Oregon 30, Penn State 24 (2OT)
I cleaned up the title line for the scatologically sensitive segment of the Nittany Turkey audience. But that didn’t last long. Today, I feel like shit, and last night, the Nittany Lions played like shit. So there you have it: Lofty expectations by the Sanguinarians for a championship season laid to rest in a pile of duck doo-doo—in the friendly confines of Beaver Stadium. Credit the Ducks, who chased the Lions back up Mount Nittany with their tail between their legs.
Let’s hear it for the White Out! A tradition unlike any other: 110,000 people in matching laundry, a national TV stage, and last night, three full quarters of offensive catatonia. Penn State finally stirred late, only to have the déjà vu machine crank to life in the second overtime period. Fresh off an Oregon missed mandatory two-pointer that left their lead at 30-24, Drew Allar floated a first-play pick on Penn State’s possession and that was the ballgame. Oregon walked off with a 30–24 win and the keys to your refrigerator.
Goodbye, College Football Playoffs. They’ll be lucky to get an invitation to the Citrus Bowl (if they don’t fold completely now). The highly disappointed White Out crowd reflected that sentiment in their oft heard boos and admonitions to fire James Franklin.
A Tale of Two QBs
Allar’s final line: 14-of-25, 137 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT. Not terribly efficient on paper and further exacerbated by when the mistake came. Allar was seen once again heaving inaccurate passes during the first three quarters, waking up in the fourth with some flashes of too-little, too late brilliance in the comeback effort. Across the field, Oregon’s rising star Dante Moore was poised and surgical: 29-of-39, 248 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, including both Duck TDs in overtime. One looked like a shovel-pass layup, the other a 25-yard strike that whistled through the white noise.
If Moore’s performance resulted from Dan Lanning’s decision to house the Ducks in sleepy Altoona to wait out the White Out hoopla and enjoy the local cuisine, perhaps the Nittany Lions should move there for home football weekends. I’d tell them to try equally sleepy nearby Tyrone, but residents there already have endured enough stinkiness from the paper mill. But I digress.
As for Allar, his explanation was, “I was trying to get it to Luke over the guy that picked it and just didn’t put it high enough and give Luke a chance. That’s on me.”
World Class Defense?
Let’s not let the Penn State defense off the hook. The vaunted Lions yielded 424 total yards (248 pass, 176 rush) and lost the possession battle 33:52 to 26:08. When Oregon needed long, grown-man drives—like the 10-play, 75-yard march to go up 17—they got them. To be fair, the defense played well for most of the game, but the offense’s failure to sustain drives left them gasping for air as the game wore on. Aside from being on the field far too long, they must have been feeling abandoned by the offense.
Situational football? Oregon and PSU each converted six third downs, but the Ducks faced 18 tries (33%), while PSU had 15 (40%). Fourth down was the tell: Oregon went 5-for-7; Penn State 3-for-3, but the Ducks’ aggressiveness tilted the field. Said Franklin, “We actually did pretty well on third down … but they were able to go for it on fourth down because [Oregon] were in manageable situations.” Turnovers decided it: Oregon 0, PSU 1, and you know which one.
It Ain’t Working
As for the Andy Kotelnicki Experience: the script felt like decaf—risk-averse between the 20s, allergic to rhythm, and reliant on late-game hero ball. When the offense finally showed urgency, it looked almost… competent. Imagine if that had been the plan before the 55th minute.
Meanwhile, Oregon looks like a team with a direction and a quarterback. Moore didn’t blink in the teeth of the noise, and Dan Lanning dialed up just enough aggression to win the leverage moments. Oregon will be going places, regularly ordering long-distance Altoona-style pizza via Uber Eats for good luck; meanwhile, Penn State, for now, is overoptimistically pricing Orlando hotel rooms.
And the gambling note you came for: the week’s no-brainer overlay—Oregon +3.5—cashes with room to spare. Our 31–25 Ducks call? Pretty damn close; we merely overestimated Penn State’s offense by a point. (Someone alert the model we forgot to add the Allar Overtime Interception Constant™.)
Joe Paterno’s old saw says, “You’re never as good as you think you are when you win—and you’re never as bad as you think you are when you lose.”
Last night, they not only looked bad; they were bad.
What It Means for Penn State
Penn State sinks to #7 in the AP poll, while Oregon moves up to #2. I think #7 is a gift. Playing like they do, I don’t see many teams in the Top 25 they are capable of beating. Future opponent Indiana is now ranked just below PSU at #8, and we’ll see them four games down the line.
