Here come the Nittany Lions

Jenni met two spunky group travel planners from College Corner, Pennsylvania, at The Inn at Amish Acres over the weekend. They were scoping out the arrangements they have made for the Penn State Alumni Club trek to the University of Notre Dame football game this coming September 9, 2006.

Two of nation's most successful programs, Penn State and Notre Dame will be meeting for the first time since 1992, when Notre Dame evened the series at 8-8-1 with a 17-16 win in South Bend. The two schools rank among the Top 10 in all-time victories. Notre Dame is second with 810 and Penn State is seventh with 771 wins.

The schools first met on the gridiron in 1913, with the Irish winning in 1913, '26 and '28, as well as a 20-9 decision in the 1976 Gator Bowl to take a 4-0-1 series lead. In 1981, the Lions and Irish began a 12-game series and Penn State captured eight of the 12 contests to even the series. Eight clashes were decided by 11 points or less, with six by five points or fewer, from 1981-92, including each side winning a one-point game.

The group will nearly fill The Inn at Amish Acres. In addition to the traditions of Notre Dame, the group will experience Amish Country in the same weekend. We are even presenting a command performance of Camelot.

The women, who are old hands at planning these "away" game trips, think they have discovered Brigadoon a mere thirty miles from the Golden Dome. The visiting team's flag flys with Notre Dame's from the inns front porch. Even the mints in the rooms are football shaped from Lehman Mints just seven miles away.

Notable other schools who seldom make trips to South Bend, have found Amish Acres equally charming. Nebraska brought two bus loads of red clad Cornhuskers to us several years ago. They, too, saw a musical in the Round Barn Theatre on Friday night before the game. Merely an hour before curtain I found the Nebraska fight song on the Internet, downloaded the MPG3 file, emailed it to the sound booth, took the stage before curtain wearing a red booah and fireman's hat, and stated in all sincerity that I had been a Nebraska fan my entire life and signaled the sound engineer to crank up the volume to "Hail Varsity." Those alums were on their feet, in a frenzy, clapping and stomping, sure they had gone to heaven. Too bad they didn't know the words. I'll bet Coach Paterno won't let that happen during Camelot.