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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PSU Squeaks Out Win in Mud Bowl

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You all saw it, no doubt. The Nittany Lions eventually prevailed on a Citrus Bowl field replete with hundreds of giant, muddy divots. The final score was 19-17.

The problematical turf will be replaced with an artificial surface by the time next year’s bowl season rolls around, but that was then and this is now. The attempted re-sodding of the field after six high school championship games and again after the Champs Sports Bowl just flat out didn’t work. Couple that with the morning of rain on game day, and what you get is poor footing and muddy uniforms.

Penn State struck early, with an exonerating completion from Daryll Clark to Derrick Moye — after Moye had dropped two catchable passes, not due to weather conditions, but rather because he “heard footsteps.” So, then what? Well, immediately after going up 7-0, our coaching geniuses decided that they’d rein in the offense and play a little sphincterball.

Even when it was working for them, as it did for the first half, they reached the red zone and stalled. Thus, Collin Wagner became the pivotal entity, which is not a position one really wants to put one’s self in, particularly with a wet, sloppy, tractionless field. However, Wagner came through. Fortunately, all four field goals were well within his range.

Nevertheless, the Lions’ red zone difficulties must be noted. They were 7-19 in third down conversions. Pretty putrid.

But they controlled the ball for the first half, allowing only a second quarter field goal by LSU.

No doubt, Les Miles and company exhorted their team to change a few things at halftime. One thing was that the run was damn well not working, as he should have expected, given the efficacy of the Penn State front seven, so they would turn to the pass. That strategy worked and it caught the Lions in mid-anality. The Bengals scored two touchdowns in three minutes as the third quarter wound down and the fourth cranked up. That put PSU back on its heels with the score 17-16.

Fortunately, Daryll Clark had one good drive left in him to wind up his Penn State career. He drove the Nittany Lions from their own 31 down to the LSU 4 yard line, stalling in the red zone yet again. Collin Wagner’s 21-yarder was good with 1:01 remaining, and the Lions appeared to have dodged a bullet.

Not so fast! Remember that they had to kick off and special teams have been a sore spot all year. Once again this was true, as they kicked to the very dangerous Trindon Holliday who caught the ball at the 15 and slashed his way to the LSU 41 with 57 seconds remaining — plenty of time to get in field goal range and knock one through the uprights. The Turkey was tense. However, LSU had no time-outs, so they had to work the sidelines and stop the clock through spikes. A first-down run by quarterback Jordan Jefferson went out of bounds at the PSU 49, just past the first down marker. On the next play, Jefferson completed a four yard pass to Brandon LaFell, which led to a controversial penalty about which they’ll be whining in Baton Rouge for months to come.

With the clock ticking off precious moments for LSU, Navorro Bowman fell on LaFell (get it?) and attempted to wrest the ball away from him. Meanwhile, right guard Lyle Hitt, knowing that the Tigers had to quickly line up and spike the ball, attempted to pull Bowman off LaFell after the play was whistled dead, and was flagged for a personal foul, costing LSU dearly, moving them back to their own 40. The Tigers never made it into field goal range. Two plays later, the game was over.

This Turkey thought for sure that it was Bowman who was going to get the flag for delay of game. Of course, I breathed a sigh of relief when Hitt was flagged, but this fortuitous turn of events did not stop me from speculating about the legitimacy of that penalty call. What do you think?

Daryll Clark had a excellent swan song: 18-35 for 216 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions (albeit a couple of close calls). Andrew Quarless was his leading receiver with a career record eight catches for 88 yards.

Speaking of records, this sloppy snoozefest (until the final six minutes, anyway) set a record for the number of punts in a bowl game — 15. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Penn State did well, notching a win for the fans and its share of a $4,250,000 payout for the university.

Next season, the Turkey will be all up in arms about how Penn State’s rookie quarterback, Kevin Newsome, was given precious few game reps this season, but for now, I’ll ditch the complaining and congratulate the Nittany Lions on a better than expected season, at least from this Turkey’s perspective, and a mission accomplished in the Capital One Bowl. What’s in your wallet?

Happy New Year to the team and to all of you!

Ducks Prevail, Bring Back Bowl Memories

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Watching the Oregon vs Oregon State game tonight flashed me back to the simpler days when bowl games were few, prestigious, and didn’t need the name of a company selling package delivery services, pizza, weed eaters, or car care to be viable. Oregon won, 37-33 in an exciting game replete with five lead changes.

The Oregon students were waving roses at the end, and that’s the way it used to be when teams knew which bowl they were playing for. The Pac-8 (which it was until upstarts Arizona and Arizona State joined) would send its champ to the Rose Bowl to meet the Big Ten Champ — more often than not, the winner of the Michigan vs Ohio State game. Roses were passed around at those pivotal late season games because if the respective teams took care of business, they were sure to get a bid for “the grandaddy of them all.”

Back then, the winner of the Big Eight would play in the Orange Bowl. The SEC winner would play in the Sugar Bowl. The (now defunct) Southwest Conference winner would play in the Cotton Bowl. Those teams knew where they were going and exactly what they were playing for.

Furthermore, we didn’t have to remember which corporate sponsor’s bowl it was played in which other corporate sponsor’s stadium. The Orange Bowl was played in the Orange Bowl. The Sugar Bowl was played in the Sugar Bowl. The Cotton Bowl was played in the Cotton Bowl and the Rose Bowl was played in the Rose Bowl. ???? ????? (The latter, fortunately for the sake of history, still is.)

Now, even the parades associated with the bowls have corporate sponsors. How exciting.

Hell, watching football on TV, it has come to having corporate sponsors for first downs. (“That first down was brought to you by Bush’s Beans…”) One of my compadres, Jackstand, speculated that soon we will have sponsors for the left hash mark on the 47 yard line. ???? ??? ????????

For the sake of pumping up even more TV revenue, we now have to endure a BCS selection show, which will air this coming Sunday night on ESPN. Used to be we didn’t need such an abomination. Everybody knew what they were playing for and where they were going. Selection has grown complicated. When the standard tie-ins and rationale fail to provide enough projected revenue, the rules are bent via complex provisions for who gets to pick what from which bunch of teams in what order. The BCS sucks. It amounts to a theatrical booking agency, which attempts to justify its choices and placements with contrived formulae. The elephant in the room is that nobody gives a damn about anything but the money.

By BCS rules, a particular conference cannot send more than two teams to BCS bowls. Ohio State is locked into the Rose Bowl. If Penn State is picked over Iowa for the either the Tostitos or FedEx bowl, a travesty will have been committed. Iowa beat Penn State. Iowa is ranked higher than Penn State. Penn State fans naturally want to see their team go to the best possible bowl. Of course, the administration wants the significantly higher payout of a BCS bowl. ????? ???? ???? It is, after all, all about the money, no matter what euphemisms we hang on it. If Penn State is picked because its fans “travel well” or whatever the hell code word we use for “spend lots of money”, it ain’t right. Iowa should be picked because of what they have accomplished on the field, not based on the size of their alumni fund.

But I digress. The BCS has that effect on me. I continue to be annoyed with the entire process and the thinly veiled pecuniary orientation of the whole damn thing. However, the Ducks are the men of the hour, and I need to give them their Rose Bowl sendoff.

Congratulations to the Oregon Ducks! The last time you guys went to the Rose Bowl, it was 15 years ago and your opponents were the Penn State Nittany Lions. Unfortunately, you faced one of the most prolific offenses in NCAA history and gave a credible effort that fell significantly short against the #2 team in the land. (Only because Nebraska beat Miami the night before, but I won’t get into that — much.) This Turkey enjoyed the privilege of attending that game. This time around, I’m thinking you quackers can win this thing. The tables are turned. The Buckeyes aren’t all that good this year, having lost to a pretty awful Purdue squad and to USC, who you Ducks decimated on Halloween. Party hearty in Pasadena and enjoy the experience — you’ve earned your roses, now go for it all. The Turkey’s Crystal Balls predict a big Rose Bowl win.

Goodbye, Bobby!

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Big changes at the top of highly visible college football programs, Turkey readers!

Earlier, we mentioned that Charlie Weis is out at Notre Dame. Now, ESPN is reporting that venerable Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden will retire at the end of this season. Details here.

Of course, this means that venerable Nittany Lions head coach Joseph V. Paterno can retire any time now, absent the stigma of Bobby surpassing his career wins record.