Then, Again: RichRod's Back With A Brand New Invention

by Run Up The Score on Oct 1, 2008 9:00 AM EDT in Football Comment 22 comments

Your weekly look at Penn State opponents, past and present. In December, who will you blame for destroying Penn State's strength of schedule? Probably Wisconsin. Note: Purdue preview will be late this week, probably Friday around noon.

Coastal Carolina (3-2, #157 Sagarin rating): Put up their third straight win by beating North Carolina A&T, 20-7. They take on the undefeated Liberty Flames next.

Oregon State (2-2, #23): Notched a victory of mild importance. Amazingly, it doesn't get much easier for the Beavers -- they travel to Utah. For a football game, not multiple wives.

Syracuse (1-4, #130): Still sucks. The blew a fourth quarter lead against Pitt -- how satisfying would that have been? -- and now they're staring at 1-11. Unless they beat Rutgers. I mean, everyone else does. Anyway, they're off this week. Probably for the best.

Temple (1-4, #117): It's all fallen apart for Al Golden and the Owls. Without Adam DiMichele, they lost 7-3 to Western Michigan. They'll have a chance for a win at Fake Miami this weekend.

Illinois (2-2, #61): As Kevin noted, they're a slight underdog at Michigan on Saturday.

Purdue (2-2, #69): Got s wept up in the Emu movemen t in a 38-21 loss at Notre Dame. Their defense, it is not so good.

Wisconsin (3-1, #19): Learned a valuable lesson about taking advantage of other teams' mistakes. Michigan repeatedly handed the ball over to Wisconsin in the first half, but the Badgers could only turn the mistakes into field goals. Then the second half started, and Bucky crapped the bed. They host Ohio State on Saturday, and millions of Nittany Lion fans can't figure out who to root for.

Michigan (2-2, #45): But seriously, give credit to Michigan, even if they were as stunned by their comeback as Wisconsin. After treating the football as if it was coated with snake oil, they got their act together in the second half and discovered that this year might not be so awful, after all.

Ohio State (4-1, #20): Knocked around Minnesota before allowing some late garbage points in a 34-21 victory. It's the Beanie and Pryor show now. Terrelle didn't throw for a lot of yards, but he didn't need to. The Buckeyes ran for 279 yards.

Iowa (3-2, #54): It's not looking so good in Iowa City. They lost four fumbles and threw an interception in a 22-17 loss to Northwestern. There's a moderately serious question as to whether Iowa can even become bowl eligible. They still have games against Indiana, Purdue, and Minnesota, but none of those can be considered sure victories after back-to-back losses against Pitt and Northwestern. Killer losses. They're at Michigan State next week.

Indiana (2-2, #97): Hung around with Ol' Sparty before losing 42-29. They play at Minnesota Saturday.

Michigan State (4-1, #27): I liked this paragraph from the AP recap -- "It was a wild, wacky game for the Old Brass Spittoon. There were two safeties, three replay reviews, a blocked punt, and Hoyer and Hoosiers quarterback Kellen Lewis each threw career-long touchdown passes." There is nothing bad about any of that.

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I love polygamy jokes.

Kevin @ Black Shoe Diaries

by Kevin HD on Oct 1, 2008 10:43 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Do my eyes deceive me, or does Coastal Carolina have a better record

than 7 others teams we have faced or will face this year?

I hope they keep winning, starting with the Liberty Flamers this weekend.

I bleed Blue and White.

by Horse N Buggy on Oct 1, 2008 10:49 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Also, Sagarin rating

in the Sagarin system is not too shabby for a 1-AA team (~40th in 1-AA, which is ~top third)

by The JuggerNitt on Oct 1, 2008 10:59 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Another word on the Sagarin

It’s interesting that Oregon State is in the Top 30 and Illinois is way down in the 60s. Apparently OreSt’s presence in the Top 30 affects PSU’s Sagarin rating, which may or may not affect something called ELO_CHESS that the BCS uses for the robot rankings portion of determining the national champion participants. Confused?

by Cairo on Oct 1, 2008 11:35 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

ELO_CHESS doesn’t take into account the score of each game, something that’s not allowed in BCS computer rankings. It’s also a less accurate poll, although I understand the problems that margin of victory creates.

