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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Home 2014 Archives for November 2014

Archives for November 2014

Two Hot-button Issues on Wednesday

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It is all the rage among Nittany Lion fans and fanettes to decry the much-maligned John Donovan and fret over the Christian Hackenberg situation. PennLive.com/The Patriot-News obliged this turkey with a couple of straw-men I want to pass along to you in case you haven’t seen them. Let’s beat a couple of half-dead horses.

You can’t fire the players, so what’s left but to fire the coach?

The much-hated David Jones (my buddy) must be reading my crap. He channels The Nittany Turkey in his November 4 article about the Hackenberg situation and in the conversation he had with James Franklin about it. So, please overcome your partisan condescension and puerile derision and give it a read. I won’t think of you as a Buckeye homey if you do; agree or disagree, it won’t hurt you. The comment thread following the article is full of opinions — just what you like.

Meanwhile, Greg Pickel gets himself in quite a pickle by opining that Penn State doesn’t have a John Donovan problem in his article published this morning. He thinks Donovan or anyone else couldn’t do any better with the personnel he has. As you can imagine, the opinionated responses are replete with the cloying form of Internet vitriol we all know, love, and employ from time to time.

On a note somewhat related to Pickel’s bloviation, Bill Belton‘s running style is completely worthless in an offense replete with a five-cone offensive line. He evokes memories of Austin Scott, who famously liked to dance before hitting the hole. ???? ?????? Defensive coordinators have shut him down knowing that he will wait for holes his blockers can’t create, a simple thing to do given the matador blocking.

I observed the NFL version of this in the Steelers-Ravens game. Moo U.’s own LeVeon Bell has been a huge offensive weapon for the Steelers this year, even though he does the dance behind the offensive line when he runs. Broadcasters have described him as “patiently waiting for his blocking to create holes.” The Ravens wouldn’t give him that much time;  “patience” in that situation means blocks breaking down and tackles for losses. Bell wound up with a net 20 yards on 10 carries against the Ravens, whereas against Indianapolis the previous week, he had 24 for 92 yards. His season average is 4.7 yards.

All season thus far I’ve been watching Bell excel with the Steelers while wondering how he can look like Austin Scott or Bill Belton behind the line and yet be a successful running back. I guess I boiled it down to the offensive line having either a good or bad day (duh!). Some schmuck in one of the comment threads I mentioned above brought up the Steelers’ relative success this year versus last year, proclaiming the obvious difference to be the miraculously wonderful and most excellent coaching of new offensive line coach Mike Munchak (PSU ’82 and member of the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame). My ass! More PSU homey wishful thinking! The obvious difference to me has been a healthy pair of Gators,  C Maurkice Pouncey (UF ’10) and OT Marcus Gilbert (UF ’11), but I digress. Indeed, the Steelers’ offensive line has not been great this year, and it sure as hell wasn’t great against the Ravens, as was evident with three straight sacks of Big Ben in the first period. When the line breaks down, the highly talented Roethlisberger can improvise, adapt, and overcome, whereas Bell’s running production is depressed. Fortunately for the Steelers, offensive coordinator Todd Haley has an answer there, too, finding a way to make lemonade from lemons. Bell is an excellent receiver out of the backfield, and those quick routes can offset some of the battles lost in the pits. The ability to adapt is what makes the difference.

There is an analog here, and you all know what it is, albeit an exaggerated one. Bill Belton is no LeVeon Bell and Christian Hackenberg is no Ben Roethlisberger. Not yet, anyway. The Steelers’ offensive line is not bad, while Penn State’s is truly awful. Even Mike Munchak couldn’t have fixed it with this ragtag collection of youngsters. But by the same token, John Donovan is far from being a Todd Haley. He has not made lemonade, unless you consider what he streams into the urinal at halftime. He does indeed have some significant talent on this team, but he’s failed to adapt well to the mediocre stasis of the team as a whole by exploiting that talent while developing the deficient players and moving the whole thing forward. I guess that’s an oversimplification of the crux of the Donovan situation in this turkey’s mind.

Christian Hackenberg
Christian Hackenberg

Surely, there is blame to be spread around and excuses to be made. However, who is teaching Hack how to be a Roethlisberger? He needs to develop a couple of abilities in view of the present situation and furthermore, to make him viable in the NFL: sack evasion and getting rid of the ball. We know he can throw the ball a mile and sometimes throw accurately, although this year’s case of the yips has seemingly compromised the latter and his receivers’ inability to achieve separation plus the crappily deficient O-line have nullified the former. ????? ???? ?????? Back to the stupid comparison, how many times have you seen Big Ben emerge from an impossibly collapsed pocket and make a desperation throw that connects for big yardage or a first down?

Maybe I’m placing some unreal expectations on Hack by comparing him to an established All-Pro quarterback behind a semi-competent NFL offensive line, but I do think he’s being cheated by some crappy coaching that places too much of a burden on him at this early stage in his development. My thoughts in that connection include the notion that he should have been allowed to grow up before he was named captain. And this knock on coaching applies to both the current and immediate past regime. ????? ???? ?????? Both burdened the Hackster’s young shoulders with a rather untenable leadership role.

He is clearly frustrated with the situation, and his immature pouting has resulted in a diminution of team morale. Petulance and griping are not leadership qualities. He’ll grow out of this, to be sure, but he needs to be properly coached while that maturity is developing. I would love to see last year’s Happy Hack again. But times change and people change. BoB is gone. Hack has to make his peace with the present coaching staff or leave the program. In the words of the great mythical USMC platoon leader Gunny Highway, improvise, adapt, overcome.

