Archives for September 2023

“We’re a Second-Half Team”

The Penn State Nittany Lions (5-0, 3-0 Big Ten) played a shitty first half against the Northwestern Wildcats (2-3, 1-2) but went on to win decisively, 41-13. Big Al was right about this being a WTF game. Although looking at the scoreboard might lead one to believe that the game was dominated by Penn State, the halftime score was 10-10. And on a perfect fall day in Evanston, Penn State coughed up its first fumble, on the opening kickoff, resulting in a Wildcats score.

Nooners are No Joke

Yep, no weather excuses. Nick Singleton just plain screwed up. Penn State fumbled two other times but recovered. And in the first half, their body language shouted out, “I’m sweepy and I wather be in bed.” Po’ babies! Same old story with the noon start. James Franklin exaggerates the issue by calling it 11 AM, but our lads’ circadian rhythms know that 11 Central is the same damn thing as 12 Eastern. Nevertheless, he did address the issue at halftime.

“That was my message to the team,” Franklin said. “The first half is gone. Let’s play really well in the second half.”

I suppose they might have woken up by the third quarter, but even in winning 41-13, they did not look like a playoff contender. At least I didn’t hear Franklin saying any win is pretty. What I did hear him saying was that “the ball throwing [resulting in a costly unsportsmanlike conduct penalty] would be dealt with.”

Penalties’ll Killya

Franklin was referring to the ridiculous behavior by sophomore cornerback Cam Miller, who was defending a Ben Bryant third-down pass to A. J. Henning on the Northwestern sideline. The pass was incomplete and would have forced a fourth-and-six from the Northwestern 29. Perhaps a NWU player said something to him. I didn’t see that. Whatever it was, Miller reacted by throwing the ball at an opponent. The penalty gave the Wildcats a new series of downs, and they eventually converted this PSU defensive screwup into their only three points of the second half.

That bullshit must stop. I certainly hope that it will be “dealt with.” Penn State was flagged six times for 45 yards in this soporific effort.

We Won the Stat Battle

Another James Franklin postmortem analysis cliche. We lost the turnover battle, we won the explosive play battle, we won the stat battle, already, but not by as wide a margin as the score would suggest. Penn State wound up with 353 total yards to NWU’s 175, of which a puny 45 were rushing yards. We didn’t really lose the turnover battle as Franklin said, but he was pissed off about the first fumble of the season.

Drew Allar played like he should have stayed in bed, being off target much of the afternoon. He wound up 18-33 for 189 yards and a touchdown, for a quarterback rating of 40.3.

Running Game A-ight

Our running back tandem fared better, until Kaytron Allen exited, missing the second half with an undisclosed injury or medical condition. No one knows for sure. However, Trey Potts stepped in with three carries for 21 yards and a touchdown. Nick Singleton was the leading rusher with 21-80 and a touchdown. Singleton also gained some ground as a receiver out of the backfield, with six catches for 39 yards and a touchdown. We hope Nick gets into the groove; he has looked a bit “off” this year.

Big D

The defense once again stepped up to put the clamps on Northwestern in the second half. They recorded seven sacks, twelve tackles-for-loss, and one great big stupid dumbass penalty.

Attendance at Ryan Stadium was 25,064, which shows that Penn State attracts more fans than Minnesota.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what a bye-week can do for your team; ask what your team can do for a bye-week. That JFK Inaugural paraphrase made no sense at all, which is why I wrote it. See you on the flip side.

I’ll be back in a week or so with a brief look at the University of Massachusetts Minutemen, a fearsome independent school that knows it will help PSU get to a 6-0 record when the Ohio State game rolls around.

Penn State 31, Iowa 0

The unbeatable, absolutely perfect Nittany Lions triumphed on a rainy, record-setting, white-out night in Beaver Stadium, shutting their Hawkeye asses out decisively in what can honestly be described as a rout. The first two turnovers by Iowa set the tone for the evening. Penn State took over and put the clamps on the hapless Hawkeyes from then on. The victory was as lopsided as it gets in conference play, unless Rutgers is the opponent.

Tropical Storm Ophelia was the reason for the wind-blown soaking suffered by 110,830 rain-soaked, poncho-wearing white-outers. Most of them didn’t give half a shit about the weather, given the insulating euphoria provided by their team’s daunting performance on both sides of the ball.

Although Drew Allar still has problems accurately hitting receivers and some receivers don’t understand which route they should be running, no one noticed because the score kept on increasing in Penn State’s favor. From a 10-0 halftime lead, the Nittany Lions scored fourteen in the third and seven more in the fourth quarter, winding up with 31, which extends their NCAA FBS leading streak of games with more than 30 points scored.

Allar wound up 25-37 for 166 yards and 4 TDs. His leading receiver is, of course KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who had eight receptions for 66 yards and a touchdown. It was a rainy, gusty night, on which one would expect the passing game to be off.

It is cool that even after a crappy weather game, Penn State remains turnover-free for the season.

Lopsidedness

Iowa started off the game looking like they could move the ball, getting two first downs in the first quarter before they coughed the ball up. Who knew that those would be the last first downs their anemic offense would produce until it was playing against the Penn State scrubs late in the final stanza. They wound up with four, versus Penn State’s 28.

Increasingly irrelevant Time of Possession (thanks for being my whipping boy, Matt Herb) was in PSU’s favor by a 3:1 margin. Iowa was held to 20 yards rushing and 76 total yards, while Penn State totals were 215 and 397, respectively.

Opposing QB Cade McNamara declared this the worst day of his life, to wit: “This is the worst feeling in the world. I don’t remember the last time I’ve ever felt this bad about a game let alone a day in my life.”

I Was Bullshitting You

In my first paragraph, I called the Lions absolutely perfect and unbeatable. We all know that is bullshit. Remember that Iowa was missing three big producers on offense, although I expected much more from their defense. Only Sanguinarians will walk away from this game and start making playoff reservations. There’s a long row to hoe, after the three bye weeks involving wildcats, minutemen, and a real week off. But in winning this game, it does seem that a 10-2 season is again possible. Just don’t count your tOSU and UM chickens before they hatch, already.

There is some chance that PSU could move up in the meaningless polls. As you know, the first half of the season doesn’t provide enough meaningful information to intelligently rank these teams. Watching some of those PAC-12 (and falling) teams today, is there room in the Top Ten for all the teams that look like they belong there? In any event, I see no reason why the Nittany Lions should not remain at Meaningless #7, save for the unlikely event that ASU beats USC, who lead by 7 at halftime.

I’ll be back mid-week for a look at poor Northwestern. It’s on the north side, where there are fewer shootings.