The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Archives for 2010

M*****i still angling for a job in the NFL

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What’s that you say? Who?

It’s that unwritable word again. This Turkey, who has been hibernating since the Capital One Mudbowl was awakened from his fowl, geriatric reveries by the distant echo of thunderous hooves on the artificial turf at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where the NFL Scouting Combine is being held. More on that event as regards other Nittany Lions in another post. This one is about M*****i.

Even after having attended therapy sessions specifically directed at the problem every other Thursday night for a couple of years now, I still have difficulty saying the name — and I know that there are many fellow Penn State football fans who are in the same boat. The group therapist encouraged me to get back into the water, to drive that wrecked car, to hop right back on that crashed bike, but … but … even with the nurturing encouragement of my group of fellow therapees, I couldn’t. I’d start to say the name and my tongue just would get tied. The moniker just didn’t want to emerge from the great Turkey beak, getting stuck somewhere in my wattles— *****SLAP!!!****

Thanks! I needed that.

I’ll say the name now. Morelli. That’s it! I’ll say it again. MORELLI.

I feel…I feel … … liberated! ???? ??? ?????

But I digress.

The purpose of this post is to apprise you of the fact that Anthony Morelli — yes that Anthony Morelli — is still trying to get himself into the NFL.

When we last uttered his name, Morelli was working at his former high school as an assistant football coach and working part-time construction for his dad. ????? ??????? ???? It seemed to be a fitting end to the story, so we concluded our piece by wishing Morelli well in his coaching career at Plum High. Alas, he didn’t get the message.

Originally an undrafted free agent with the Arizona Cardinals, Morelli washed out with them in the pre-season. So, he returned to Pittsburgh. During his high school coaching career there, he was asked by the Green Bay Packers and the Buffalo Bills to work out for them. Neither team saw what they were looking for in a backup quarterback.

Morelli won’t give up, though. He still thinks he is NFL material, as does his wife, whose life would be measurably better if he was.

As another step toward potential quarterbacking legitimacy and to enhance his NFL visibility, Morelli signed with the Milwaukee Iron of the re-fledged Arena Football League in November. At his wifey’s urging, he moved to Indianapolis. I guess she thought being close to the Apollo of NFL quarterbacks, the veritable greatest of the great, who now now has to walk around town with Dan Dierdorff’s head glued to his ass crack, Peyton Manning, would enable talent vibes to rub off on her darling hubster by electromagnetic induction or something known only to the stubborn Morelli family. Could she have been hoping that Manning would mentor her soul mate? Nahhh, that couldn’t be it. No one in their right mind would move to a place like Indy hoping for something like that.

But it happened. Well, not exactly. They couldn’t quite swing it with Peyton. He had some other things to do. Who did they get? Jack Trudeau, former part-time Colts quarterback, who actually was their offensive MVP in 1989.

The latest development is that Morelli has invited himself to the NFL Combine on Friday for a private showing of his talent for coaches and scouts. He won’t work out with the other 2010 draft aspirants. This is between him and the NFL.

“I’ve gotten bigger, faster, stronger,” Morelli told The Associated Press. “I think the chances are pretty good, I just need to get in front of some people.”

Morelli is now 24. He thinks that gives him an advantage over the younger guys at the NFL Combine. Tell Colt McCoy that.

What polarized this Turkey against Morelli was not his playing style but his immature egocentricity. I’ll never forget Morelli’s antics at a game in Michigan Stadium where Penn State was losing soundly, when he stood up on the bench and taunted Michigan home fans. Not what I would call Penn State decorum. ???????? ??? ????????? Scoreboard, Anthony. I’ll forgive him for the two fatal interceptions in the Ohio State game long before I’ll ever forgive him for his juvenile lack of leadership.

Perhaps time should heal all wounds and perhaps some desperate NFL franchise will either look past Morelli’s leadership issues or assume that he has matured enough to have left them in his past.

Whither Pat Devlin

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Although highly touted quarterback Pat Devlin is long gone from Penn State, many of you have speculated about whether he or Daryll Clark was the better quarterback. While that might be moot at this point (based on which one led an FBS team to an 11-2 record), it is still worth a peek at Devlin’s performance as a University of Delaware Blue Hen.

UDel finished the 2009 season with a 6-5 record, but they and Devlin kicked off the year with a bang-up 35-0 win over West Chester, in which Devlin completed 80 percent of his passes, while throwing for two touchdowns and no interceptions. However, at the end of the season, things did not look so good. Delaware lost three of four games, and Devlin’s QB rating dropped to double digits. In his final outing of the year, a 30-12 loss to Villanova, Pat completed 42 of 58 passes for 407 yards and a touchdown, but he was intercepted three times.

Here are statistics for Clark and Devlin, side-by-side:

Clark Devlin
Games played 13 11
QB Rating 95.7 99.7
Completions 232 220
Attempts 381 344
Percentage Complete 60.9 64.0
Yards Passing 3003 2664
Yards per Attempt 7.9 7.7
Yards per Game 231 242.2
Touchdowns Passing 24 16
Interceptions 10 9
Rushes 84 84
Yards Rushing 211 127
Yards per Game 16.2 11.5
Average Yards per Carry 2.5 1.5
Rushing Touchdowns 7 4
Sacks 15 26

So, we see similar stats, with some exceptions colored green or red. Delaware no doubt had a worse offensive line than PSU, as evidenced by Devlin’s 26 sacks as opposed to 15 for Clark. This may also mean the Devlin is not as slippery in the pocket.

There are a lot of things going on behind the stats that affect them, including Joe Paterno’s penchant for going tight-ass in big games.

What do you think? It is difficult to predict how well Devlin might have performed as a Nittany Lion, in spite of stats. Can the arguments and the hypotheses be laid to rest at this point?

PSU Squeaks Out Win in Mud Bowl

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You all saw it, no doubt. The Nittany Lions eventually prevailed on a Citrus Bowl field replete with hundreds of giant, muddy divots. The final score was 19-17.

The problematical turf will be replaced with an artificial surface by the time next year’s bowl season rolls around, but that was then and this is now. The attempted re-sodding of the field after six high school championship games and again after the Champs Sports Bowl just flat out didn’t work. Couple that with the morning of rain on game day, and what you get is poor footing and muddy uniforms.

Penn State struck early, with an exonerating completion from Daryll Clark to Derrick Moye — after Moye had dropped two catchable passes, not due to weather conditions, but rather because he “heard footsteps.” So, then what? Well, immediately after going up 7-0, our coaching geniuses decided that they’d rein in the offense and play a little sphincterball.

Even when it was working for them, as it did for the first half, they reached the red zone and stalled. Thus, Collin Wagner became the pivotal entity, which is not a position one really wants to put one’s self in, particularly with a wet, sloppy, tractionless field. However, Wagner came through. Fortunately, all four field goals were well within his range.

Nevertheless, the Lions’ red zone difficulties must be noted. They were 7-19 in third down conversions. Pretty putrid.

But they controlled the ball for the first half, allowing only a second quarter field goal by LSU.

No doubt, Les Miles and company exhorted their team to change a few things at halftime. One thing was that the run was damn well not working, as he should have expected, given the efficacy of the Penn State front seven, so they would turn to the pass. That strategy worked and it caught the Lions in mid-anality. The Bengals scored two touchdowns in three minutes as the third quarter wound down and the fourth cranked up. That put PSU back on its heels with the score 17-16.

Fortunately, Daryll Clark had one good drive left in him to wind up his Penn State career. He drove the Nittany Lions from their own 31 down to the LSU 4 yard line, stalling in the red zone yet again. Collin Wagner’s 21-yarder was good with 1:01 remaining, and the Lions appeared to have dodged a bullet.

Not so fast! Remember that they had to kick off and special teams have been a sore spot all year. Once again this was true, as they kicked to the very dangerous Trindon Holliday who caught the ball at the 15 and slashed his way to the LSU 41 with 57 seconds remaining — plenty of time to get in field goal range and knock one through the uprights. The Turkey was tense. However, LSU had no time-outs, so they had to work the sidelines and stop the clock through spikes. A first-down run by quarterback Jordan Jefferson went out of bounds at the PSU 49, just past the first down marker. On the next play, Jefferson completed a four yard pass to Brandon LaFell, which led to a controversial penalty about which they’ll be whining in Baton Rouge for months to come.

With the clock ticking off precious moments for LSU, Navorro Bowman fell on LaFell (get it?) and attempted to wrest the ball away from him. Meanwhile, right guard Lyle Hitt, knowing that the Tigers had to quickly line up and spike the ball, attempted to pull Bowman off LaFell after the play was whistled dead, and was flagged for a personal foul, costing LSU dearly, moving them back to their own 40. The Tigers never made it into field goal range. Two plays later, the game was over.

This Turkey thought for sure that it was Bowman who was going to get the flag for delay of game. Of course, I breathed a sigh of relief when Hitt was flagged, but this fortuitous turn of events did not stop me from speculating about the legitimacy of that penalty call. What do you think?

Daryll Clark had a excellent swan song: 18-35 for 216 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions (albeit a couple of close calls). Andrew Quarless was his leading receiver with a career record eight catches for 88 yards.

Speaking of records, this sloppy snoozefest (until the final six minutes, anyway) set a record for the number of punts in a bowl game — 15. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Penn State did well, notching a win for the fans and its share of a $4,250,000 payout for the university.

Next season, the Turkey will be all up in arms about how Penn State’s rookie quarterback, Kevin Newsome, was given precious few game reps this season, but for now, I’ll ditch the complaining and congratulate the Nittany Lions on a better than expected season, at least from this Turkey’s perspective, and a mission accomplished in the Capital One Bowl. What’s in your wallet?

Happy New Year to the team and to all of you!