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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J’Ac’CUSE!

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This has nothing to do with Émile Zola’s rant about antisemitism or even athleticism. I just wanted to play on the CUSE angle, this being my post-game post in the wake of the Penn State vs. ‘Cuse game. SyraCUSE, that is. And if I can’t dazzle you with my brilliance, I’ll continue to baffle you with my bullshit, thankyouverymuch.

So, first things first. On a sunny day in Nyawk, the Nittany Lions outlasted the Orangemen from upstate 23-17. Well, it was really across da rivah in Joisey, but same t’ing. Fuggedaboudit! This was the secrecy shrouded debut of much heralded true freshman quarterback Christian Hackenberg, whose enormous potential was immediately apparent.

In the first half, Hackenberg was missing his biggest weapon, wide receiver and part-time rail gun Allen Robinson, who was mysteriously Manzieled, creating the biggest side story of the day, one which will undoubtedly suffer from rampant speculation and rumors because head coach Bill O’Brien would only say, “That’s between Allen and me.”  No doubt, the so-called experts will know exactly what happened and will tongue-in-cheek it to prove that they’re better than everybody else. But you know what? It’s between Robinson and O’Brien, and it’s nonna-you-biznis, capisce?

The first half was enough to make one believe that special teams are really necessary, winding up with a Penn State 6-3 lead. We knew that the game would open up in the second half after the two constipated teams went to their respective locker rooms for a little coaching Ex-Lax.

“At the end of the day, it’s just football.” —Christian Hackenberg

Those homeys who considered Syracuse a cupcake non-conference opponent might have been a little worried about looking like idiots at the water cooler* on Tuesday. It was clear that the Syracuse defensive game plan was to stuff the run and force the inexperienced quarterback of O’Brien’s choosing to pass, and thereby commit rookie mistakes. It worked pretty well, limiting the Nittany Lions to 57 yards on the ground. Both teams were sloppy with the ball, with three turnovers for the Orange and four for the Blue.

The meager PSU ground game saw workhorse Zach Zwinak carry 24 times for 61 yards and Bill Belton, 6 for 19. We did not see the chocolate speedster Akeel Lynch. This will have to be rectumfied no later than two weeks hence, or George O’Leary will put the big hurt on his former assistant.

Yeah, Hackenberg showed that he had rookie jitters, but lemme tell you, this 18 year-old has the composure of a 20 year-old senior citizen. Everyone was all ga-ga about his 54-yard touchdown pass to Geno Lewis with 11:39 left in the game for the score that would be the winning margin, but Hacky was dismissive, saying that his was the easy part, while the offensive line held the defense, Zach Zwinak picked up the blitz, and Lewis ran a great route. “All I did was deliver the ball. At the end of the day, it’s just football.”

He went on to say, “At the end of the day…” three times in a post-game presser that would have never happened under St. Joe, who did not allow freshies to talk to the media. O’Brien clearly feels that his men are not boys to be sheltered from the harsh realities of the meanies of the sports press. Hackenberg handled himself well, displaying an even temperament and the willingness to carry the team on the shoulders of his play while taking responsibility for his several mistakes and humbly crediting the more experienced guys on the team for his successes. This rosy-cheeked youngster could be the next Kerry Collins (although we hope he stays sober). He will have to develop a little swagger, but this clearly is not the time for it.

Hacky teamed up with the vaunted sheer athleticist Allen Robinson for the other major offensive excitement of the second half, a 51-yard touchdown pass. Robinson wound up with seven receptions for 133 yards in one, un-Manzieled half of play.

Of course, I mentioned rookie mistakes, so you have to take the bad with the good. Aside from the two touchdown passes the Hackster had a couple of nasty INTs. He seems to be the type of guy who learns from his mistakes and can put that crap behind him.

At the end of the day, Hackenberg completed 22 of 31 for 278 yards (which eclipsed Syracuse’s total output) two TDs and two INTs. He also had a 42 yard punt.

The other guy who competed for the starting job, juco transfer Tyler Ferguson, appeared for one series terminated by a fumble. Barring injuries to Hackenberg, this might be the last we see of Fergie until garbage time in the Brick Dick game.

