Penn St. offense puts up numbers

After beating Oregon State, 45-14, Penn State moved up two spots to No. 17.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Sitting still on the bench in the second quarter, tailback Evan Royster barely looked out of breath even after having already rushed for three touchdowns.

Points are coming easily so far for Penn State.

The Nittany Lions are averaging 55.5 points and 524 yards over their first two games. First-year starting quarterback Daryll Clark (Ursuline High) looks poised in the pocket, the receiving corps is stocked with weapons who can block and the offensive line is blowing holes wide open for the shifty Royster.

“When you get in the open field and you got one guy to beat, that’s how it’s supposed to be,” said Royster, who has run for six TDs for Penn State (2-0). The Nittany Lions moved up two spots to No. 17 in the latest AP poll following their 45-14 victory Saturday over Oregon State.

The offense is so good, in fact, that fans are already starting to wonder how this group stacks up to past Nittany Lion juggernauts, like the 2005 Orange Bowl team led by dual threat QB Michael Robinson, or the undefeated 1994 squad paced by future pros Kerry Collins, Bobby Engram and Ki-Jana Carter.

Heady talk that Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno wants no part of right now.

“I can’t get excited until we have some adversity,” Paterno said. “Maybe we won’t do well on the road in hostile environments. ... It’s much too early to make that comparison.”

Look out Syracuse — you’re up next when the Nittany Lions head out on the road for the first time in 2008 with a trip Saturday to the Carrier Dome.

JoePa will have much to like when he studies film of Penn State’s blowout of Oregon State. There were some skeptics about the Nittany Lions offense given that their first win was a 66-10 drubbing of Coastal Carolina, a Championship Subdivision school.

The Beavers, a middle-of-the-pack Pac-10 team, figured to give Penn State a tougher test since they were a power conference program. The veteran secondary, on paper, at least, appeared to match up well with Penn State’s receiving corps.

The skepticism — along with a midweek suspension of three Penn State players for off-field issues — gave the squad a little more motivation to prove naysayers wrong.

“Yeah, that’s obviously the goal. We knew it obviously was going to be a tougher opponent,” center and team captain A.Q. Shipley said. “It’s just the fact that we came out, and things got into a rhythm. That was what was expected.”

Defensive end Jerome Hayes is out for the year after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

The injury occurred while Hayes was covering a punt return in the fourth quarter against Oregon State. The junior had made his first career start.

Hayes suffered the same injury to his right knee last season.