The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Search This Site

Enter keyword(s) below to search for relevant articles.

Home Archives for Sports

Noon, Noon on the Road

Posted on Written by

(Sung to the tune of “Home on the Range”).

Noon, noon on the road,

Where the Lions and the Buckeyes will play.

And ever is heard a discouraging word,

‘Cause noon kickoffs are so gay!

Just sayin’. Kickoff time for the great big showdown between purportedly #6 and purportedly #3 (rankings are bullshit but good for TV hype) is set for noon in Columbus. Yep, home of “that dullard look.” Urban Meyer uttered it, we’re coining it. And guess what, kimosabe? Michigan is a noon kickoff, too, albeit at the Big Beave. Clearly, other than “BIG NOON”, our primo Big Ten games ain’t prime-time material!

No Homecoming Spoiler

Posted on Written by

Penn State (5-0) Hosts UMass (1-6)

Call it another bye week if you will, but Saturday’s homecoming game against the 1-6 UMass Minutemen seems like a foregone conclusion. Were it not for the expectations of the marauding alumni, PSU players could pay the State College High football team to handle the mop-up chores for them. Such cynicism notwithstanding, this easy week presents an opportunity to get the damn Nittany Lions in sync for the big showdown with the Buckeyes a week hence.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time analyzing this game, such as it is. I might well fall asleep sometime in the third quarter if I don’t fall asleep halfway through writing this.

Fourth Oldest FBS Program

UMass, the fourth-oldest program in the FBS, has a lonnnnnng football history. A long history of losing, that is. Aside from a brief stint in the MAC from 2012 to 2015 when they returned to the FBS after a looooooooong hiatus, they have been Eastern Independents since the git-go, which was 1879. However, fortunately, the Minutemen did not play in the top division from 1907 through their MAC entry, although they won an FCS championship in 1998 playing in the lower division. Then, playing in the MAC, they were so bad that even the MAC couldn’t stand it. Seriously, though, UMass did not stay with the MAC when they declined to be a full member of the conference.

MAC or not, UMass has not enjoyed a winning FBS season in the modern era. Last year’s 1-11 record sucked. The lone victory was a 20-3 rout on Youth Day against FCS Stony Brook. Their 2022 season ended with a 44-7 defeat at the hands of Army. Boo-rah!

That was then; this is now…

Thus far in 2023, the Minutemen are on pace for another 1-11 year. They surprised New Mexico State in the Aggies’ home opener, 41-30. They also came damn close to beating the other New Mexico school, the Lobos, in a 34-31 overtime loss on September 23. Otherwise, they have lost to Auburn, Miami (OH), Eastern Michigan, Arkansas State, and most recently, Toledo.

Looking at the sadness of team stats as they rank in the FBS, we have UMass at #65 in total offense and #123 in total defense, compared with #44 and #1, respectively, for Penn State. As I mentioned before, it would behoove the Nittany Lions to use this week to tune up that offense, or they won’t be able to play on the same field with the big boys.

Roster Exoticism

UMass is led by highly unpronounceable junior QB Taisun Phommachanh. Zey also have einen Tightenendenmeisterbanger named Magnus von Saldern, from Berlin, and a pair of defensive ends named Uchenna Ezewike and Zujudo Igwenagu. Punter C.J. Kolodziey is a tribute to Poland from East Longmeadow, Mass. On special teams, a rich kid from Scarsdale, NY, Bennett Abbe, rounds out the eclectic international lineup.

Whither da Wedda

Homecoming Saturday looks to be chilly and rainy — not the perfect fall day we had all hoped for. Let us hope that our Lions can get back to hanging onto the ball. The outcome of the game is not in doubt, but we want to see them play well in all weather conditions, with the second half of the season ahead.

Bottom-Drawer Bottom Line

The Official Turkey Poop Prognostication should be on strike this week, crying out for mo’ money, even though it isn’t worth a shit. Furthermore, you must stop giving me ridiculously lopsided games like this to predict. Would Penn State kindly play SOMEONE, for a change?

I expect the Nittany Lions to go 1-0 this week. It is not a noon start, but rather a 3:30 kickoff, so with a bye week under their belt, they’ll either be rusty or ready — who can say? Never a dull moment with this team, considering that we don’t know what we’re going to get. I hope we see improvements in the offensive line and the offense in general. The spread on this game is ridiculous: Penn State – 43 with o/u of 57.5. Crazy. That works out to like 50-7. I’ll knock off a couple of points for the rain and give UMass credit for some offense, so I’m like 63-9. Sorry, Mr. Phommachanh, I still cannot pronounce your name. Take the over, but better yet, don’t bet.