The big surprise of the day was Sam “Schnozzola” Ficken, who kicked three field goals in three tries, including a career long of 46 yards. (Last year, he made none greater than 40 yards.) This turkey is happy for the much maligned, beleaguered, pinocchio-nosed kicker, who also demonstrated kickoff mastery, driving them deep enough that only two were returned.

Also worthy of note was a 31-yard punt return by Jesse Della Valle, which set up the Hackenberg to Lewis TD.

Of course, much of the rest of the special team effort continued to suuuuuuuuuck. Those two kickoffs that were returned went for 35 yards a pop and Alex Butterworth’s punting was mediocre, averaging 38.5 yards with none inside the 20.

The mighty Penn State defense did its job pretty damn well. Big star points go to Bronx native Stephen Obeng-Agyapong, who came up with a key interception in the second half, while operating anonymously without the name tag on his back. He also had stripped a ball and recovered the fumble. Plus he had a sack. No one knows why he was nameless. Perhaps the sheer weight of all the letters in his hyphenated last name pulled the thing off his back. Or perhaps Mrs. Spider got a defective batch of hyphens. I dunno. All of this in front of 10 friends and family from the Nyawk area.

Obeng said, “It was real special.”

I have a special connection with Obeng. Last year he tweeted for suggestions on a new pair of sneakers. I told him to get Air LeBrons, because at $315, they had to be good. He responded that he’d look into that. So, he’s mah homey now.

Trevor Williams had another key interception to put the capstone on the game with only 1:53 left as the Orange were driving for a potential winning touchdown. Thus, the secondary did what this turkey asked it to do: intercept some damn passes! That was something that was lacking last year.

Overall, the defense was competent, stopping the Orangemen when they had to and allowing  a stingy 260 total yards, just 71 of which were on the ground. That’s quite an accomplishment, given the running talents of the Cuse’s big guns The Prince (24 yards) and The Pauper (73 yards). Yeah, I know, that adds up to 97, but still. Sacks, y’know.

“Our defense bailed us out. They played a helluva game,” said O’Brien.

One serious defensive letdown was evident as Malcolm Willis let Jeremiah Kobena get behind him for a 55-yard touchdown pass from 12th-year senior Drew Allen. Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?

In Mike’s Garage, we feasted on a fine array of sandwich meats plus some special chili, courtesy of Artificially Sweetened and me. (She went family camping with another babe and their collective kids for the weekend, but she took half the chili with her). RD brought a few boxes of wine to complement the delectable comestibles. Mike also provided an apple pie and coffee after the game. We concluded by watching some nostalgic TV and then playing with guns.

Sadly, the “injury bug” struck hard during the game. Linebacker Mike Hull hung out on the sideline in street clothes for the second half, having injured his right knee.  Tight end Matt Lehman was carted off with “a knee” also. And other tight end Kyle Carter suffered an arm injury. Fortunately, Penn State is deep in tight ends (shaddddup!); alas, that’s not the case at LB, where injuries will quickly take a toll on defensive efficacy. There is little depth at that non-skill position.

And so, at the end of the day, this turkey was positively surprised by Kickin’ Ficken and the defensive secondary. I also believe that the proverbial sky is the limit for Christian Hackenberg — aided by a veritable arsenal of offensive weaponry, which is no surprise. Alas, the aforementioned injuries are another non-surprise, an impediment that is sure to hamper the team as the schedule progresses.

(On that note, I just spilled my coffee all over myself and the desk. Remind me not to use this damn tall cup anymore when there’s the possibility that hyperreflexia caused by marveling at my writing will cause continued coffee calamities.)

So, how did the Turkey do with the poopy prediction? Not bad. I predicted a PSU 26-24 win, implying that you should take ‘Cuse plus 8.5 and go for the “under”. You would have won on both bets. I didn’t quite hit the exact score, but I had the right idea. You may feel free to contribute 10% of your winnings to the American Heart Association via the thermometer-looking link toward the top of this page.

