Alabama's star defensive end Marcell Dareus has been ruled out of Saturday's game with Penn State after the Alabama staff decided not to appeal his two-game suspension for accepting improper benefits.
↵
↵
↵
↵"I said we would appeal," Saban said. "But I'm going to say things like that. We have to have precedent to appeal, with precedent being some other case that's relative to how these penalties are granted.
↵"And we don't really feel we have good precedent. We feel like this was pretty fair."
↵
↵
This is big for Penn State, a team that struggled mightily last season against strong defensive lines from Iowa and Ohio State, which were anchored by Adrian Clayborn and Cam Heyward, respectively.
↵
Though Saturday's performance against Youngstown State was hardly a ringing endorsement of what the running game might be able to do against the Tide, the absence of Dareus should make things that much easier for the Nittany Lions, who will rely on the run as they break in their freshman quarterback against the nation's top ranked team.
↵
↵
