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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Pyrrhic Victory

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At first blush, the scoreboard creates a rose colored image of total domination by Penn State (3-1) in its 34-6 victory over non-conference opponent Eastern Michigan University (2-2). Alas, two crucial injuries suffered during he game will  significantly hamper the Lion’s defensive productivity from this time foreword.

OLB Michael Mauti,arguably the soul of the defense, will sit out the rest of the season with a torn ACL, which requires delicate surgery with a lengthy refractory period followed by intensive rehabilitation. Mauti is a guy whose passion was evident throughout the game, not just the first series.

D’Anton Lynn was carried off the field on a spinal stabilizer board, with the worst fear being a neck injury. He was examined and later released from Mt. Nittany Medical Center with what turned out to be a minor injury. However, he will miss at least one game.

Mauti’s loss is a serious blow to the defense. Nate Stupar will have big shoes to step into. The multiplicative intangibles inherent in Mauti’s approach to the game will be lost, which might prove to be even more serious than the loss of Mauti’s excellent position play.

Contrary to everyone’s expectations, the Eagles came out throwing. Having employed the pass a total of six times the previous week against Michigan, it was pretty obvious that this was a run oriented team. Accordingly, Penn State got fooled a bit, as they had undoubtedly prepared for a single dimensional offense. For the first series or so, the PSU defense looked like it had its collective head up its ass. Then, adjustments by Tom Bradley and the boys brought the game back under control so that the offense could play analball. It is a complement that the opposition, no matter how lame, saw the Nittany Lion run defense as so impermeable that they would have to rely on a weapon that has been largely ineffectual through the first few games of the season.

Eastern Michigan wound up 18-31 for 202 yards passing, but only 68 yards on 43 carries on the ground. For its attempt at a pseudo-balanced attack, EMU dominated time of possession by over nine minutes. That kept the PSU defense on the field a long time, and that’s when injuries happen.

Joe Paterno
Joe Paterno at Post Game Conference

Meanwhile, on the Lions’ offensive side, the quarterback battle of the day was won by Matt McGloin, who went 14-17 for 220 yards and three touchdowns and no interceptions. Rob Bolden was not as effective, at 7-13 for 115 yards with a touchdown and an INT. Does this mean that the quarterback controversy/competition is over? Ask Joe Paterno. This Turkey has no doubt that this will be the second most asked about topic (after the Mauti injury) at today’s press conference. McGloin appears to be the clear leader at this point, and he appears to be more comfortable in the pocket, but who knows what goes through Joe’s head. He might have made an under the table promise to Bolden and his dad that Rob would play in every game this year, for all I know. Could this quarterbacking morass go on all season? Yes, but it isn’t going to be pretty, given that the Lions now enter the “meat” of the schedule after having consumed the cream puffs and having been Alabama’s bitch.

The Penn State running game was relatively quiet, amassing only 102 yards all day. Most of the run duties were split up among Silas Redd (48 yards), Curtis “I Outta Joe Doghouse” Dukes (29 yards), and Bellefonte’s own Derek Day (18 yards). EMU’s head coach Ron English, no stranger to Penn State, apparently had decided to make the the Nits pass, so they kicked his teams ass that way, instead of running it down his throat. (Lots of body metaphors here. I must think I’m a sports writer or something.) Of course, by giving the Eagles credit for shutting down the PSU running game, I have sidestepped the obvious issue of a defective offensive line, which sill plague the Lions for the rest of the season.

Another questionable area for the Nittany Lions that might have been solidified in this game is the much maligned (for good reason) kicking game. Anthony “I Sober Now” Fera seems to have become the first stringer for punts, kickoffs, and place kicks, after the failure of Evan Lewis and Sam Ficken to impress anybody. Fera was 1-1 place kicking, as was Ficken, who was called to action late in the game. Fera averaged 51.7 yards punting.