I’ll be back later in the week to perfidiously preview and flawlessly forecast the Brick Dick game against the Eastern Michigan Eaglets, who beat Howard 34-24 on Saturday. This whole desk smells like coffee now, damnit!

 

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*(Ancient history lesson: In offices, we used to have a device called a water cooler, where workers could dispense chilled water into little, biodegradable paper cones instead of carrying around plastic bottles that will provide archaeologists a million years hence with the evidence to conclude that we were a society of retrograde dumbasses, but I digress. The water cooler served as a social nexus in the workplace, a place where arguments about sports could take place while participants avoided work. I mention this superfluously, given that the average age of my readers is senior enough to have remembered what the hell water coolers actually are, as it were. Most younger readers eschew the Turkey, anyway, because they have too short attention spans — they like the “quick hitters” prevalent out there among the hacks, you know — plus they don’t like reading about old fart stuff, and they would become hopelessly lost if a paragraph consisted of more than two sentences or a word consisted of more than three syllables. Nevertheless, this footnote is for them—the vast, indistinguishable, unwashed, opinionated yet inarticulate masses, should they happen to stray from their safe trolling waters.)

Back in the day…

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Old farts like to tell stories. They were there. At least 182,000,000 old farts claim to have attended the Woodstock Music Festival. Before I get carried away, though, let me state that this post will be the official Nittany Turkey Penn State vs. Syracuse game preview and prediction. I didn’t want you to get too damn bored to read the terminal paragraph, in which I actually get around to making the prediction. Oops! Now you’re going to skip over the rest of the drivel and go right there. That’s okay, if you want to miss out of the opportunity to brag about having known this turkey before he became an international superstar of blogatry. Or not. Those of you who have dealt with me in years past know exactly how to navigate through the troubled terrain of turkey trivia.

Yeah, I’m an old fart. Back in the 1960s when I was a student at PSU, Syracuse was a formidable opponent, a veritable running back factory, having produced such memorable backs as Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, Jim Nance, Larry Csonka, and the great Jim Brown. The rivalry was intense and they always kicked the Nittany Lions asses up and down the field.

Along came the 1970s and Penn State got even, winning 16 straight from 1971 to 1986. Syracuse really sucked in the 1970s after the legendary Ben Schwartzwalder retired. After trading victories for four or five years, the two teams played only a few more times.  Syracuse was doing pretty well in the Big Least while PSU joined the B1G.  Now, Syracuse resurfaces with a new coach in Scott Shafer and a new conference, the ACC. Shafer moves up from defensive coordinator after the hapless Buffalo Bills made his ex-boss, Doug Marrone, an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Penn State leads the series 41-23-5.

Yes, Syracuse has sucked for a long time and Penn State optimism being what it is, this one is already in the bag, right? Not so fast, white boy! This ain’t as easy as it looks. If you recall my earlier posts about the season ahead, this and UCF (who beat Akron 38-7 last night) are two pivotal games. These two so-called cupcake opponents have to be taken seriously, and so does Kent State. But I digress. First things first. This turkey thinks the Lions will have their paws full with the Orangemen.

Last year I made the mistake of unbridled optimism at the outset. Sure, no problem. It was just Ohio, right? And this is just Syracuse, right? Right?

If you read any of the comment thread for my previous predictions post, you know what’s on my mind. Lots of things. I can’t know what to make of this team until it steps onto the field and actually plays. The nonsense about who is ahead of whom in practice is just that — nonsense. Coaches make decisions based on that kind of stuff, but games are won or lost by what happens on the field. So you can’t just blow off about “raw talent” or who’s better than whom in practice. Sure, it’s an indication of whether they’re worth a shit, but the proof is in the proverbial pudding. With that in mind, you will understand that I ain’t seen no indications that will tell me how these untried players — particularly two rookie quarterbacks — will do when it counts.

