Fear This: Arrelious Benn
by KevinHD on Aug 21, 2009 9:00 AM EDT
in Football
Email
Print
The Player So Good, They Named Him Twice! One of the Zooker's many prized DC recruits, this five-star picked the Illini over FSU and Notre Dame. It's been two years, and if it wasn't for NFL cronyism, he would be making a lot more money than he is now to play football. He's probably a top ten pick in 2010 ($).
His 2007 season was good enough for Big Ten Freshman Player of the Year (the after-season one, that's actually based on performance), which was part of him catching twice as many passes as anyone else on the team.
That wasn't enough for Arrelious, who caught 67 passes in 2008, three times more than the next guy on the list, good for over 1,000 yards. Oh, and he also scored two TDs on the ground.
He's good. Everyone knows he's good, by multiples over any of Williams' other targets, and there is still nothing anyone has been able to do about it.
You May Remember Me From Such Network Specials As. This catch, which might not have been a catch at all but was still probably the single best play of that entire game (at 1:58):
And not to bring up The FAILure, but it would be unfair to leave it out:
Personality Check: Interview from 2008:
Q: How about your least favorite moment [of the 2007 season]?
A: Losing to Iowa. I hate Iowa.
Pass.
The Penn State Extrapolation. For any team trying to contain them, there are really two main elements:
- Hope Crazy-Turnover Juice shows up instead of Crazy-Talented Juice. This doesn't have anything to do with handle Benn but his success obviously starts there.
- Hope you have a shutdown corner that can, like, not totally embarrass themselves. This is measured on a sliding scale that doesn't go very far into the green.
Penn State had success in the 2008 slugfest with the "mush rush", keeping Williams in the pocket and making him win with his arm or else die a slow death under the QB Spy. I say that not because it seems to be a solution, but because when Paterno's staff is faced with what worked in the past and something different that hasn't yet been proven, they tend to stick to the former. I'll be surprised if Benn isn't given a lot of chances to make big plays in 2009.
(Just to pile on about the '08 Illini: QB rating and Benn's involvement don't seem any predictive traits regarding Illini success. It really is all about turnovers.)
Benn had both his longest play and best average per catch against Penn State last year, and now will be up against a greener unit that still lacks serious size. I said that Bradley & Co. might continue to force Juice to throw, but with Benn being able to kill you on any given play, it becomes more risky. The biggest question will be whether Illinois has the depth the replace an otherwise completely wiped out set of receivers (even if they were all stage extras to Benn).
It's the strongest receiver against one of the most unproven defensive units in all of the Big Ten, there won't really be an easy answer to compensate for this.
Fear This? Like the The Exorcist stairs.
49 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
It's a little too country for my tastes
"We heard all that talk all week about the SEC and their speed, but we knew personally that they weren't nearly as tough as us."
-Tony Hunt
by Cpiritual27 on Aug 21, 2009 10:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Not very exciting answer:
Q: Everybody calls you Rejus. In the paper, we’ve been calling you Arrelious. Is it time for us to make the switch?
A: I like Arrelious. I like Rejus. Anything that floats your boat. Some people have problems pronouncing Arrelious, so they say Rejus.
(interview link above)
Order your copy of "We Are Penn State" The offseason is long. So is this magazine.
Also, we found out last year that
having your free safety play cover 3 while your corner plays cover 2 is not effective.
It's "Rejus"
unless you’re like the one old-timer Mizzou fan I sat next to last year at a bar that incorrectly referred to him as “that Regis Philbin guy”
I would have ended
every sentence with him with “Final answer??”
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
That big board thing
this must be a different one, though:
http://boards.buffalobills.com/showthread.php?p=2641095
Very few Big Ten players, none from PSU.
Order your copy of "We Are Penn State" The offseason is long. So is this magazine.
I keep going back and forth on this game
Initially I thought this would be our toughest non-Ohio State game, and I was even chalking it up as a loss. But the more I think about it, the better I feel. As scary as the Juice/Benn combination is, this is still a team that finished the year scoring 10 points at Northwestern. Yes our secondary is green, but we’ve got good athletes back there. The Illinois O-line is nothing special and we should be able to get pressure on Juice, as well as slow down their running game. Not to mention their putrid defense. They’ll score some points, Benn will make some plays, but ultimately I think we win this game.
