as you said, it looks like our offense vs their defense is a pretty solid matchup, but (if the history of this season continues) their offense should be pretty incompetent against our defense. Let’s just hope that their game against Sparty last week was an aberration (and that our first quarter against Michigan last week was our only “choke” of the season).

As you alluded to, the problem with the stats comparison this week is that Ohio State is still evolving, and is not the same team that started the year. I hope they have retained the ability, or possibly it is a skill, to buckle under the pressure of the big game! I suspect they still have this tendency because some of it has to be coaching and how they approach practice leading up to the game. If you hear Joepa telling the team to have a good time, it makes me suspect PSU is more likely to be relaxed heading into the matchup.

I really fear Beanie chewing up yards and the secondary creeping up in run support, only to have TP pop a cheap one.

Also, Gaines, Evans, and Maybin have to be huge this week on the edge. We just can’t give up the outside to TP on those zone reads.

I’d say that any “push” should realistically fall to tosu. History, coupled with sweatervest’s call for a “used Kotex out” – should make it a pretty hostile environment.

PSU can’t give the bucknuts anything – sloppy play like last Saturday will result in a much larger deficit than 10 points. I worry about Clark trying to “get that extra yard” and “be the hero” rather than just executing. He has to be calm.

On defense, I agree with the post above – run defense has to be solid – the linebackers are going to have to step up and make some plays – if that means playing true freshmen – then so be it – Puz, DCon and Seanly all played as freshmen.

It sounds like the team is excited and ready – that’s the best attitude they can have – confidence that they can and will win – and the ability to adapt to make it happen will be key.

Let’s Go State!

On one of those videos you can see on Penn State’s page on ESPN.com, the college spotlight video for Oct 22, 2008, the guy says “Penn State’s offensive line is only decent”. Man, 6th in the country in sacks allowed, 7th in scoring offense, 11th in total offense (10th rush, 31st passing), and very few penalties (that seem to generally come late in the game after it is already decided)…man I wish we could have better than just a decent offensive line.

It hadn’t occured to me, at least not until down 10-0 last week, that when Joe said that the team needed to face adversity that meant that the fans would have to face adversity as well.
However, head in my hands sobbing, “No, no, No, please make it stop!” worked this time.

I hope we’ve gotten this “adversity” stuff out of our system, and can now go up early and take control of the game.

Thanks Mike. Great job here and throughout the BSD site.

If you look at these stats side by side the traditional way (without the fancy chart) it still looks awfully good for PSU:

+ Rush Offense (yd/game) PSU 234.6 (10) OSU 182.4 (34)
+ Pass Offense (yd/game) PSU 247.5 (31) OSU 140.1 (108)
+ QB Rating PSU 151.6 (19) OSU 131.9 (47)
+ Total Offense (yd/game) PSU 482.1 (11) OSU 322.3 (92)
+ Sacks Allowed/Game PSU .75 (6) OSU 2.63 (103)
+3rd Down Conv. Offense PSU 52.0% (8) OSU 41.5% (50)
+ Scoring Offense (PPG) PSU 45.4 (7) OSU 26.9 (56)

= Rush Defense (yd/game) PSU 103.9 (22) OSU 97.1 (17)
= Pass Defense (yd/game) PSU 159.4 (11) OSU 168.3 (15)
+ Opp. QB Rating PSU 93.4 (4) OSU 97.6 (10)
= Total Defense (yd/game) PSU 263.3 (8) OSU 265.4 (10)
+ Scoring Defense 11.8 (6) OSU 13.4 (12)
+ Sacks/Game 2.88 (14) OSU 1.75 (63)
+ 3rd Down Conv. Defense 27.5% (5) OSU 36.5% (50)

- Kickoff Defense PSU 22.2 (76) OSU 18.4 (19)
+ Kickoff Returns PSU 29.5 (2) OSU 18.9 (107)
- Net Punting PSU 36.0 (50) OSU 43.1 (2)
+ Punt Returns PSU 10.9 (43) OSU 5.69 (99)
- Takeaways PSU 15 (32) OSU 21 (2)
+ Giveaways PSU 8 (12) OSU 9 (18)
+ Penalty YPG PSU 29.8 (5) OSU 44 (30)