Rookiehood

Coach O’Brien softened up the practice schedule because he wanted to avoid injuries. Of course he wants to avoid injuries. There is already enough of an externally imposed talent drain on this team. However, if you lessen the intensity of practice, you’re expecting players to get their practice reps during actual games. A lot of these kids — particularly two rookie quarterbacks — haven’t played a game at this level, with the kind of player speed and huge crowds we see in Division I FBS. Don’t minimize the effect of limited practice and early season rookiehood.

Hackie and Fergy are listed in O’Brien’s depth chart as co-starters, but only one of the two will line up under center. (I take license there, for if they come out in the single wing, no one will be under the damn center.) We won’t know who that will be until game time. I suspect that rumors will abound tomorrow morning, but who cares? We’ll know soon enough. No matter which one it is, the Fork U. Kid or the Surfer, he’ll be playing his first big-time college football game. There will be mistakes.

“Skill Positions” LMAO

Fortunately, both the Christian and the Tyler have an impressive array of offensive weaponry, assuming that the retooled offensive line can do its job effectively (which is a biiiiiiiig ass-umption). This team had so many tight ends that they had to move one to tackle! And you know that O’Brien likes tight ends. (We all do, but get your mind out of the damn gutter, will you?) Allen Robinson is back with the potential to stretch the field. And the “Zach Attack” is also back from last season’s 1000 yards and a cloud of dust. The wealth of experienced talent at the so-called skill positions (as if they’re the only positions that require skill) should provide some comfort to either the 18 year-old or the 19 year-old who takes the snaps.

Since when isn’t offensive lineman a skill position? But I digress.

I’ve expressed concerns about depth on defense before, particularly in the comment thread for the season prediction post, so I won’t regurgitate it here. Suffice to say that it is a concern, but probably not this early in the season. I do think that Larry Johnson’s rotating front four will suffer later on, and I predict that the inevitable linebacker injuries will expose the youthful inexperience behind the starters. So, the usually solid front seven pose some dilemmas for me at this early juncture when I have no idea what the hell will happen as the season moves ahead.

And the secondary ain’t giving me great, warm vibes, either. They just better create some turnovers this year. Last year, the linebackers led them in INTs. That shouldn’t be.

PSU Special Teams Suuuuuuuuugggg

Close games are won or lost on the backs of special teams. The fact that PSU’s special teams have sucked for many years is not lost on this turkey, but it seems to fly right past the perennial optimists among us who think PSU will wind up 12-0 with every game a blowout. I read crap like “I hope Ficken continues to make the progress he made through last season” . Y’know? I guess no one watched the Blue-White game. They keep making excuses for this kid. I feel bad for him every time he steps in there to kick. It’s like the late Seve Ballesteros when he stepped up to the tee — never a dull moment — one never knows which direction the ball will go. And Ficken made none, zero, zilch, nada from outside 40 yards last year. You can’t tell me that some game this year is not going to hinge on kicking a long field goal. Oops. There goes the 12-0! And if Butterworth isn’t the worst punter in the B1G, who the hell is? Again, the hyperoptimists don’t think punters are necessary, but when the offense sputters, the team is on their backs. And who do you play on special teams if you’re O’Brien, with a thin talent pool? You sure as hell don’t want to play your regulars and risk injury. Penn State special teams worry me.

Coaching

Then, you have the biased analysts who blindly give the coaching edge to Bill O’Brien because he works for Penn State. LOL. He’s great, why? Because he had an 8-4 record last year? Yeah, not bad, but it doesn’t exactly make him the John Wooden of college football. (Note that I avoided comparison to St. Joe.) It was an extraordinary year and passions ran high. Let’s see what he can do with a decreasing talent pool before we anoint him, shall we? If he goes 5-7 this year, you all will be wanting to fire him. So, do we give the coaching edge for this game to BoB, or not? After all, Scott Shafer is a first year head coach, so he can probably do as well as O’Brien his first year, too, right? Ahhh, but O’Brien has one more year of experience and he’s automatically better because he works for Penn State. I know how that logic works. Truth be known, the jury is still out on both of these guys and emotional favorites don’t mean squat when it comes down to the cold, hard science of winning football games. Or picking them, because I’m obviously scientific about pulling this stuff out of my ass.