The D just got putrid-er
One of their DB’s just got an ACL tear and is out for the season.
I still believe PSU can beat their defense with a power running game and short passes. Illinois’ offense will have difficulty establishing the run since the D is too fast at the edges. Juice to Benn (and the other WR) can’t happen all day—if it did I think PSU has the ability to contain them enough to win, particularly if PSU’s defense forces some turnovers. This has all of the hallmarks of a game that will be close in the first half and then end up as a 17-21 point win for PSU as the Illini defense wears down.
^this^
Good stuff, both of you. I think Cairo wore down at the end and threw in a score prediction a little haphazardly tho. With that putrid-er defense, our scoring’s gonna be much, much higher.
Good emphasis by Kevin, too, on the Zookers’ turnover issues. Even if they play flawless against us (no turnovers), it’s a tough, tough hill to climb for them to generate enough O to outdo what we’ll do against their putrid-er D.
I’m far more concerned about Michigan and Northwestern.
"For me the game wasn’t grounded in reality. It was about the uniform you put on that turned you into a warrior. It was about the mythology of the battle, the victory, the defeat, the struggle." - Mike Reid, PSU '69
Ahhhh
With you now. Pardon my too country ignernce.
"For me the game wasn’t grounded in reality. It was about the uniform you put on that turned you into a warrior. It was about the mythology of the battle, the victory, the defeat, the struggle." - Mike Reid, PSU '69
I'm still scared.
1st away game, noon game (I think), potential to get torched a couple of times by Benn, etc. We only beat them by 14 last season with an incredible game by DWill, at night at home. I can’t bring myself to be too optimistic here. I say whoever wins the turnover battle gets the W.
coughcoughP*ssy!cough
"For me the game wasn’t grounded in reality. It was about the uniform you put on that turned you into a warrior. It was about the mythology of the battle, the victory, the defeat, the struggle." - Mike Reid, PSU '69
Eh
I’m always kinda like the guy sitting in the outfield in Major League during the preseason. “Oh so what! They’ll blow it in the 9th….they will!!” I think it helps me enjoy the victories more if I convince myself I wasn’t expecting it to happen.
Fair enough
As long as it’s you who is Managing Expectations (in this case, your own). Show me a doucheabag trying too transparently to Manage MY Expectations and I’ll show you a b*tch slapped doucheabag.
"For me the game wasn’t grounded in reality. It was about the uniform you put on that turned you into a warrior. It was about the mythology of the battle, the victory, the defeat, the struggle." - Mike Reid, PSU '69
I can has Cover-3-bashing thread?
We just better go to Illinois with a solid gameplan on defense. If we go in there thinking we’ll just do the same thing we did last year, we’ll be in big trouble. Last year was a shootout and we had the bigger guns. Unless Powell can score 3 TD’s including rushing, receiving, and returning we had better consider a different defensive gameplan.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
Very scary game last year...
With Illinois driving right down the field and scoring a TD on their first possession. I think PSU’s first drive had the Clark fumble which was reversed (VERY close). Like Kevin said, it was obvious they had a ton of talent, but turnovers and DWill’s return crushed them.
This was really great one to watch....
But it was scary until DWill’s fourth-quarter kick return. If good QB Juice doesn’t show up, he can still beat you pretty bad with his feet.
by smashtheguitar on Aug 21, 2009 10:28 AM EDT up reply actions
The scary thing about Illinois is that they run the option well on top of having elite receivers. In fact that’s how they beat Ohio State in 2007, once they got a lead they used the option to drain the clock. It seems to me that Zook’s average gameplan involves a lot of passing for 3 quarters and then go into a spread-option running attack. We do defend the option quite well, so I’m not worried about it from a scoring perspective, but from a “take 6 minutes off the clock, and exhaust the defense” perspective, yeah it concerns me.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
PSU v. The "Spread"
Good point, Millz, and what you’ve described is a fair enough description of how we lost in 2007, too (though the Offensive meltdown had more to do with it in the end).
