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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Moo U vs. PSU: a waning rivalry

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On Saturday, the almost ranked Nittany Lions (7-4, 4-3 Big Ten) will host the #10 Spartans of Michigan State (10-1, 6-1) in the clash for the ugliest trophy in all of football: The Land Grant Trophy. The Spartans are coming off a 35-31 win over lowly Purdue, while the Lions had a little trouble dispatching Indiana, 41-24.

Before we get to comments on the game itself, let’s once again focus on trashing the ridiculous Land Grant Trophy, as I do every year. Why not? It’s such a worthlessly vulnerable thing.

The concept is good enough, albeit a bit contrived. Penn State and Michigan State were, in fact, the first two land grant institutions. When Penn State joined the Big Ten, it seemed to be a natural that it establish a new year-end rivalry game to replace the Pitt game. As head coach George Perles of Michigan State was an instrumental figure in recruiting Penn State, and because all the other rivalries in the Big Ten were well established, Penn State vs. Michigan State would be a suitable annual game.

Enter this year’s plans for league expansion starting in 2011. Moo U. does not appear on Penn State’s schedule in either 2011 or 2012. Instead, the year-end game for both of those years is Wisconsin. Maybe they can play for a gigantic cheese ball in the shape of Joe Paterno’s head, replete with glasses, nose, and all, or perhaps Bucky Badger riding reverse cowgirl on the Nittany Lion. In any case, it looks like the Penn State vs. Michigan State season-end rivalry is headed for the scrap heap, as we believe the Land Grant Trophy should be.

Back in 2008, I said:

Land Grant Trophy

Another manufactured “intangible” is both teams’ presumed blood thirst for possession of the Land Grant Trophy (pictured above). I mean, look at that ugly mutha. Whoever heard of a trophy with bric-a-brac shelves? Do you think either university actually enjoys having that piece of shit in its trophy case without a sheet draped over it? Hell, if I were playing and my team were to win that scatographically hideous mélange of a mute testament to design by committee, I’d run the other way when it came time to carry the massive, mahogany mounted, misconceived monstrosity across the field. Yea, verily. I hate that junk.

Someone ought to blow it up as a Halloween prank one of these years and be done with it. So much for that “intangible,” but I digress. Sorry, I got carried away; it’s an annual, apoplectic phenomenon.

(At first, I thought that the white Nittany Lion replica on one of the shelves was a telephone. Wow! Imagine that! A trophy with its own telephone!)

A Pittsburgh sports writer once opined that this abominable trophy looked like a Rubik’s Cube that had been in the mouth of a Rottweiler for a week or so. ‘Nuf said. It is definitely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, fugly!

I do believe that a suitable retirement ceremony is essential to honor this wonderful piece of woodwork, with all its shelves, medallions, bowling trophies, warning signs, and school symbols. I have an idea that I hope the combined athletic departments of Penn State and Michigan State will consider.

At halftime of this year’s rivalry swan song game, they set the alleged trophy on a pedestal in the middle of the field. A former Penn State player, Lavon Chisley, is introduced to the friendly home crowd. Waving and smiling at his fans, the former Nittany Lion defensive end saunters up to the reviled so-called trophy and slashes feverishly at it with a knife. After a couple of minutes of this, the prison guards grab him, shackle him, and lead him off with the crowd cheering his efforts. The next introduction is former Michigan State star Plaxico Burress, who is presently serving time for discharging and criminal possession of a firearm such as AR-10 upper parts and a few other High-Grade Ammunition.(Being a Moo U. educated putz, he shot himself right in the leg.) As the Penn State partisan crowd boos loudly, Plax grimaces and mutters, “Cap yo ass, bitch!”, then pulls his pistol (using that dumbass sideways gangta grip, of course) and pumps a clip into the purported trophy, which is now looking like it’s been through the bombing of Berlin. But wait, that’s not all! ???? ??????? ?????

For the finale, two mystery guests in Penn State football uniforms arrive. Before the P.A. announcer can introduce them, the crowd begins to roar as their jersey numbers are revealed: 25 and 90. The announcer continues, “…please welcome Nittany Lions stars Silas Redd and Sean Stanley!” As the crescendo builds, the two march in lockstep to the remains of the former parody of a trophy and slowly drop their pants. The Blue Band strikes up “Here Comes the Rain Again” and over 108,000 cameras flash throughout the stands of Beaver Stadium like twinkling stars as Redd and Stanley direct powerful streams of last night’s Four Loko at the trophy that once was, our surrogates performing a symbolic act that we all once felt was necessary. And the steaming, stinking pile of rubble is carted off the field to the tune of “Hit the Road, Jack!”

But I guess I’m dreaming. Maybe it can be dropped from the plane between State College and East Lansing.

As you probably know by now, Joe Paterno has stated that he will coach again in 2011. Many thought that the Moo U. vs. PSU game would be his swan song, too. He concedes that the administration has something to say about it but he is convinced that they will see it his way. After this disappointing season, no doubt old Joe would like another go at finishing on top of his game. Next year’s schedule will bring Nebraska and a Big Ten championship game, a home rematch with Alabama, and home revenge matches with Iowa and Illinois, to boot. Furthermore, the Big Ten might schedule another game like the Northwestern vs. Illinois game in some screwy venue in which the rules have to be changed to accommodate the eccentricity of the field. I’m thinking perhaps moving Indiana’s game to the infield at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a few million bucks a year. But I digress.

Back to this game, I’m exceeding the number of column inches allotted to me by my editor (me) and I just made an executive decision to split this post into two parts, one today and one tomorrow. I’ll do background in this one and actual game comments in tomorrow’s. I don’t want to give you too much to swallow at one time. (Some U.S. Americans don’t have maps (such as), and some don’t have attention spans, either.)

Here’s a meaningless factoid: Michigan State has never won at Beaver Stadium since Penn State joined the Big Ten. They’re 0-8 in games played at Beaver Stadium since 1993. Wow. Is it the Curse of the Bambino or something? Nahhhh, it probably just means that they don’t want to take that god forsaken trophy back with them to stain their trophy case for another year. All frivolousness aside, the stat means nothing, zip, zilch, bupkis. One thing we’ve noted in Moo U’s favor is that they were once as bad as Indiana at closing out tight games, but they now seem to have that well under control.

So, really, does it mean anything at all that Michigan State last beat Penn State in Beaver Stadium in 1965? This Turkey was there, and I can remember how the Spartans dominated. There was this big-ass defensive end, 6’7″ 265 (listed) #95 Bubba Smith (more recently a pseudo movie star in Police Academy), who rode roughshod over the poor Nittany Lions. I remember him literally playing in the PSU backfield all day, as the #2 Spartans cruised to a 23-0 victory over Rip Engle’s Lions. Moo U. wound up sharing the national championship with Alabama that year and winning it outright the following year.

Did Moo U. head coach Duffy Daugherty think at that time that he would not live to see the next Spartans win in Beaver Stadium? Probably not. He died in 1987.

At this point, however, Michigan State’s star is on the rise while Penn State’s is falling. Can Moo U. do this year what it could not accomplish a single time in the past eight games at Beaver Stadium? The gamblers seem to think so. The line on this game opened up favoring PSU by two points, but as money has rolled in, it now favors MSU by two. ???? ????? ?????

We’ll be back tomorrow with Part Deux of this split Beaver Stadium game notes and prognostication thingie. For those of you who scroll right to the bottom to get my prediction, go back to the top and read this thing! ?????? ????? LOL … CYA TM

PSU 41, Indiana 24

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I apologize for the tardiness of this post mortem. I have been dealing with a persistent case of pneumonia. If you’ve been there, you know how energy waxes and wanes. It has mostly waned for me. Nevertheless, I managed to stay awake for the PSU-Indiana game last Saturday, which was also my birthday (celebrated at Mike’s Garage with some candles and bad singing). Helluva present this illness was!