Let’s face it. I love to piss people off by writing stuff like the above paragraph, but think about it. Would O’Brien be so great in your minds if he pulled off an 8-4 season coaching at Michigan? Huh? Huh? Nahhhh, you’d think that he sucked. You wouldn’t apply all the mitigating circumstances that we use to justify his losses. You’d just call them losses. Officiating? Baaaaaaaah! Just an excuse. Let’s be fair and look at this objectively. (But I bet you can’t.)

To this Turkey, the inexperience at Penn State quarterback suggests that we’ll be seeing a lot of running plays interspersed with some safe sideline pass routes routes. (You want to keep those tight ends well lubricated.) Syracuse has lost some of its defensive talent up front, which will make them susceptible to taking a pounding from the Zwinster and maybe Belton, if he has his act together. Akeel Lynch has to scare the crap out of them.

Meanwhile, the guessing game about who will start at QB for Sy-RACK-is all show and no blow. No matter which one they play, the PSU secondary is exploitable. But Syracuse is balanced with a decent running attack featuring the commoner Smith and the prince Gully. I’m thinking that this group can score some points on the PSU defense.

Da Weather

The weather for this supposedly neutral site game is going to favor neither team. It’s going to be hot, 86 degrees, which means that the big guys will be sucking wind. But unlike perceived officiating errors, that affects both teams. Why I say supposedly neutral, though, is that PSU has over 40,000 alumnae and alumni (new feminist Latin requires that the feminine plural not be implied by the masculine plural and must be listed first) in the New York metropolitan area. Even though Syracuse is a New York state university, probably fewer of their alumnuses and alumnapusses will show up. So, it’s a home game for Penn State.

Official Turkey Poop Prediction

That, of course, brings us to the feature that has caused you either to get pissed off at all that I’ve written above or skip right down here to my inimitable prediction section. Here at The Nittany Turkey, we call it the Official Turkey Poop Prediction, because that’s about what it’s worth. For those of you who are unacquainted with this turkey’s prolific prescience, I’ll tell you that we look at what Las Vegas has to say and then advise you send me your money instead of betting on the game. So, without further adoo-doo, Penn State is favored by 8.5 with an over/under of 51.5. That suggests that gamblers are expecting something like a 30-21 Penn State win. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, but I think opening day jitters might keep the scoring down a little I’m going with PSU 26, Syracuse 24, with a Sam Ficken field goal miss nearly giving us all a myocardial infarction. I don’t know whether the old maxim about never going broke betting that Penn State won’t cover the spread still applies in general, but it will for this game.

 

 

Just So’s Ya Know…

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The best laid plans of mice and men sometimes run amok, even if the mice are hopelessly addicted to social anxiety disorder drugs. Doubtless my faithful readers (both of you—Hi, Mom!) are anxiously awaiting my brilliant post mortem on the so-called Syracuse game. Well, you’re not going to get much of one due to extenuating circumstances. So, tough!

I spent the weekend in the hospital, all wired up and monitored. I had some chest pains, which sometimes means that an old geezer like this Turkey is about to gobble his last gobble, so I went to the ER. Under the “Better Safe Than Legally Liable” principle, the ER doc, a pink-cheeked, mid-20s-looking butterball who will be a future coronary case himself, admitted me for 23-hour observation. That was at around 4 PM on Friday.

Alas, what was this Turkey to do? Even if I got out on time, the discharge procedures and the ride home would get me there past the end of the game. In this area, ABC was playing the Georgia Tech vs. Virginia Tech game, so I couldn’t get it on the hospital room TV. That would have been acceptable, even if I wasn’t in the brand new wing with the big LCD flat-screens in each room. I wound up ordering DirecTV to record the game on my DVR by using that satellite company’s nifty remote recording set-up via their web site from my Blackberry. Modern technology is great, but I couldn’t stand not to be able to get the game in real time.

