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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Regular Season Bragging Rights

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OK, guys, fess up—who got this Penn State season right and who went down in flames?

For a change, this Turkey was right on the money with his season forecast as expressed in “The Long Road Ahead” last August. Bragging rights accrue to the Nittany Turkey. To the victor belongs the spoils.

My regular season won-loss prediction was 7-5, right on the old beameroonie. I wrote that that record would be good enough for a fourth place finish in the Big Ten. Lo and behold, it was so! I successfully predicted the losses to Alabama, Iowa, Ohio State, and Michigan State; however I slightly fumbled the ball when I predicted that the remaining loss would be to either Michigan or Northwestern instead of lowly Illinois.

I incorrectly predicted that McGloin would be the starter for the Youngstown State game because I felt that Bolden and Newsome were in no way ready to play. I suppose the coaches had to wait for a while to figure that one out for themselves. They didn’t bother to ask me.

I predicted that Joe Paterno would get his 400th—all right, I know this one was a mathematical slam-dunk—and I expressed doubt about whether reaching that number would induce him to retire. He got to 401, and he ain’t retiring, at least for now.

Then, I jokingly wrote that the Lions would turn down a Motor City Bowl Bid, then added that they were likely to get a warm weather bowl due to their huge following who bring big bucks. Chances are that they’ll be invited to the Gator Bowl (or perhaps the Outback Bowl, in view of Iowa’s tragic loss to Minnesota), so that waffle looks good, too.

I expressed concern about the linebackers, which didn’t take a genius. Mauti proved to be worthy of Linebacker U., but none of the others impressed me. Neither was a savant necessary to predict troubles for the offensive line, which I felt would hinder both the running and passing game. For some reason, though, the pass protection wasn’t absolutely awful, but the run blocking was abysmal.

On the other hand, I didn’t mention the defensive line at all in my prognostication. I thought it would be solid. I had expected a big year from Jack Crawford, at least. No such luck. The defensive line struggled. The whole front seven struggled and tackling was Pop Warnerish. The McCabe sisters could have wrapped up people better than Colisanti and Gbdayu. ????? ???? ????

I thought punting would be an issue after the crappy punting performance at the Blue White game. 888 ?????? On the contrary, Anthony Fera was pretty effective most of the year, both punting and kicking off. This was a pleasant surprise. It is a shame that he had the emergency appendectomy and subsequent complications, which ended his year prematurely.

The only two things I completely failed to predict were the Stanley/Redd Double Urinegate and the Jenn Sterger/Brett Favre fiasco. ??? ???? ????? ?? ???????? Who woulda known? Epic fail, man.

I called this a mediocre Penn State year, and I think you’ll all agree that that’s what it was. After the sad homecoming debacle of the Illinois game, it looked like all was lost and many didn’t believe that the Nittany Lions would win another game during the remainder of the year. However, hope was restored after the Michigan win. Then it looked bleak again after blowing the 14-3 lead to Ohio State. Just goes to show you that you’re never as bad as you seem to be when you lose, and you’re never as good as you think you are when you win. I believe that the boys did as well as could be expected this year and further, I think this team has a lot of potential to do good things next year, especially if McGloin remains the starting QB. So I’m going to congratulate them on giving us some good memories this year, even if they’re not the greatest Penn State team to ever tie on the cleats.

And to the seniors, thanks for the thrills you’ve given us through the years and good luck with your futures, in football and beyond!

I haven’t recapped the Michigan State game yet. I’ll do that in a subsequent post. It’s late and I don’t want to rush through it, being my last chance at biting commentary for the regular season. Speaking of Moo U., I predicted that they would win at least 10 games this season. They won 11. Hey? Huh? Give it up for the Turkey, who really doesn’t get to brag all that often.

Hope you all had a happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend!

LaVar Says Joe Should Stay

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Writing yesterday in his Washington Post sponsored blog called Hard Hits with LaVar Arrington, the former Nittany Lion and Washington Redskins linebacker stated that Joe Paterno should remain head coach at Penn State as long as he is physically and mentally able.

LaVar, who could use a grammar coach at this point, correctly posited that “college athletics isn’t all about wins and loses [sic] for a team”. He writes of the positive influence Paterno had on his life and the lives of countless hundreds of other student athletes he coached. Regardless of how much ink Joe gets in the record books, this will be his lasting legacy.

