, who put in their four years and worked, very, very hard.In May, unsealed court documents revealed that an alleged Sandusky victim said he complained to Paterno about the former assistant coach in 1976 and was rebuffed. University president Eric Barron has said the allegation was not substantiated in court or tested by any other process.Paterno was never charged with a crime related to the scandal.Paterno finished his career as the winningest coach in FBS history with 409 victories, but he was fired in November 2011, shortly after his former defensive coordinator, Sandusky, was arrested for child sexual abuse.Paterno died in January 2012 of lung cancer. The university removed his iconic statue from outside the stadium six months later. Sandusky was convicted on 45 of 48 charges in June 2012 and is currently serving a 30- to 60-year sentence.Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Jonathan Ogden Jersey . -- Most satisfying to Russ Smith about No. Brandon Carr Jersey . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. http://www.cheapravensjerseysauthentic.com/?tag=authentic-chris-moore-jersey . -- Running backs Darren McFadden and Rashad Jennings were back at practice for the Oakland Raiders on Wednesday despite being hampered by hamstring injuries. Markus Jones Jersey .H. -- Matt Kenseth made it 2 for 2 in the Chase, holding off teammate Kyle Busch to win Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Brandon Williams Jersey . -- Peyton Manning will have all of his wide receivers available for the first time in a month when the Denver Broncos begin their playoff run Jan. As history begins to repeat itself, it is the familiarity that connects the dots. On the morning of the second day of the Test at Hagley Oval, as all the work that Pakistans openers had done was frittered away, it was that feeling of familiarity that was most obvious.For Pakistanis of a certain generation, tours to the antipodes are tied in to memories that are easily evoked - of godforsaken hours on wintry nights, of hope springing eternal, and of batsmen struggling to cope with alien conditions. It is often said that Pakistans worship of bowling, particularly the faster kind, has to do with the number of great fast bowlers the country has produced. But at times like this, one often feels that its the fact that the bowlers have delivered great wins in spite of the incompetence of the batsmen that leads to them being treated as higher beings.Pakistan havent lost a Test series to New Zealand in three decades. Even their last series loss there came about in a match that Wasim Akram got his first ten-for in, in the great tradition of bowlers trying to cover up for the incompetence of batsmen.Despite this record, its not as if Pakistani batsmen have conquered New Zealand. Pakistan went to New Zealand three times in the 1990s: in each instance, in their first Test innings of the tour, they were bowled out for under 220. Across the Tasman, where Pakistan will go in a fortnights time, their record is worse: in their first Test innings on five of their last eight tours to Australia, they have been bowled out for under 180.It was supposed to be different this time around - the success of Pakistani batsmen over the last three years, including on the tour to England, had promised more. But the days leading up to this tour will have set the alarm bells ringing. Pakistan lost a Test to West Indies, and the explanations for that seemed to raise more questions than answers. The first was that the team already had their minds on the series to come. The second was that mental and physical fatigue was a factor, as there had been just two weeks between a three-month long tour of England and the six weeks of the West Indies series in the UAE - which, despite its familiarity, still is a tour away from home for the players - and that this had affected them. The fact that these explanations came from the coach, Mickey Arthur, seemed to raise questions about his own performance, for arent these the things that he is supposed to be in control of? The final explanation, as seems to have been the case in every home series over the past couple of years, was that Pakistan didnt get the pitches they wanted (Arthur, in fact, referenced how Pakistan ought to be able to get the sort of pitches Bangladesh or India have for their home Tests), which again raises questions about the board and the team management, and what control they have over these home Tests.As the excuses piled up, and then Pakistans only warm-up game was wwashed out, the writing seemed to be on the wall.dddddddddddd The last time Pakistan had a difficult away tour without any real preparation, they were bowled out for 49 by South Africa in their first innings there. Yet it wasnt in the first innings that Pakistan lost this Test match in New Zealand. Top-order collapses, as mentioned earlier, have always been a part of Pakistans away tours. What they lacked here was a failure to learn from the first innings. Having seen their approach to prolonging innings without shifting gears fail in the first innings, Pakistan doubled down on it in the second. Australia had just shown why even the opposite of doing what Pakistan did can fail. If there is any lesson to learn from this, or from this year in general, its that extremism towards any single approach is not exactly ideal.At least that is something Pakistan can work upon, even if they will badly miss Misbah-ul-Haq in the middle order. What they cant work on - and this is something that continues to affect them - is their tail.As pitches have in general gone from the homogenisation of the last decade to getting back to their true selves over the past few years, home teams have become more dominant, but there has also been another trend: the strength of teams lower-order batting can make or break games. Englands successes over the past 12 months might have more to do with their lower order than their middle order, for instance. Australias decline from the heights of the 2013-14 Ashes has a lot to do with their lower orders failings too.This year has been seen as an improvement for Pakistans tail - the Oval Test being held up as an example. Yet despite that match, and despite Sohail Khans efforts in New Zealand, Pakistan are one of only three teams whose last four batsmen (Nos. 8-11) have averaged under 15 this year. (This is still an upgrade on the rest of the decade, where Pakistan have competed with Zimbabwe for the wooden spoon.)And yet, for all these problems, Pakistan have rarely had it this good. In the history of the country, only four times have they gone more than five Test series without losing one, only three times have they done so with a streak as long as seven series. The first of those three was from 1985 to 1989, when Pakistan went ten series without losing, as Javed and Imran built the greatest team in Pakistans history. That streak ended on a tour down under, where Pakistans top five averaged 25 at a combined run rate of under 2.3. The second streak followed the spot-fixing scandal, and