Kevin @ Black Shoe Diaries

by Kevin HD on Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

My interpretation of ELO Chess

I have no idea what this has to do with college football. I blame the robots.

by Cairo on Oct 1, 2008 1:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Long time complaint of mine

but why in the hell is Wisconsin’s mascott’s nickname friggen Bucky? That would be like if the Nittany Lion’s mascott’s nickname was “Wolvie” or something like that. I think it took me 2 years of watching Big 10 football before I finally figured out that Bucky didn’t refer to “Brutus” Buckeye.

by The JuggerNitt on Oct 1, 2008 11:01 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

From that oh-so reliable Wikipedia

In 1949, a Bucky head-piece was created and a contest was started to properly name the mascot. The winning entry was Buckingham U. Badger.

by Cairo on Oct 1, 2008 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Boy am I glad we dont play Minnesota or NW

These are 2 teams that could give us some serious trouble. As bad as Iowa is, that might be our biggest test!! Its after OSU, so who know’s what our record could be :), its on the road, and if we are still undefeated, could be ranked quite high.

by TITCUS on Oct 1, 2008 11:03 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Oh, and I want to add something

every time you hear that Michigan won, and how great it was that they “overcame 5 turnovers”, they always forget to mention that Wiscy had four of their own, including a pick six. Just feel like saying that.

Kevin @ Black Shoe Diaries

by Kevin HD on Oct 1, 2008 11:21 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Hold on...

First off, you guys have been playing some grade A football thus far this season, congratulations, I imagine that this whole spread HD thing has worked better than any of you could’ve possibly dreamed it would. Heading into October you guys are right where you want to be.

I know that no one wants to hear this, but I don’t get the “Wisconsin blew it” mentality here. Wisconsin had a 19-0 halftime lead… all 19 points came off of Michigan turnovers… 6 of Michigan’s points came off of Wisconsin turnovers. Michigan only had 20 yards of total offense, NEGATIVE 7 yards passing in the first half, speaking of which, has a team ever had negative passing yards for a game? We looked to be making a real push for that record. We also only gained one first down in the first half. Believe me, I was there, you’ve never seen worse football in your life… at ANY level.

The one thing you don’t hear is that it was a pretty nice save by the defense to only be down by 19 (hard to even type that really) going into halftime. I think Wisconsin’s average starting position was on our side of the field.

But I don’t quite understand the attitude that says we were totally handed that game… especially with scoring drives of 80, 85, and 77 yards in the last 17 minutes. It wasn’t like Wisconsin’s turnovers weren’t forced, just like Wisconsin played a role in forcing Michigan’s turnovers in the first half.

For what it’s worth, I think that Penn State will absolutely run Wisconsin out of the building in Madison. By forcing Evridge out of the pocket, he suddenly becomes very erratic and those “safety-blanket” medium TE routes aren’t always going to be available. What I’ve seen so far is that the Penn State secondary might not be the biggest strength of the team, but Wisconsin is just not a football team that’s built to take advantage of that. Penn State’s D-line is capable enough to bottle up PJ Hill.

I think one of the questions I have for you guys is the following: is there any concern at all that the team might overlook Purdue a bit with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio State all coming up in the following weeks? Purdue’s defense looks downright awful, but they also are the type of team that will probably throw the football all day long, any concerns over a slow start this Saturday?

Go Blue!

by ThoseWhoStay on Oct 1, 2008 11:56 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No

I’m not very concerned. I think this team has the focus to not get tripped up by teams it’s supposed to beat. Clark and the other leaders appear to be very motivated. This is a team that looks hungry. Illinois’ offense is probably a step above Purdue’s, and the Zooker had two weeks to prepare. Our D managed to hold them in check. I can’t see Purdue throwing all over us. With our D line back at full strength and a week under their belt, those front four will be in the backfield often this weekend.