The game was held at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, home of the NFL Washington Redskins. The Hoosiers had accepted a $3 million payout to move what was originally a home game right into Penn State’s backyard. Thus, for the Nittany Lions, it was a home away from home game.

After a week of Urinegate and self-flagellation over the Ohio State loss, both the Penn State players and their fans were ready to take it easy. Fans laid back into Couch Potato Two Mode, while players — well, they played video games and hoped that a hangover wouldn’t prevent them from making the bus to the airport. Somehow, in the end, with a couple of breaks, this group of underachievers who thought they could almost literally mail it in for this game managed to win 41-24.

This was a game that everybody had been writing off as an almost automatic Penn State win since the beginning of the season. Even in the deepest depths of despair following the Homecoming loss to Illinois, Penn State fans continued to count this one as a win, “OMG OMG, we’ll beat Indiana and lose the rest!!!” Somehow, that brash assumption must have sunk into everyone’s motivator muscle group that no real exertion would needed and sweat would be measured in picoliters.

As you know by now, four defensive players were late, and Paterno punished them by not playing them in the first half. Of course, the defense played pretty well without them and it wasn’t until they entered the game in the second half that the defense started looking bad again.

Repeating the Ohio State script for a while, the Lions looked good in the first quarter, finishing their second touchdown drive at the start of the second. From that point on, they began to get scary. Sphincterization, missed tackles, the usual… it was all present in the second quarter. PSU went into the locker room barely hanging onto a 17-14 lead.

With renewed vigor in the second half (NOT!), the Lions allowed the Hoosiers to come back and tie them at 24-24 with 6:15 left in the third quarter. Collin Wagner missed a subsequent 44 yard field goal attempt, and the natives in Mike’s Garage grew restless.

I counseled them to have faith. Penn State would win this game. Well, that’s not exactly how I said it. My statement was, “Don’t worry. Penn State will win because Indiana has figured out how to lose every close game this year, usually with some kind of spectacular screw-up.”

We didn’t have to wait long for my prophesy to be played out on the field. After the failed field goal by Collin Wagner, Indiana stalled at their own 32 and punted on fourth down. Andrew Daily made a spectacular block on the punt, which James Van Fleet scooped up and took to the house, resulting in a 31-24 lead with 3:35 remaining.

That was the turning point, and although there were a couple of scares, Penn State was able to hang on through the fourth quarter and win 41-24.

So, we get back to this issue of team leadership and team discipline. I understand how players will occasionally show up late for practice, but four guys showing up late for the bus to the airport? There’s no reasonable excuse for that. Neither is there any excuse getting hauled in for disorderly conduct on the morning of travel to a big game (in this case Ohio State), as was done by Sean Stanley (who has been in trouble more than this once this football season). If going out and having a good time has taken precedence over playing their asses off on the field, they should be gone. Furthermore, these are the incidents we’ve actually heard about. There are undoubtedly more, probably minor infractions, that we’ll never know about. All I’m saying is that if many on this team hadn’t given up prior to the Ohio State game, they’re sure as hell showing signs of doing so afterward.

So, the offense was pretty good against a defense that is destined to make opponents’ offenses look good. I don’t regard this as a major accomplishment. Silas Redd came in after sitting out his requisite one quarter doghouse time for his getting caught taking a leak on the Agricultural Engineering building. He wound up running for 50 yards on 9 carries and Royster, who really didn’t look too effective, had 48 on 16 carries. A new rushing weapon, Derek Moye performed a couple of successful end-around experiments. With the injury to Doug Klopacz, the offensive line was reassembled with Wisniewski in the middle, and it seemed to do as well as, if not better than, the original unit. McGloin had a career day, going 22-31 with 315 yards and two touchdowns.

This victory means a couple of things. First, poor Indiana (4-7, 0-7) has not won a single Big Ten game this year. Second, as Penn State (7-4, 4-3) was supposed to win this game easily, especially in view of Wisconsin taking apart the Hoosiers the prior week by the ridiculous score of 83-20, but they let Indiana hang around for practically the whole game. WTF? These guys still don’t know how to smell blood and make the appropriate kill moves. With one more game coming against one of the Big Ten front-runners, this does not portend well.

