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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Such a Rout, Already!

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Penn State 30, Illinois 13

The Sanguinarians are still cooing, albeit not so loudly, after Saturday’s purported “rout” of the Illiniweks at Champaign. “Purported”, you say? Why, yes. Yes, I do. Sanguinary PennLive.com posted a headline on Facebook alluding to a rout. So, what they’re saying is that they watched a different game than I did — or they didn’t watch it at all — because the final score sure as hell did not depict the story of the game. Illinois handed the Nittany Lions a win here folks. Make no mistake about that.

After two games, the speculation that PSU would be either in the Peach Bowl or the Orange Bowl at season’s end was comical. Pure sanguinarian bullshit, not even warmed over, but straight from the bull’s ass. This team, my sanguinarian friends, has a rocky road ahead if they cannot get their act together better than what we saw on Saturday.

James Franklin was his usual boisterous, sanguine self: “This was a beautiful win. Anytime you can win on the road in the Big Ten, especially in an 11 o’clock game in front of a big crowd, it’s pretty. We grinded it out, especially in the first half. We didn’t take control then, but we didn’t lose control.” That’s a nice way of saying that we sucked. I guess it depends on what your definition of “pretty” is. If the defense that showed up was as ineffectual as the Penn State offense, we would be crying over a 2-1 record right now.

Illinois’ scheme of stopping the run at all costs worked. They dared Drew Allar to pass, and he did exactly what they wanted. He and Penn State receivers then collaborated on a show of incompetence, abetted by an offensive line that allowed four tackles for loss and one sack. However, Illinois junior defensive lineman Jer’zhan Newton, who will be a force in the NFL, was a good reason for that apparent incompetence by the Nittany Lion offensive line. They sucked, but his excellent play made them look worse. Allar wound up 16-33 for 208 yards, no TDs and no INTs, for a QBR of 66.6. (The devil’s mark).

Penn State needed a trick play to score its only passing touchdown on a halfback pass from Trey Potts to Tyler Warren.

On the ground, Penn State mustered only 164 yards, a testimony to the Bielema stodgy-pig defensive scheme. It looked worse than that number depicts. Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen couldn’t get a good rhythm going, winding up with 91 yards between them.

Illiniwekian QB Luke Altmeyer threw four INTs before being benched. Also, early in the first quarter, the Fighting Peorians coughed one up. Turnovers’ll killya. Give the Penn State defense credit there.

Giving additional credit where due, the Penn State defense held Illinois to 2.1 yards per rush, a net total of 62 yards on the ground. They were able to record seven TFLs and three sacks, along with the aforementioned four INTs.

So, the defense showed up. The offense needs work. Kohler, Wisconsin beckons if the act fails to congeal. They ain’t going to beat Michigan and tOSU playing like that!

Iowa looms ahead, a game that will be played in Beaver Stadium, thank God. However, the offense must show up. Iowa just laid 41 points on Western Michigan.

I’ll be back midweek with a further look at the Hawkeyes and the usual bullshit.

I Got a Kick Out of It

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Penn State 38, West Virginia 15

Before a full house at St. Joe Memorial Stadium at Beaver Field, the Penn State Nittany Lions easily handled the Mountaineers of West Virginia 38-15 after a slow start. The game highlighted both some strong points and some weak points for both teams. Announced attendance was 110,747, a strong showing by the football starved Nittany Nation.

Drew Allar FTW

First, it appears as if the quarterback situation is settled at Penn State. Drew Allar came out showing a variety of skills and tools, winding up 21-29 for 325 yards and three touchdowns. He was almost intercepted twice, but “almost don’t count ‘cept in horseshoes” or some such thing. His performance behind an offensive line that is still not what most of us hoped and with a collection of serviceable, but not standout, receivers was impressive.

Two Left Feet

On the other hand, the kicking game suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. My first observation is a kickoff guy/punter Gabriel Nwosu, who has the most ridiculous hair on the team and who must be a converted lineman, tipping the scales at 274 and standing 6’6″. Since he must play safety after kicking the ball, he could be delivering some interesting hits to those foolish enough to get by the rest of the tacklers. However, the punting job went to Australian Riley Thompson, who averaged a crappy 37.5. Then, there’s the place-kicking situation. Sander Sahaydak missed two easy field goals and was replaced by Senior Columbia transfer Alex Felkins in the second half. Felkins then made a 25-yard field goal, and he was 3-3 on PATs. Special teams need work, and yes, that is an understatement.

The Rest

The running game was sound against a porous WVU defense. We hope to see lots more from Nick Singleton (13-70 with one TD) and Kaytron Allen (10-51) this season. I hope they both stay healthy, because we’ll sure as hell need them. The always suspect offensive line was even seen opening some holes, a hopeful sign. (Don’t get too excited, because West Vagina’s defense blows).

The undersized Penn State defensive line showed up as another weakness, as West Virginia knew it could be exploited by runs up the gut. WVU equaled PSU’s rushing total of 146 yards, with an average of 3.7 yards per carry. Leading rusher CJ Donaldson had 18 carries for 71 yards with an average of 4.5 ypc. The West Virginia offensive line, led by junior center Zach Frazier, routinely pushed our defenders out of their way. However, Manny Diaz’s swarming pressure defense kept the Mountaineers in check most of the night. Whether they can do that going forward with the Big Ten schedule when all the OCs are aware of the schemata, in the words of the noncommittal parent, “We’ll see.”

Backing Up Allar

It was good to see Beau Pribula getting some meaningful reps as Allar’s backup. His touchdown run in the closing seconds resulted in Penn State beating the spread, which I didn’t think would happen. I was telling Artificially Sweetened that St. Joe would have taken a few knees in that situation with no doubt as to the outcome. But that was then, and this is now. James Franklin has no such compunction about running up the score, and in this shitty era of so-called college football, the gamblers demand that teams don’t lay down. So, non-sportsmanlike conduct is accepted behavior in the pecuniary climate of the Big Ten in 2023.

In Summation…

If West Virginia’s receivers could catch, the game would have been much closer. Those of you who saw this game with blinders on and are now anticipating a 12-0 season are completely full of shit. Missing field goals alone will lose one Big Ten game, and if WVU’s offensive line can push our defense around, others will capitalize on that weakness. However, I am encouraged by what I saw from Drew Allar. If he can maintain the “mental toughness” (sportswriter bullshit terminology) through the grinding, withering season, coupled with his excellent skills (wow, what a wrist!), he will carry the team on his shoulders and pull out a win that shouldn’t have been.

Now, it’s on to face the Mighty Blue Hens!

(Your favorite Turkey, except for the one at Thanksgiving, will be on the road for the next couple of weeks. Thus, his pen will be temporarily silenced. A visit to the homeland is anticipated — definitely, northeastern PA and possibly, the old homeland of PGH. See you in a couple of weeks. Beat the Chickens and the Native Americans!)

We Are the Mountaineers

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Well, THEY are, anyway!

One of my early memories as a kid in Pittsburgh was going out to dinner with my parents during a Pitt-WVU weekend. A bunch of drunks were sitting at the next table loudly singing, “We are the Mountaineers. We are the Mountaineers. We don’t give a damn about the State of Pennsylvania: We are the Mountaineers!” Over and over and over, annoyingly repeated. Well, that was 1953, when WVU had beaten Pitt two years in a row. Seventy years ago! I remember it like it was yesterday, but I don’t remember what I did on the real day yesterday. But I digress. We’re not here to talk about Pitt — under the arm! We’re here to talk about Penn State and its first opponent of the year — yep, West Virginia.

We move forward a decade to my time in Happy Valley in the 1960s. West Virginia was then an Eastern independent, just like Dear Old State. Year in and year out, we played the likes of WVU, Syracuse, Maryland, and, of course, Pitt, regularly. Back in the Rip Engle years, the Nittany Lions consistently kicked Mountaineer ass both at home and in Morgantown. In fact, from 1960 to 1983, Penn State won every game except 1980. That year, the two teams didn’t play. So, that’s right, twenty-three straight wins for PSU! In fact, going back to the Bob Higgins Era, the streak is even longer: twenty-eight straight wins from 1947-1983.

Penn State leads the all-time series 42-6, with the most recent game having been played back in October 1992. Yea, verily, it has been over thirty years since the last game, a 40-26 Penn victory in Morgantown. Of WVU’s six wins in the series, only two have occurred in the Post-World War II modern era, those being in 1984 and 1988.

Then and Now

Well, shit, things have sure as hell changed since that last game between the two. West Vagina is now in the Big 12 (which was originally the Big Eight and I’ve lost count of the real number of teams, given all the recent money-motivated bullshit). Penn State joined the Big Ten, which became eleven when Penn State entered the conference, if you don’t count the University of Chicago with no football program since the Jay Berwanger days, which I remember well. The Big Ten has fourteen teams now after adding Rutgers, Maryland, and Nebraska, and will be up to eighteen with the addition of UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon over the next few years. So much for a midwestern academic alliance. More money-driven bullshit. But the real change, which I am sad to have read about, is that Penn State Football, is academically in the Bargain Basement of Big Ten Infamy. That might or might not be the subject for another column, but it distresses me. It is like the Mighty Dollar Denouement has been completed, and college football is laid bare as a fraud.

But I digress painfully.

West Virginia Woes

West Virginia (5-7, 3-6 Big 12) finished tied for next-to-last in the Big 12 last year. Of the three teams who joined them in that ignoble position, they were the only finisher with more points against than points for. However, it is remarkable that they beat Virginia Tech, Baylor, and both Oklahoma schools. That ain’t too shabby for a next-to-last place team. However, their hotshot quarterback transferred to Rice and their hotshot running back transferred to Houston. Fucking transfer portal! Yet another manifestation of the pecuniary world of modern college football! They really aren’t looking very good this year.

About Penn State, we don’t know much. So, I shouldn’t be writing much, or I’ll expose my ignorance concerning this year’s team. I frankly don’t know what to think or say. Drew Allar has been pronounced “ready” by the pundits, who know more than I do, but not much more. The defense is highly questionable, and when will we ever see an offensive line not composed of traffic cones? I’m still saying we must carefully observe what happens Saturday night, lest we think we know more than we do. Of course, all the while, the Sanguinarians are all gaga about a potentially perfect season and a Still Somewhat Mythical National Championship. The perennial pipe dreams are in full force before the season opener.

Oh, and one more thing. The idiotic publications who post those stupid-ass jersey number photos in social media counting down to football season should be sent to journalism jail. Year in, year out, they do that hackneyed, banal, trite, overused nonsense, making the high school newspaper look innovative in comparison — not to mention eclipsing those so-called sports media’s collective writing skills. I don’t bother reading those damn things anymore, as I deserve to be the only fake writer that I appreciate reading. Those other pretenders just piss me off with their grammatical atrocities, poor usage, and just plain bad writing.

Da Wedda

Saturday promises to be a great late summer football night, mostly sunny with a high of 81 and a low of 59. Little wind and rain expected. Go git ’em boys!

Da Bottom Line

So, it’s crazy. Penn State football is starting up already. Wow! It’s a big kickoff weekend, if you don’t count Navy’s ass being kicked by the Irish in Ireland last weekend. This weekend includes the monumental Big Ten matchup of Northwestern vs. Rutgers, which I’m certain will be played before an audience of 750 in Piscataway on Sunday Sunday? What did you just say to me? Moneyball strikes again! The NFL schedule doesn’t start for a week, so let’s leverage Sunday for more college football revenue. The NWU-Rutgers game is the first game of a Sunday, September 3 triple-header, also featuring Oregon State vs. San Jose State and LSU vs. FSU. Big moneyball on Sunday! But you wouldn’t see Pat Fitzgerald, if that was your only interest in watching Northwestern.

Back to prime-time Saturday, Penn State is favored by 20.5, with an over/under of 50.5. I’ll cut to the chase, because you all want to know whether I’ll continue to think that if the Lions screw up, they lose this one. Yeah, I think they’ll screw up all right. First games are never perfect. However, my gut feel is that they will win handily, but only a damn fool (which I am most days) would ever expect PSU to cover that large a spread. I’m going with Penn State 38, West Virgina 20, and I’m taking the over.

I’m taking a couple of weeks off, but I might be back here to recap this Saturday night game. My hiatus will then encompass the Delaware and Illinois games. See you in late September!