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Mike Hull ready to go to the mat vs. Ohio State

Sometimes there are stories that are teed up for sportswriting - for all the cliches of the craft about overcoming adversity or pain or both, for a quick and easy metaphor about how an athlete's triumph represents his team's best chance for an improbable victory. Mike Hull's story is one of those.

Sometimes there are stories that are teed up for sportswriting - for all the cliches of the craft about overcoming adversity or pain or both, for a quick and easy metaphor about how an athlete's triumph represents his team's best chance for an improbable victory. Mike Hull's story is one of those.

Hull is Penn State's best linebacker, a 6-foot, 225-pound senior captain who ranks second in the Big Ten in total tackles (64). Who is the son of a former Penn State player and, as such, never seriously considered playing football for, or even attending, another university. Who helped his high school win the 2010 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League Class AAA wrestling championship by competing with a separated left shoulder.

Hull was a senior at Canon-McMillan High School, near Pittsburgh, when he did that. Wrestling in the heavyweight division, weighing 215 pounds at the time, he beat an opponent who was 57 pounds heavier. "I basically just wrestled with one arm out there the entire match," he said Tuesday, "and I knew I needed just one takedown to win it and kind of just sucked it up. . . . It's just one of those things you don't think about. You just go out and do it for the team."

Now comes the convenient transition from Hull's toughness to the task that Penn State (4-2, 1-2 Big Ten) faces Saturday night against Ohio State. The Buckeyes are 5-1, ranked 13th in the Associated Press poll and 12th in the coaches poll, and this game at first glance has an irresistible-force-vs.-immovable-object feel to it.

Even without star quarterback Braxton Miller, out all season as he recovers from shoulder surgery, Ohio State has scored at least 50 points in four consecutive games and is fourth in the nation in scoring offense (46.5 points a game). The Nittany Lions, meanwhile, rank sixth in the country both in total defense (283.3 yards allowed per game) and scoring defense (15.2 points allowed per game).

"We're going to have to have a great effort," Hull said, "but I think we're going to be up for the challenge."

Those statistics are impressive, but they are missing some necessary context. Yes, over the last four weeks, Ohio State has piled up points against two lesser in-state rivals (Kent State and Cincinnati) and two of the weaker teams in the Big Ten (Maryland and Rutgers). But one can apply similar skepticism to Penn State's defense. It's been excellent, but it hasn't exactly shut down a succession of juggernauts: Akron, Rutgers, Massachusetts, Northwestern, Michigan. Saturday's game should reveal, then, whether the success of either unit is merely a mirage conjured against mediocre opposition.

The better question might be whether Penn State's offense can take any pressure off Hull and his teammates. In three of their last four games, the Nittany Lions have scored one touchdown or none. The offensive line puts sophomore quarterback Christian Hackenberg at risk every time he drops back, and it's just as poor at run-blocking as it is at pass-protecting, and with fewer than 50 available scholarship players, coach James Franklin pretty much has to live with the offense's shortcomings and hope that Hackenberg can survive the season.

Hull and the defense have to live with it, too, and there have been occasions, he said, that they have grown frustrated with the offense's lack of productivity. That reaction is only natural. But Hull is 23 years old, and at 23 an athlete still has that unflagging, unrelenting belief in himself and those close to him, especially an athlete who did what Hull did on that wrestling mat in 2010.

"We're all in this together, offense and defense," Hull said. "Whenever something happens on the offensive side of the ball, we're trying to pick up their slack and just make the most of the opportunity we have to be out there. I really just think the defense has the mind-set that we're going to put every game on our shoulders, and I really think the guys on this team like playing with that mind-set and this mentality."

At least one guy does - even if he has just one good shoulder. Whether that kind of strength and resolve will be enough Saturday against Ohio State is another story entirely.