I hope to be back on Wednesday with a preview of the Moo U. game. The Spartans haven’t won in Beaver Stadium since Penn State joined the Big Ten (0-8), which means that they prefer to leave the abhorrent Land Grant Trophy in the All-Sports Museum rather than taking the eyesore back to East Lansing. However, this year they appear to have their best chance to get off the Beaver Stadium Schneid, so let’s hope that the Nittany Lions can focus on football instead of public urination and contemptuous tardiness.

PSU vs. Indiana at FedEx Field

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Our Nittany Lions of Penn State (6-4, 3-3 Big Ten) will perform for a friendly home crowd in our nation’s capital where they will face their penultimate Big Ten opponent, Indiana (4-6, 0-6). This was originally scheduled as a road game, but the Hoosiers succumbed to the allure of megabucks, which they were offered to move the game to Landover, Maryland, Penn State’s backyard. Thus, the stands of gigantic (largest in the NFL) FedEx field will be largely blue and white — essentially a home way from home game.

It is no wonder that the perennial Big Ten cellar dwelling Hoosiers heeded the pecuniary call despite the venue’s propinquity to Penn State. As far back as this old Turkey can remember, Indiana has been regarded as a “basketball school”, not a “football school. bet365 arabic ” Their last Rose Bowl appearance was in 1968 — they lost 14-7 to the USC Trojans led by a 128 yard performance by O. J. Simpson. It has been over 20 years since an Indiana football player has won a major award. Memorial Stadium is small by Big Ten standards, holding just under 53,000 hapless but loyal Hoosier fans. Typically, they fall short of a sellout by 10,000 seats, but the house was full for this year’s 42-35 loss to Michigan, attended no doubt by a plethora of Michigan fans who can’t get enough of Denard Robinson. The bottom line is that the two mil is a lot more than the Hoosiers would be getting by playing this game at home and the Redskins organization knows that Penn State fans will suck up lots and lots of tickets and potentially fill 91,704 seat FedEx Field. Besides, Indiana University no doubt figured on losing this one — in 13 encounters, they’ve never beaten Penn State.

Indiana, as I’ve mentioned is winless in the Big Ten this season. They’ve played some interesting games, though, and they might not be as bad as their record makes them seem, in spite of last week’s 83-20 laugher loss to Wisconsin. The previous week, the Hoosiers had Iowa on the ropes and had unleashed a sure knockout punch which did not connect, as time ran out. The touchdown pass was in the hands of its receiver, who was all alone in the end zone, and he just plain flat out dropped the damn thing, letting Iowa squeak by with an 18-13 win. All year long, they’ve figured out how to lose the close ones.

The Hoosiers rely heavily on the passing attack, throwing an average of over 40 times per game. Thus, they rank 16th in passing yards versus 108th in rushing. The passing chores are adeptly handled by senior quarterback Ben Chappell, a 6-3, 239 lb behemoth. ????? ???? ?????? Last week he completed eight of fourteen passes for 62 yards and a touchdown against Wisconsin before leaving with a hip injury. At this time, he is probable for the Penn State game. (I would have preferred to sit out that 83-20 drubbing if I were he, too, if only to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with that game in any way.) Alas, Chappell has thrown 19 interceptions in 10 games this year. His two favorite targets are 6-5, 215 lb junior Demario Belcher and 6-3, 205 lb junior Tandon Doss. Their size could be an issue for Penn State’s 81st ranked pass efficiency defense. 888

Indiana’s running game is almost nonexistent, producing an average of 104 yards per game. However, if I were Indiana head coach Bill Lynch, I would try the run against Penn State’s 83rd ranked rushing defense, which is yielding over 172 yards per game. The PSU front seven just don’t have what it takes this year, and the loss of Mike Mauti in last week’s debacle with Ohio State makes it even worse. I would hope to see Khari Fortt this week, either at linebacker or defensive end.