It was good to see head coach Joe Paterno on the sidelines again, albeit for just the first half. After that, he repaired back to the press booth, sitting with Galen, Jay, and Dick.

How did this here Turkey do with his prediction? Well, pretty pretty pretty damn good, if you ask me. In fact, had Ficken missed that field goal attempt, as I had anticipated, I would have been right on the money. Consider it a bonus that he did, because it didn’t affect the end result from a gambler’s perspective. Penn State still didn’t cover the spread, and the over/under was under by four. My score prediction was a little off (I said 30-6 as opposed to the final of 34-6), but I’m still impressed with myself. I’m not implying prescience, just a well greased ass to pull these things out of.

So, the first Lithophallus Bowl is in the books now, leading to speculation about what a trophy for a series of these would look like if the same committee that designed the Land Grant Trophy were to be involved. I could see it now: a big shelf for the brick dick and a Nittany Lion sculpture replica preparing to pounce on the phallic building to twist it off at its root and eat it like a hot doggie treat.

To be serious for a moment, there’s every reason to be concerned about the rest of the season. We enter the Big Ten season with a questionable offensive line, no idea who is leading the team on offense, and a banged up defense. The kicking/return game is still somewhat questionable. If this team is unlucky and unmotivated, it could lose five games from here to December. I wouldn’t worry about this Saturday’s game, though. The Hoosiers (1-3) are up to their usual suckage, having been beaten last weekend by North Texas 24-21. But I’ll leave the rest of that forecast for another post later in the week.

 

Joe Spouts a Few Non-Sequiturs (Updated)

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At the weekly Joe Paterno press conference, the questions came fast and hard about the Alabama loss, and Joe even seemed uncharacteristically willing to deal with them. The only thing was that without even quoting Shakespeare this time, the venerable Head Lion was semi-inscrutable.

About Chima Okoli’s injury:

As I said, we’ve only practiced the one day. And yesterday was just to try to get an understanding of what happened to us against Alabama, to try to correct some mistakes. We really have not talked about who is going to play and exactly what we’re going to do. We spent this morning doing that.

And we’ll go out this afternoon to see what some people are ready to do. So that’s a tough question for me to answer right now and know what I’m talking about, because I couldn’t give you an honest answer on that.

About the quarterback controversy:

 I think we’ve made a decision up to a point that we want to play both of them (Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin) for a while until we find out exactly which one we think might be better for the football team and help them win.

But, right now, I think it’s a toss up. I think both of them are doing well. There again, I think I said after the ballgame I’m reluctant to have people start blaming it on the quarterback. I mean, I think we’re just not making plays.

We started that ballgame (Alabama) where we had a chance to make some big plays, a couple in the end zone, one of which would have been a tough catch, but the other one should have been an easy catch going down the sideline for touchdown.

We just didn’t it’s easy to pick out somebody and blame him, particularly the quarterback, because it’s such a predominant person. The ball comes to them and they do something with it.

But I think both quarterbacks have played well enough for us to win with. And I’m reluctant right now to tell anybody, “hey, we’re going to start this guy,” because it would look like as if I’m, like the other guy didn’t play well. I thought they both did a pretty good job, really.

I think we have to help them. I think some guys on the team have got to make some plays. We’re the same way; we go in the ballgame, second year in a row we played that football team without [forcing] a turnover. And a year ago we had four or five and we had three turnovers in this one.

When you get in a tough football game against a good team, you’re in a uphill battle all the time. So anyway that’s one of my typical long answers to a simple question. We’ve got two quarterbacks. And as we talk now, whether we have two quarterbacks a week from now, we’re going to we’ll see.

About coaching from the booth instead of the field, and the timeout debacle (and everything else but the kitchen sink):

 The timeouts, that goes back to the confusion on the sideline goes back to the fact that, again, you think your kids understand certain things.