Luring recruits with my new "Posting HD" scheme since '08.

by 06Lion on Oct 1, 2008 12:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm not too worried

A few reasons:
1) Ross Ade Stadium is just slightly bigger than a high school stadium, so although they have home field advantage, it isn’t quite the same as home field advantage at other venues.
2) Their defense is significantly worse than our defense
3) Their passing game is good, and our secondary is weak but our D-line should hopefully be able to get some good pressure. That’s about the only category that Purdue “beats” us in

I think that even if the team looks ahead slightly (and something about the way these guys have been acting/talking they don’t seem to be taking anything for granted), I don’t see them falling as far as losing to Purdue.

by The JuggerNitt on Oct 1, 2008 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Agree.

I don’t see any other matchups in the game that favor Purdue, just seemed to be a bit of a sandwich game to me between the night game with Illinois and the upcoming trip to Madison. With it being a noon kick and just coming off a pretty disappointing loss to ND I don’t expect the crowd to be remotely fired up for this game.

Interestingly, this is really the first somewhat test of whether this coaching staff will stick to its guns on the road or not. Particularly with the upcoming games, I think this is an opportunity to really build some confidence in the offensive system on the road (no offense but I’m not counting Syracuse).

Again, I’m not saying I foresee this being a real tough game for Penn State, was rather just wondering if there was any concern that they might get caught looking ahead a bit with the way they’ve burst out of the gate to start the year.

One more Michigan related question, has anyone come up with any kind of an explanation for why the kickoff for our game is 4:30??? Just seems odd.

Go Blue!

by ThoseWhoStay on Oct 1, 2008 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No other games start at 4:30

"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008

by jesse. on Oct 1, 2008 1:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

My guesses

1) ESPN said they’d televise it nationally, thought they had a pretty decent matchup on their hands, and set it at a weird time so that it stood out from all the other games. Just like jesse said, no other game (with any consequence) starts around that time, meaning no other game will be finishing up at that time either. In other words, ratings.

2) ESPN has no need to worry about squeezing in local & national news shows. ABC needs to save an hour for those programs. So they have a game at 3:30 and a game at 8, with an hour in between for news.

by Kunk on Oct 1, 2008 1:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Could it be........

Is there a MLB playoff game being televised on ESPN ending somewhere near that time?

Settle it on the field!

by PSUncle1981 on Oct 1, 2008 2:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No MLB

ESPN does not carry the MLB playoffs — they are entirely on TBS and FOX.

by Laaaaazzz on Oct 2, 2008 9:40 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

One more thing

OSU @ Wisky this weekend. If OSU blows out the Badgers, I could see us looking past Wisconsin leading up to the Michigan game (which we’d BETTER not look past, because that could end up horribly…thank god it is at home), and on to the OSU game.

I think as long as we can try to force evridge (Wisky’s QB) to pass, we should be fine, but I don’t trust our LBs to stop Hill if he gets past our D-line.

Really if you look at it, each game for the rest of our season is potentially a “trap” game
Purdue – looking ahead to Wisconsin
Wisconsin – (if they lose to OSU) looking ahead to revenge against Michigan, looking ahead to our season test @OSU
Michigan – looking ahead to OSU
OSU – not a trap (unless they somehow lose to Wisconsin, Purdue, and/or MSU)
Iowa – just looking past a poor team while on the road
indiana – looking ahead to MSU & the season finale
MSU – looking ahead to any of the potential following: being big 10 champs, going undefeated, going to the National Championship game

hopefully the team can stay real focused.

by The JuggerNitt on Oct 1, 2008 1:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Michigan game time

One more Michigan related question, has anyone come up with any kind of an explanation for why the kickoff for our game is 4:30??? Just seems odd.

The game is PSU’s homecoming. I suspect what happened is that Disney said they wanted it to be a night game, but PSU pleaded that they didn’t want Homecoming to be at 8pm and mess up with the weekend’s general festivities. So, they made a compromise with ESPN getting the game a little later, but not quite primetime, but it still being a national broadcast.

FWIW, the Big Ten has an agreement where all homecoming games have their kickoff times set during the summer so that schools can plan around those times.

by Laaaaazzz on Oct 2, 2008 9:43 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs