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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O’Brien admits to kicking Ficken multiple times

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Now we know why Sam Ficken has been off-target this season, and perhaps why he pulled up lame with a quadriceps injury.

Head Coach Bill O’Brien has been kicking him.

Damn! I knew there was something about O’Brien—you know, like the way he always used to yell at Tom Brady. But I figured it was just verbal abuse, not physical. My, my!

Obrien let it slip out in response to a question about Ficken’s quadriceps injury: “We’ve been monitoring that and not kicking him as much in practice.”

Wow! I’m glad they’re letting up on Ficken. If they kick him much more in practice, he won’t have any legs left at all. Unless, of course, they kick him in the ass.

Holy crap! Wonder what the NCAA will do now. Player abuse is certainly worthy of the death penalty. O’Brien can join Bobby Knight and Woody Hayes in the NCAA Hall of Shame while Mark Emmert vacates his five victories and exacts a $27 million fine on Penn States, which Rod Erickson will gladly accept, as well as establishing a fund for victims of kicker abuse everywhere. Former PSU field hockey and lacrosse star Karen Peetz, as always keeping a laser focus on the future of the university, the Commonwealth, and a potential run for governor if she can get a leave of absence from BNY Mellon, has taken a vote of the board of trustees, who have authorized Erickson to grovel at Mark Emmert’s feet to atone for the egregious offense committed by yet another self-serving and power-hungry football coach.

Wait—

Ohhhhhh, he meant that he wasn’t making Ficken practice as much! Aha!

Never mind.

Chaz Earns B1G Special Teams POTW

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Penn State cornerback Chaz Powell has been selected as special teams player of the week by the Big Ten conference owing to his 95-yard touchdown return of the opening kickoff in Saturday’s Indiana State game. Congratulations, Chaz, on the honor and on your second career kickoff runback.

(By the way, I’m going to keep on abbreviating the Big Ten Conference as B1G until they get rid of that stupid logo — soon, I hope!)

OMG — WTF??

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Oh, sure, this Turkey thought that Penn State would get off to a slow start on Saturday. After all, it was a 12:00 P.M. start, and those are problematical. Furthermore, the troops had to be demoralized after the big loss at home at the behest of the Buckeyes the previous week. Indiana, in the meanwhile, had little to lose and much to gain. They could become bowl eligible with a win. Their record was uninspiring though, tempting this week’s opposition to take the Hoosiers too lightly, even though they had been in striking distance of victory in every game except the Virginia disaster. However, even with all those suggestions that the Nittany Lions would get off to a slow start, the extent of FUBARage that they would display in this game boggled this old gobbler’s birdbrain imagination.

The result belied the circumstances. The Lions (9-2, 5-2 Big Ten) overcame some significant self-created adversity to extinguish the hopes of the Hoosiers (4-7, 1-6 Big Ten), by the deceiving score of 31-20. Penn State had gone into the game better than a three touchdown favorite and not only once again failed to cover the spread, but also were playing catchup during most of the first half.

I’m not going to drag you through all the details of this cockeyed game. If you see game stats, the one that sticks right out at you is Penn State’s four turnovers. If you didn’t see the game, it was enough to give you nightmares about the special teams you didn’t think could get much worse than they have been all season. Sorry, but they’re going backward. Fortunately, there’s only one more game for them to screw up.

My God, what a mess! Darryl Clark’s interception with 8:41 left in the first quarter was only mildly awful, but it was a portent of things to come. Although it resulted in an Indiana touchdown, one could easily forget about it during the special teams nightmares. But before we get to those abominations, let us make time for another interception, this one in the red zone, with Penn State driving with 1:43 left in the first quarter. Penn State was pissing in the wind once again.

After a three and out, Indiana punted. See Astorino catch the ball. See Drew run. See Drew play.  See Drew fumble. See the nice man with the white shirt fall on it. Oh oh oh! As the quarter drew to a close, this Turkey was already completely pissed off. Three damn turnovers in one quarter of football! Was this Penn State?

Thus, the first quarter was completely FUBAR, and the Nittany Lions were lucky to get out of it trailing by only 10.

The second quarter was pretty uneventful in its early boringness. Penn State finally was able to get on the board with a 33-yard Collin Wagner field goal with about three minutes left.

The fourth turnover of the first half would occur forthwith. After another three and out, Indiana punted to Graham Zug, who wound up going backward six yards before fumbling the ball away on his own 29, setting up the Hoosiers for what appeared to be another scoring opportunity, which would have left the Nittany Lions in a very bad way heading into the locker room. However, the defense held, and the Hoosiers’ field goal attempt was no good, so with 55 seconds to go, Penn State called a time out.

Clark drove his men down the field, and with the help of a facemask penalty set up on the Indiana 13. On second down, Clark hit Evan Royster for six, and with the addition of the extra point, the game was back to a flat-footed tie.

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