Next week’s road trip to Los Angeles brings a matchup with UCLA, a bad, bad, bad team that Penn State should be capable of handling — emphasis on “should.” ESPN favors the Nittany Lions by 93% and the gambling spread kicked off at Penn State – 24.5. If they can’t rise to the task, the season officially enters clown-car territory. But the real test comes soon after, with Northwestern followed by a potential Murderer’s Row: Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio State in succession. (Albeit with a gift from the scheduling gods: a bye week before the Ohio State massacre in the Horseshoe). Given what we’ve seen — slow starts, predictable play-calling, shaky third-downs, and Allar’s untimely brain cramps — it’s not hard to imagine three losses in that stretch.
Even if they survive it, the remaining schedule won’t be a cakewalk: Moo U is beatable, but no gimme, and Nebraska could easily send them packing if PSU shows up flat. In other words, the preseason dream of 11-1 is toast; 9-3 looks like the optimistic scenario. And if they can’t even take care of business against a weak UCLA squad, the slide could get ugly in a hurry.
My hope is to recover enough from what ails me and from the Oregon debacle to write a preview of the UCLA game. Yom Kippur is Thursday. I’ll atone on behalf of all Penn State fans.
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The thing that surprised me the most about that game was that State scored touchdowns on three consecutive possessions, I didn’t think the offense could do that against any semi competent FBS caliber defense, And Allar’s 1st touchdown pass was a thing of beauty that very few quarterbacks in the history of Penn State football could have made.
But, even after State took the lead in overtime, I was sure that Oregon would eventually win. Our defense was too worn down to stop them and there was little chance that the offense would be able to convert on any two point try.
Aller’s problem is that he gets desperate in crunch time and .takes stupid risks. It was only first down, Reynolds was covered, and Allar should have just thrown the ball away, He may have the “arm talent” to be an NFL quarterback, but he doesn’t have the “head talent.” And he’s the wrong type of quarterback for Kotelnicki’s system which requires a dual threat quarterback to be effective. Franklin is an idiot for continuing to recruit pocket passers to run a spread offense.
Actually. I think Penn State still has a decent chance to finish 10-2 this year. They’ll lose to O$U (and be lucky to get over 200 yards of offense) but Iowa, Nebraska, and Indiana are the only other major threats. Iowa outplayed Indiana and would have won the game if their 1st string QB hadn’t gotten injured Iowa has virtually no offense if he’s still injured when State plays them, Raiola is a decent QB but his receivers are worse that State’s and Nebraska’s defense sucks, Indiana has a good QB and one dangerous receiver (Sarratt) but the rest of the offense is pretty pedestrian,
Thanks, Al. I had similar thoughts going into OT. Defense was worn out, so the offense would need to do its share in OT, but the brain trust of Franklin, Kotelnicki, and Allar was bound to screw that up somehow, either with shitty play calling or shitty execution.
We’ll see how the season plays out. It’s easy to take the low road at this point, predicting 9-3 or worse, but I’m not giving up on them. Despite my unkind words, I believe they can turn things around a bit. (I’m leaving the door open a crack).
They need to take the opportunity to work on some shit these next two weeks. Despite Iowa’s weaknesses and Indiana’s flash-in-the-pan brilliance against Bret Bulimia, to beat them, the Kitties will need to get their act and their head together.
And anything less than 49-0 over UCLA is a loss.
—TNT
Oregon shifted their defense after going up 17-3 to something resembling a prevent. It nearly cost them the game. Had very little to do with us and everything to do with them.
The first three plus quarters were exactly as expected. Noncompetitive football. We showed some heart late which I do take great pleasure in. For all of Franklin’s flaws, the team plays hard and rarely quits. That, however, isn’t good enough. I sat in the stands and just waited for it and it did happen which is very sad. Now, going forward, my 9-3 season prediction looks too rosy. I don’t see them going any better than 8-4. Indiana is a loss. Iowa is probably a loss (perhaps of 6 to 4 variety). We could lose to Moo U and Nebraska.
All I’ve got to say is that it must have been torture sitting in Beaver Stadium through that performance. Even watching it on TV, I could feel the contniual letdowns. Started hearing boos in the first quarter. Man, this was a sorry excuse for Penn State football.
Nevertheless, your gloom and doom forecast and your mention of the great 6-4 classic has me primed up to write another piece about that 2004 loss to Iowa — maybe a “then and now” kind of thing.
PSU lost in the trenches all night. Our O-line sucked big time, and why did Singleton keep getting the ball if he was averaging less than 2 YPC? Meanwhile, Dante Moore is indeed the upgrade you said he would be. This kid is destined for stardom. Imagine what PSU could do with him? Well, not behind the turnstiles, but behind a competent O-line.
For the Sanguinarian homey slappies, this must have them heading to the west coast — not to see the UCLA game, but to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
—TNT