You can’t fire the players, so what’s left but to fire the coach? That’s what the Fire John Donovan furor is all about. Fans have all the answer. Is this one realistic? Methinks not — it’s just an elevated form of grousing.

So, what’s happening, dudes?

 

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Often Rhymes

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Kudos to Big Al, a repeat winner of the Nittany Turkey Predictor of the Week Award, from whose prose the headline of this article is lifted. Al, who vividly recalls the 1961 game, predicted the 2014 meeting: “…for the sake of nostalgia, my prediction is Maryland 21, Penn State 17. The offense plays its usual shitty 1st half and another 4th quarter comeback falls short…”

The fourth quarter comeback attempt did indeed fall short, not at the behest of the officials, as Al went on to suggest, but rather because of crappy play by the replacement center, Wendy Laurent, who had too much to think about on a 4th and short to remember that he had to put the ball squarely in Hack’s grip.

Of course, the coaching brain trust doesn’t get away without a negative mention from this turkey. The dysfunctional wildcat came out at a time when it could only get in the way of a drive in progress, taking what seemed like an eternity to line up and snap the ball, giving the defense plenty of time to be anything but fooled by the dickheaded play. As I can recall, only a single one of those misguided wildcat plays worked halfway decently during the entire season thus far. All the others, including two against Maryland, have been complete flops.

And so it came to pass that in this year’s revived rivalry, Maryland made its statement, winning 20-19. What lost it for Penn State was a crappy offensive line and crappy special teams play, neither any surprise, coupled with a net turnover margin of -2. That’s not much of a surprise, either. Past performance is the best predictor of future screwups. Al got it right.

Yea, verily, the two teams played pretty even-steven otherwise. Neither had a rushing game and neither had an outstanding passing game. They both wound up with around 200 yards in total offense. But Penn State continually lost the battle for field position, shooting themselves in the foot whenever they actually gained an advantage. This week’s punter, Dan Pasquariello, averaged 36.8 yards for eight punts, while Maryland’s Nathan Renfro took care of business, averaging 44.3 yards on eleven punts.

The Terps came out with a nasty attitude which seemed to drive them to overcome the adversity of a hostile, yet somehow somewhat apathetic Beaver Stadium. By game time, the gambling spread had dropped to three points, so the gamblers sensed the lack of energy in the house and, as it turned out, in the Nittany Lions themselves. Maryland players must have viewed the films of the 1986 Fiesta Bowl pre-game dinner, because they seemed to channel Michael Irvin and the Hurricanes when they refused to shake hands before the pre-kickoff coin toss. While their head coach, Randy Edsall, eventually apologized for the behavior, the spirit pervaded Terrapin play for the remainder of the game. They wanted this one. They wanted it more.

You could see it in Christian Hackenberg’s body language, which he took no great pains to shield from the all-seeing eye of the camera. He looked dejected, disgruntled, and discombobulated. He grows more so with every week. Once again, Hack was harassed by yet another mediocre defense running through a porous offensive line and over backs who seemed not to want to get in the way of blitzing defenders. Once again, he was banged up. I don’t blame him personally for being all of those D-words I mentioned — in fact, he should be suffering from full-scale PTSD at this point  — but I continue to worry that he’s reaching the end of his rope with Penn State.

Hack came to PSU to play for Bill O’Brien, but now he doesn’t even have that. What he actually does have with respect to coaching seems more and more to be clueless as to how to use him and protect him effectively, given the talent that exists or lack of same. In my mind, the only thing keeping Hackenberg from transferring to another program in which he would be given a better chance to succeed is the requisite one-year sitting out period; I don’t think he wants to do a Pat Devlin by transferring out of FBS. He’s young and carrying a team on his shoulders. He’s nominally captain, but he hasn’t yet developed the kind of strong leadership abilities needed to lead a bunch of guys of varying ages and abilities through adversity. He’s expected to do the impossible week in and week out without adequate tools to accomplish the job.

A Ferrari with a flat tire won’t go very far. Even a crack mechanic cannot fix it without two mundane tools: a jack and a wrench. Hackenberg potentially has a Ferrari with a sleek body and a finely tuned engine. We know that he has talented receivers. We know the defense can hold opponents’ points down. We know that Hack is a gifted quarterback with a great arm. Nonetheless, the absence of a competent offensive line has robbed him of his potential greatness. He has a flat tire and he lacks a jack and a lug wrench. He comprehends that those implements won’t be available this year and that he’s going to have to limp along for the remainder of this year. He now looks sullen, which rubs off on those kids he is supposed to be leading, which is not good for the team. Moreover, there is little anyone can do at this juncture.

So, what do you see on the road ahead? Yeah, I know, it’s hard to reduce expectations. However, to be realistic I think we’re going to have to do so. It will be a struggle for PSU  to win two more games and become bowl eligible to get those extra 15 practices that Joe keeps telling us are the reason we want them to become bowl eligible. It could be the ultimate let-down to have that big emotional boost at the beginning of the season celebrating bowl eligibility and then wind up not being bowl eligible, but I repeat what I’ve said before — there are no guaranteed wins for the Lions in the remaining schedule, especially if they can’t get their asses motivated to play or similarly, if they feel like playing only halves of games.

 

I’ll be back with a preview and prediction for the Indiana game, another wonderful noon start.