DUBLIN – Six days before the Croke Park Classic between Penn State and the University of Central Florida, college football fans have started rolling into Dublin, where it’s 57 degrees with cloudy skies. That’s football weather for State College.  

But on Sunday, another kind of football takes center stage, Gaelic football.

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Semi-Final
 

The historic venue of Croke Park will be bustling long before next Saturday’s PSU-UCF game. On Sunday, a crowd of roughly 70,000 is expected for a semifinal in the Gaelic Athletic Association’s biggest football tournament. The game pits County Mayo against a team from County Kerry. Fans of all ages in brightly colored jerseys – green and red for Mayo, green and yellow for Kerry – were in the streets of Dublin as game time neared after packing city hotels overnight.

Volcano Watch
 

On Saturday, Iceland raised the aviation warning for the Bardarbunga volcano to the highest level, indicating a chance of “significant emission of ash into the atmosphere.” Were that to happen it could potentially affect the schedule leading into the Croke Park Classic. Penn State, UCF and the GAA will continue to monitor the situation. Both teams plan to depart the U.S. on Tuesday evening.

Quote of the Day

“You just have to go with the flow. Even if the team doesn’t get here, we’re still going to have a blast.”

– Kim Albright, self-proclaimed seasoned volcano traveler from Harrisburg, Pa.

(Melissa Conrad is a student in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.)