“I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with coach. He was real hard on me — like a father figure I didn’t like it too much. But as a result, he prepared me for a much more important game, the game of life.” —LaVar Arrington

During the past ten years, fans including this Turkey at times have grown restless about Paterno. In each year when the PSU football team falls short of their expectations — or perhaps, their needs — they clamor for Joe’s head on a plate. In years like 2005, they shut up for a while, placated by what has more often than not of late turned out to be fleeting success. In most years the team has been ordinary — middle of the pack Big Ten — as Bob Flounders and I recently asserted (see “Floundering Around in Mediocrity“).

It would be nice if Penn State was able to put a national title contender on the field every year, but that’s not possible. Even if it were possible to field a top five team every year, would you really want to have a program like USC?

When Joe goes, we will have lost a legend, and you’re not likely to see another like him during your lifetime. Isn’t that worth preserving as long as possible?

Regression to the Mean

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This post is indeed about the October 2 football game pitting Penn State against the University of Iowa. After re-reading it, I decided to clarify that early before I start on my characteristic tangential flights of fancy. Between the cryptic, statistically oriented headline and the aforementioned digressions, you might have thought that this was an article about how to successfully pick your nose or something. Don’t worry, though. We’ll get there eventually.

I’m not going to use that French d-phrase that means a feeling of having been somewhere before because it’s been popping up all over the blogosphere and the legitimate media. The advantage of being last man in is that I can avoid the hackneyed pitfalls of all the others who have been there before me. Of course, the disadvantage of being sloppy last is that by the time my game comments are published everybody is already sick and tired of reading about the mess of a game they watched the prior Saturday.

As procrastinatorial as I might tend to be, however, the veritable champion of delayed coverage is Phil Grosz, who publishes one of the more respected independent Nittany Lions sports publications, Blue White Illustrated (BWI). Phil’s spiel is delayed a week, so while some parts of the current BWI address the Iowa game, his feature column still speaks of the Temple game. Almost makes a guy not want to read about it, but I find humor in the situation and in knowing that Phil will inevitably find comparisons to the 1982 team, which he has been doing for time immemorial. Here’s a guy whose career is built on his intimate knowledge of the 1982 team. Just kidding. But I don’t think an old guy with white hair should be sporting a Beatle haircut, either, unless he’s Moe of the Three Stooges. Alas, I digress.

Do you see where procrastination leads? Can you tell that I’m blocking? Oy vey, am I ever blocking. I really don’t want to write about that crappy game on Saturday. But duty calls and I will heed. Here goes.

As expected, the Penn State Nittany Lions (3-2, 0-1 Big Ten) lost to the Iowa Hawkeyes (4-1, 1-0 Big Ten) in Kinnick Stadium on Saturday night before a sellout crowd and a national TV audience on ESPN. The score was 24-3, but it wasn’t that close. For their non performance this week, the Lions were dropped from the polls’ Top 25, while the Hawkeyes moved up to #15 in both polls. Penn State did not cover the spread, but I should have told you to take the “under”. The over/under was 40. My prediction of 27-13 in Iowa’s favor sadly gave too much credit to the Nittany Lions for a nonexistent red zone offense.

It was homecoming weekend in Iowa City. The good alumni of the University of Iowa got one helluva homecoming show at the behest of our hapless Nittany Lions.

Royster is tackled
Tough day to run.

Iowa went into the game with the #1 defense in the FBS division and it showed. My pre-game comments suggested that both teams would have to earn their points through the air, as both rushing defenses were tough. One proved to be a pretender, and you know which one that was. Iowa rushed for a respectable 122 yards, while Penn State sputtered to a lowly 54 yards on 23 attempts for an average of 2.3 measly yards per carry. The first quarter, in which the Lions had a net one yard rushing, was absolutely a parody of a running game, with all due credit to Iowa’s front seven. Yes, readers, Iowa is the legitimate defense and Penn State is the pretender. The only reason that Iowa sank to #2 in total defense after this past weekend is that the Crimson Tide slid past them. Still a pretty respectable place to be. They moved up from #3 rushing defense to #2. Against that tough defense, Evan Royster had 56 yards; the rest of the backfield netted out to -2 yards. I think you can say that the offensive line was beaten up pretty well.

Penn State actually gained more passing yards than Iowa (247 to 227) on 22 completions of 42 throws. However, despite one 49-yard play to Brett Brackett, the average per pass worked out to only 5.9 yards. Iowa’s Ricky Stanzi proved to be the more accurate passer and his receivers the more sure-handed, as he completed 16 out of 22. Both quarterbacks had one interception and Stanzi had one touchdown pass, which was a ridiculous completion to Derrell Johnson-Koulianos standing all alone in the end zone. Any thoughts that the Penn State secondary had potential for greatness should have been quashed right then and there.

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