Polls Mean Little to Denmon

With No. 15 USC playing No. 22 Penn State, the Kickoff Classic in East Rutherford, N.J., is the only one of six college games this weekend that features two ranked teams.

Not that rankings mean much to the players.

The Penn State players think they have been underestimated in the polls because they lost 15 starters from last season.

“With all the people who left, everyone’s counting us out,” fullback Mike Cerimele said. “That’s fine. Let them go to sleep on us.”

That probably won’t happen with USC center Eric Denmon. The redshirt senior recalled when No. 11 Penn State soundly defeated No. 7 USC in the 1996 Kickoff Classic.

“We were ranked pretty high so I thought we were good,” he said. “Now I know the rankings that come out before the season don’t mean a thing.”

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Left guard Trevor Roberts arrived in New Jersey wearing a protective boot, further proof that a strained foot will keep him out of the game today. The senior said he is disappointed but has turned his attention to bolstering redshirt freshman Lenny Vandermade, who will start in his place.

“He is really nervous because it’s his first game,” Roberts said.

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Quarterback Carson Palmer figures to feel a few butterflies when he steps onto the field for his first game since Sept. 25, 1999, the night he broke his collarbone at Oregon.

Playing against Penn State on national television isn’t exactly easing back into action, but Coach Paul Hackett isn’t concerned.

“Carson Palmer came here with the idea he wanted to . . . play in as many high-profile games as is humanly possible,” Hackett said. “This is Carson Palmer’s kind of game. This is the reason he plays football.”

Palmer said he became interested in the game when he was in third grade but his mother and father, Danna and Bill, did not want him involved in such a rough sport.

The young boy’s persistence finally paid off. Palmer recalls that one day he was playing in the front yard when Bill Palmer came home with a helmet and a pair of shoulder pads.

“He said, ‘I just signed you up for football,’ ” Palmer said. “I went nuts.”