Two kids got hurt and they didn’t know whether to go down, come in, come out. They come out of the game late. And in order for us to save ourselves five yards we had to call a timeout on the sideline. I think that we’ve got to do a better job, obviously, of making the kids more game aware so that when that happens – you’re hurt, sit down, stay there until we make a substitution for you. We’re allowed to do that. We don’t want you to be phony about the substitution, but we had kids who were half off the field, back on the field, back out. And the guys on the sidelines weren’t sure what exactly was going on. And finally we ran out of time.

So I think we’re all right there. There again, that’s an obvious thing. Here you go in the first quarter, you take three timeouts. I’m angry. I’m angry upstairs. I didn’t know exactly what had happened either. I’m yelling down at them [coaches on the field], “you guys going to make up your mind what you want to do?” And then, of course, after I had a chance to talk to some of the guys, I found out that the kids were the guys who created the problem.

So I think we’re all right that way. I don’t think that’s a problem. We’ve got to catch the ball and we’ve got to make some things happen on defense in a tough ballgame. We just haven’t done that. It’s as simple as that.

Now, why we haven’t done it, obviously you’ve got to take a look at yourself and say, “hey, maybe there’s something I as a head coach have to do a little differently.” I don’t know. But we can’t expect to win consistently when you don’t get a turnover on defense.

I guess we were almost last in the country last year in the turnover ratio, and we were allowing too many on the other side of the equation. So that’s where we are.

About how the front seven performed and what they’ll have to do to stop Temple’s running back:

 I thought we played well on defense most of the time, except for the fact that we didn’t come up with a couple of interceptions.

The only time I was disappointed in the way we played defense was when they scored the last touchdown. It looked like a couple of guys got a little bit discouraged and nobody rose to the occasion to make a play.

But I think overall the down guys played fairly well. I mean, better than fairly well. I don’t think we got blown off the board, what have you.

They have a couple of fine running backs. I think the one kid ran for, had the ball about 25 times, ran it for about 115, 120 yards. I thought and most of that came towards the end in there. So I would disagree with you, Joe, on your evaluation, if I understand what you’re saying.

And I thought that part was fine. Did we come up with an interception? We had a chance for one, on the third down and 12. We had a chance to get the interception. We didn’t come up with the ball. They took it in there.

So things like that that we have got to do better. We’ve got to change the game around on defense once in a while. That part I think is a legitimate criticism.

I don’t see anything specific in there about how the linebackers played and I see no reference at all to Temple’s running back.

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Alabama Lowlights

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What did you think of that game, eh? That first Penn State drive was a hopeful thing, give or take a time out or three. Lawdie, lawdie, Mike’s Garage was replete with unbridled optimism along with a modicum of bemusement over the clock management or lack of same. The much maligned Nittany Lions, from whom nothing much was expected in this matchup, were marching down the field against the vaunted Crimson Tide defense.

“Do you want to revise your forecast now?” asked Jackstand and zbeard, almost in unison. When I told them I was sticking to my guns, they both looked at me like I was crazy. Jackstand is too new a Nittany Lions fan to know how recent history paints an unkind picture of non-performance in big games. Meanwhile, zbeard is a crusty old fan like me, but with a vastly differing outlook at the start of each season. Zbeard is a perennial optimist who expects big things from the Nits until they prove they’re unworthy; on the other hand, I maintain an annual fecal impaction of the optic nerve — you don’t have to be Dr. Todd Sponsler, ophthalmic proprietor of The Lion’s Den, to deduce that the aforementioned condition translates to a shitty outlook — in that I want to see something from the team before declaring that they have even a chance at a distinguished winning record. (And if you’re a fan of the Nittany Lions as well as long sentences, you’re in the right place. After all, why use a sentence when a paragraph will do? But I digress.) So, no. I wouldn’t change my forecast, which you should know was Alabama 35, Penn State 10.

As I am always running late with my post-game recaps, by this time you are well aware that the #3 Crimson Tide (2-0) defeated the #23 Lions (1-1) 27-11. I should have given the Penn State defense more credit. They even looked competent at times out there. I obviously thought Alabama would put more points on the board, so with the over/under at 42, I told you to take the over. Mah bad! But if you took Alabama and gave 10 points, you would have nailed it.