UPDATE: That was then and this is now. With the prospect of a soggy, cold day in State College, I must adjust my prognostication. Penn State 43, UMASS 0. Better yet, don’t bet.

I’ll be back after the game to put a proverbial exclamation point on the Homecoming festivities. And I absolutely, positively will not mention rankings until after Week 8. Until then, they only count for bullshitters’ bragging rights. After then, they’re only slightly more meaningful, in that they are more than just sportswriters or coaches (both brands of bullshitters) pulling something out of their asses, and they govern who will be accorded entry to the vaunted playoffs to determine the still somewhat mythical national champion (SSMNC).

Familiar Script

Posted on Written by

“We’re a Second-Half Team”

The Penn State Nittany Lions (5-0, 3-0 Big Ten) played a shitty first half against the Northwestern Wildcats (2-3, 1-2) but went on to win decisively, 41-13. Big Al was right about this being a WTF game. Although looking at the scoreboard might lead one to believe that the game was dominated by Penn State, the halftime score was 10-10. And on a perfect fall day in Evanston, Penn State coughed up its first fumble, on the opening kickoff, resulting in a Wildcats score.

Nooners are No Joke

Yep, no weather excuses. Nick Singleton just plain screwed up. Penn State fumbled two other times but recovered. And in the first half, their body language shouted out, “I’m sweepy and I wather be in bed.” Po’ babies! Same old story with the noon start. James Franklin exaggerates the issue by calling it 11 AM, but our lads’ circadian rhythms know that 11 Central is the same damn thing as 12 Eastern. Nevertheless, he did address the issue at halftime.

“That was my message to the team,” Franklin said. “The first half is gone. Let’s play really well in the second half.”

I suppose they might have woken up by the third quarter, but even in winning 41-13, they did not look like a playoff contender. At least I didn’t hear Franklin saying any win is pretty. What I did hear him saying was that “the ball throwing [resulting in a costly unsportsmanlike conduct penalty] would be dealt with.”

Penalties’ll Killya

Franklin was referring to the ridiculous behavior by sophomore cornerback Cam Miller, who was defending a Ben Bryant third-down pass to A. J. Henning on the Northwestern sideline. The pass was incomplete and would have forced a fourth-and-six from the Northwestern 29. Perhaps a NWU player said something to him. I didn’t see that. Whatever it was, Miller reacted by throwing the ball at an opponent. The penalty gave the Wildcats a new series of downs, and they eventually converted this PSU defensive screwup into their only three points of the second half.

That bullshit must stop. I certainly hope that it will be “dealt with.” Penn State was flagged six times for 45 yards in this soporific effort.

We Won the Stat Battle

Another James Franklin postmortem analysis cliche. We lost the turnover battle, we won the explosive play battle, we won the stat battle, already, but not by as wide a margin as the score would suggest. Penn State wound up with 353 total yards to NWU’s 175, of which a puny 45 were rushing yards. We didn’t really lose the turnover battle as Franklin said, but he was pissed off about the first fumble of the season.

Drew Allar played like he should have stayed in bed, being off target much of the afternoon. He wound up 18-33 for 189 yards and a touchdown, for a quarterback rating of 40.3.

Running Game A-ight

Our running back tandem fared better, until Kaytron Allen exited, missing the second half with an undisclosed injury or medical condition. No one knows for sure. However, Trey Potts stepped in with three carries for 21 yards and a touchdown. Nick Singleton was the leading rusher with 21-80 and a touchdown. Singleton also gained some ground as a receiver out of the backfield, with six catches for 39 yards and a touchdown. We hope Nick gets into the groove; he has looked a bit “off” this year.

Big D

The defense once again stepped up to put the clamps on Northwestern in the second half. They recorded seven sacks, twelve tackles-for-loss, and one great big stupid dumbass penalty.

Attendance at Ryan Stadium was 25,064, which shows that Penn State attracts more fans than Minnesota.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what a bye-week can do for your team; ask what your team can do for a bye-week. That JFK Inaugural paraphrase made no sense at all, which is why I wrote it. See you on the flip side.

I’ll be back in a week or so with a brief look at the University of Massachusetts Minutemen, a fearsome independent school that knows it will help PSU get to a 6-0 record when the Ohio State game rolls around.