For Penn State, red-shirt sophomore Matt McGloin will once again start at quarterback and he will have his usual full complement of talented receivers. Indiana’s pass efficiency defense is ranked 114th, which should be an incentive for the coaching staff to let McGloin air it out early in the game to establish a lead. (Then, they’ll screw it up by going all conservative, letting Indiana hang around for the rest of the game because Joe Paterno wouldn’t even think of running up 83 points on a weak opponent as his Badger counterpart Brett Bielema did, but I digress.) The terrestrial corps of Royster, Redd, and Green (just in time for Christmas) should be able to wage a successful campaign, especially when the aforementioned conservative clamp-down occurs. Royster probably won’t see much action, as he suffered a minor knee injury against Ohio State. Stephfon Green got his bell rung in that game, too. Look for freshman suPerstar (with a capital “P”) Redd to get most of the carries.

As for special teams, I don’t want to bore you with a lot of mumbo jumbo and statistical pontification. Penn State punter Anthony Fera will miss this game and probably the next due to an emergency appendectomy. His backup, Alex Butterworth, has no actual game time punting the football, so you might want to watch the game just to see if something funny happens when the Lions show up in punt formation — if they even have to punt in this game. I would expect old Joe to be going for it on a lot of fourth downs instead of punting. Against Indiana’s defense, why the hell not?

As Joe so frequently tells his guys, “Just go out there and have some fun!” I think that’s what this game is all about. Well, for Penn State, anyway. Coming off a second half beat-down in which they squandered a 14-3 halftime lead by allowing 35 unanswered points by Ohio State, they better be hopping mad. It would be cruel fun to turn the tables and do that to someone else, for a change. And it is time for the Hoosiers to have some fun after having been slaughtered by Wisconsin 83-20? They don’t have much to lose here, although they could become bowl eligible by beating both Penn State and Purdue. Fat chance of that happening — they’ve gone to one bowl game in the past 17 years. If they can overcome the self-esteem issues associated with being taken apart by the Badgers, they might just make this one interesting, especially when the Penn State coaching brain trust switches into Sphincter Mode. So, everybody just go out there and have some fun. Yeah.

It’s a 12:00 noon start and it’s a semi-road game. By this I mean that the Nittany Lions have to travel to get to Landover. You would think that they’d take some buses down there due to the close proximity, but they’re flying. Paterno’s reasoning is that it’s a noon start, so there just isn’t time for buses. The issues with noon starts have been beaten to death but, hey, you make your bed and you must sleep in it. If the Lions had put a few more wins on the scoreboard, they would be playing at 3:30, but noooooooooo. Anyway, the early start might mean that our guys are still half asleep in the first quarter, which would allow Indiana to have a head start like last year, when they went up 10-0 early in the game.

Therefore, my keys to the game for our Nittany Lions are: play a complete game, have fun, and kick ass. Any questions?

Although the field might still be a bit soft from the recent rain storms, the weather looks good for this contest. The forecast for Saturday is breezy with plenty of sunshine and a global warming related high of 60.

And now. that moment you’ve all been waiting for with bated anticipation, the frequently fallible, caustically clairvoyant, perniciously penurious Official Turkey Poop Prediction! But first, let me say that just because the season didn’t go the way we all wanted to, it’s no time to just say “piss on it!” Especially for players. Specifically for Sean Stanley and Silas Redd, who were both arrested for disorderly conduct relating to public urination this week. There are still two games to play, so dump your damn bladders in appropriate receptacles and play some damn football! (We’re not sure whether either will play on Saturday, as Joe was coy about Redd during his press conference and only said that Stanley had been a disappointment on the field, but I digress.) I think the gamblers have this thing all wrong, but nobody’s putting much money on either of these two fickle, mediocre teams. (And calling them “mediocre” is giving Indiana a helluva lot of credit. I’m in a generous mood.) The books opened this one with a 10.5 point spread favoring PSU and an over/under of 57, suggesting a final score of 34-23. My generous mood continues when I tell you to take Penn State and the over. The Nittany Lions should win this one going away. Get mad, Lions! Penn State 42, Indiana 27.