The Penn State defense really did keep the meanies from giving us a good, old fashioned, behind the woodshed lickin’. I have to give some credit to the D-boys before I light into the offense and the coaches. Holding Alabama to under 30 points might sound like a consolation prize to be stuffed into a dusty closet, but it seems to me as if this defense might actually be competent.

‘Bama QB AJ McCarron probably won their version of the two-headed quarterback competition with a 19-31, 163 yard performance with one touchdown and no interceptions. Alabama head football coach Nick Saban had the sense to play just McCarron in this game, which turned out to be a wise move, unlike whatever the hell is happening at Penn State with the offensive brain trust. Phillip Sims appears to be the odd man out in this quarterback battle, and pretty clearly so.

For some ungodly reason, PSU head coach Joe Paterno has stubbornly clung to his stance that the quarterback competition (aka controversy) is not over at Penn State despite this Turkey’s exhortations to shit or get off the pot. Oh yeah, a few others besides me have been on his case about picking a quarterback and moving forward. In spite of all the flack he has been getting (or maybe to show that he’s still the same stubborn old Joe), he split the quarterbacking chores for the Alabama game — to the detriment of the offense — and maintained afterward that the competition between quarterbacks Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin is not over. Good old stubborn Joe.

As it turns out, Bolden has won the competition in everyone’s mind but Joe’s. We fans know best, as you well know. But look at the stats for Saturday: Bolden, 11-29 for 144 yards with no touchdowns and one interception; McGloin, 1-10 for no net yards and nothing else. McGloin never got into a rhythm, while Bolden had his rhythm interrupted like a Catholic couple trying to get pregnant. The gods were not kind to Bolden, either, as at least four catchable balls were dropped by Penn State receivers. Furthermore, each time the brain trust made a quarterback change, the linemen had to get used to new snap vocals, the receivers had to get used to different ball feel and timing, and running backs have to be aware of the myriad little differences brought by a change in quarterbacks. A different personality changes the atmosphere in the huddle, too. With one quarterback for the game, Alabama was out on a smooth cruise down a wide boulevard, whereas Penn State’s quarterback switching shenanigans put it  in stop-and-go traffic on a choked freeway.

Penn State averaged 3.6 yards rushing for a game total of 107 yards — not what we expect of a Penn State offense. I did tell you that Silas Redd was not going to have anything like the productive game he played against Indiana State and — Duh! — I was right. Although he looked great on that first drive, he wound up with only 65 yards on 22 carries, for a measly 3.0 yard average, with a long run of only eight yards. He did score a touchdown, though, but that occurred with 1:53 left in the game and meant only some infinitesimally reduced embarrassment for the Nittany Lions.

Showing his versatility, Bolden capped off that Redd touchdown with a two-point conversion he ran in himself.

The only other Penn State score of the game was an Evan Lewis 43 yard field goal with 7:26 left in the first quarter, after the Nittany Lions stalled at the 26 yard-line during that masterful opening drive to which I heretofore alluded. What happened there? Why did they start looking so good and then broke down in the almost red zone yet, which is a famous Nittany trick? Well, as usual, the play calling became very conservative. Very conservative. Foolishly so. They had squandered three time outs due to poor communications during the drive. (More on that bullshit later.) Perhaps they thought that calling anything more complex than a fullback dive would result in a delay of game penalty as players scratched their heads while Bolden reviewed their responsibilities in the huddle. Who knows? After a brilliant fourth down conversion to the Alabama 29, Brandon Beachum ran for two yards and Silas Redd for one yard to bring up third and seven at the Alabama 26. Bolden tried to convert on third down but Justin Brown dropped the ball, another thing that has plagued the Lions at this early juncture. In any case — heaven be praised — the field goal was good from 43.

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