I settled for watching the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game while I accessed ESPN.com from my notebook, which Artificially Sweetened had brought for me. Fortunately, the hospital provides Wi-Fi for its coronary patients. In this case, it would have to provide me with the appropriate adrenaline jolts. The game tracker thing worked in a pinch. I was able to watch drives via a chart and textual play-by-play in almost real time. The nurses thought I was completely nuts, with the TV bouncing between channels, the computer splayed out, and the Blackberry repeatedly chirping out score alerts.

Very quickly, the game was out of hand (or in hand, depending on from whose perspective you’re looking at it). My only EKG bender came on the second play of the game when Daryll Clark fumbled the ball away. That was quickly followed by our defense forcing a fumble on the next play, which made me laugh in comic relief. The game was never in doubt from that point on.

My testing was completed on Sunday, after a couple of false starts. The treadmill stress test was originally scheduled for 9 AM, but it had to be rescheduled to 11:15 AM because someone (and I now know who it was) was supposed to have ordered the radioisotope dose the previous day but didn’t. Then, my cardiologist had an emergency at another hospital, so my test was moved to 12:30.

In the meanwhile, I got a chest shave. Now, I’ve had treadmill stress tests before, and in those instances only the areas where the contact pads were to be installed got shaved. This time, I was completely shorn.

When I originally met with the cardiologist in my room, he was rather pessimistic about my chances, wanting to transfer me to the big hospital because he believed that I would do just OK on the treadmill and would still need to get the cardiac catheter to determine how major the blockage was. He wanted to do it at the big hospital in case he had to “open me up” right then and there. He even mentioned that Tim Russert had a good treadmill and still keeled over unexpectedly. These bright, cheery, reassuring words led to my suffering what I presume to have been a panic attack while the Ohio State vs. USC game wrapped up on my non-LCD, non-flat-screen room TV. After some nitroglycerin and a shot of morphine, I was fine. I mean really fine. I still had chest pains, but I didn’t care. Yay, morphine!

So, anyhow, with that glum forecast, I was looking forward to proving to this pessimist that I could handle the treadmill. I told the doc that I had to be home by 8 PM to see the Steelers game. I hopped on the treadmill and did my thing. The nuclear medicine tech knew me from the gym where we both work out. She told the doc and his other tech that I would probably do at least 10 minutes, because she had seen how hard I work out. Both the cardiologist and the technician were indeed surprised that I was able to do 11 minutes of the Bruce Protocol. My pulse simmered down rapidly from maximum, too, and my measured ejection fraction was 69%, for those Turkey fans with medical (or hypochondriacal) orientation. The imaging studies at rest and after exercise revealed no significant blockage or other abnormalities. The cardiologist told me I was going home and could follow up with him if I wanted.

Then, it was a matter of time before my floor nursie got my discharge signed off and sent me home, well in time for the Steelers.

Surprisingly—or maybe not—I had no desire to rehash the Penn State game. It is still there on the DVR, but I might never watch it. I know, I know! I am an irresponsible Nittany Lion blogger, not bothering to watch every nuance of Daryll Clark and Pat Devlin. But, hell, a scrimmage like that one proves absolutely nothing about anybody. They might as well have been playing Discovery Middle School. Besides, I don’t take myself that seriously. There are plenty of pedestrian reports out there on the Internet with more facts than I could dig up. Read them and then come back here to hang out with someone who has more opinions than facts. I’m easier to argue with!

I wish people would quit making comparisons to 1994 and 2005 teams, already. It’s just too early in the season for that kind of crap. What games have PSU played? A scrimmage with an FCS team; another scrimmage with an Oregon State team that was a shadow of its former self; and a walkover with a hapless, has-been Syracuse. So please shut the hell up with those comparisons. We have another cakewalk this weekend, and then the going gets tough. We’ll have nicely padded stats going into the Illinois game, but that’s when the tests of team character and efficacy begin. Until then, I don’t want to hear about the “greatness” of this team.

Sadly, with my weekend hospital stint, our guest reporter for the Syracuse game backed out on us. Hillary was busy with other things and she didn’t want to do it without me. However, Dr. Bill Cosby is still on board for the Temple game wrap-up next week.

This Turkey will return later in the week for a look at the Temple Owls.