Au Contraire, MR. PATERNO.  According to the Altoona Mirror, JoePa is trying to downplay the revenge factor in Saturday's game.

"I don't know what revenge has got to do with it in football," he said. "It's not like they sneaked up on us and stuck us in the back with a knife or something. They played a good football game, and they beat us."

Lies!  BHGP has uncovered the truth:

Credit to Hayden Fry's Mustache Ride for his hard-hitting efforts to uncover that photo.

Programming Note: Episode 6 of BlackHeartGoldPodcast will go live tomorrow morning.  Accursed real life delays kept it from going up before now.  Apologies.

We got your whiteout right here.  Iowa assistant basketball coach Joel Cornette unveiled the new third jersey for the Iowa basketball team via Twitter.  As an avowed hater of yellow jerseys, I approve of the new look.

H/T to Storminspank

The game is when?  Shiiit.  Per Ferentz's radio show last night, Bryan Bulaga is out for Saturday's game, but DJK and Moeaki "have a chance."  Speaking of which... caring may be creepy, but Facebook-stalking is A-OK. 

"The only thing on my mind is who gone run that town saturday night? WE ARE, YA I SAID IT, WE ARE! HAWKNATION STAND UP!!!"

So if we are to believe that DJK's Facebook status is a credible source, then it sounds like he's either in top cheerleading form or ready for action on Saturday.  Much as his cheerleading efforts might be appreciated, let's hope it's the latter case and he's out there abusing the PSU secondary.

Profilin'.  ESPN's Adam Rittenberg points out that Stanzi has developed a trend of slow starts.  You don't say.  Meanwhile, the Press-Citizen checks in with a nice profile on Ryan Donahue, who's arguably been Iowa's most consistently strong performer this year.

"It obviously depends on where we are on the field," Donahue said. "If we're backed up, I'm going to try and change our field position. If it's a pooch punt, I'm going to kick it as high as I can, and hopefully our coverage team can get down there."

The three teams ahead of Iowa in net punting average are No. 21 Georgia (47.36), No. 8 Boise State (43.82), and No. 16 Oklahoma State (43.58).

So, yeah, Zoltan Mesko can suck it.

Blurbin'.

• As far as the game itself, Rittenberg also likes Penn State in a close, low-scoring game, while the Gazette's Marc Morehouse also likes Penn State in a close, slightly higher-scoring game. 
  
• The gametime for Iowa's Halloween tilt with Indiana is also set: 11:00am on either ESPN or ESPN2.  There's really been a shockingly small number of BTN games this year.
• Finally, Great Moments in Iowa vs. Penn State takes us back to the year 2002:

Iowa at Penn State 2002 highlights (via PortlandHawk)

I'm unaware of anything that happened in that game after halftime and before overtime, but the parts of the game I do remember were awesome.