A couple months ago, I crunched some numbers to see how Penn State’s fared against “spread” offenses in the past few years. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but the general results:
1) PSU had a strikingly better winning percentage against various forms of the spread than against other offenses, and allowed more than 3 points per game LESS. Now, that may have less to do with the offenses than the teams running them, as many of these games came against Northwestern, Purdue, not-good Illinois teams and Michigan’s worst team ever.
2) What’s more striking, though, is the scoring by halves. Against spread offenses, Penn State gave up twice as many points in the first half as they did in the 2nd, suggesting early struggles and then good adjustments. Northwestern 2005, Illinois and Michigan 2008, and to an extent Illinois 2007 were all examples of this.
3) Against other offenses, the numbers went in the other direction, as one might expect — an average of around a touchdown in the first half and then a big spike in points in the second (the Rose Bowl being a huge honking exception to this trend).
Some caveats:
1) “Spread” is an alarmingly general term, as a glance at the offenses mentioned above would show major differences, and yet more differences would appear if you looked at Purdue’s “spread.”
2) It’s worth repeating, we weren’t facing Texas Tech’s spread or anything like that.
3) The sample size is still pretty small, and could possibly remain a fluke. I’m just offering it up as something worth watching — some trouble early, big success late, and almost always a W against the “Spread.”
by tuscaloosalion on Aug 21, 2009 10:50 AM EDT up reply actions
I agree with your assessment with most of the games mentioned,
But one thing to point out -especially with the ’05 NW game – a lot of those 1st half points came off of turnovers. I always found it unfair to hold a defense responsible when the offense gives the opposing team the ball deep in their own territory. It would be akin to a relief pitcher coming into a bases-loaded situation and having those runners count against him.
So, did the defnse make adjustments, or did the offense do a better job at proteting the ball? Just being devil’s advocate.
It's a series of highs and lows for them.
Benn, Williams and McGee are all incredible players, but they lost just about all of their other receivers and obviously have the o-line issues replacements to worry about. Reminds me of a more extreme version of what PSU is doing this year, actually, although I’m more comfortable with a stable RB and center than what they are working with.
Order your copy of "We Are Penn State" The offseason is long. So is this magazine.
Stopping Benn
The best way to stop Benn, I believe, is for Jack Crawford to be consistently in the backfield drinking tea from Juice’s skull.
That’s not exactly a “gameplan,” but I don’t know that the Zookers have the O-line to stop it from happening.
by tuscaloosalion on Aug 21, 2009 10:38 AM EDT reply actions 6 recs
Illinois' defense is going to absolutely suck.
If we don’t score 30+ points on them, it’s a travesty.
--
Order your copy of "We Are Penn State", like, now. One team, 128 pages.
by Run Up The Score on Aug 21, 2009 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions
also to note
their top LB from last year is now a FB in the NFL. heh. What does that say about their LB’s coach?
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
Awesome comment
….Crawford drinking tea from Juice’s skull….best comment of the preseason so far…
…can someone post that sick pic of Crawford and that gigantic vein popping out of his skull as he chest presses 7,452 lbs?!?!?!?!?!?!!?
WE ARE.......PENN STATE!
sort of
People like to say that we (humans) are 99.9% the same genetically, and therefore the same. The thing is that the .01% difference in genetic material allows for tremendous variation. We are not all the same.
So what you're saying is
We are not normal.
We are Penn State.
"For me the game wasn’t grounded in reality. It was about the uniform you put on that turned you into a warrior. It was about the mythology of the battle, the victory, the defeat, the struggle." - Mike Reid, PSU '69
by jtothep on Aug 21, 2009 12:59 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
I attempted to photoshop a picture of Crawford drinking from Juice's skull
did not work out so well
I bleed Blue and White.
by Horse N Buggy on Aug 21, 2009 2:42 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm certain
That it worked out well enough for us all to be interested in viewing it, whatever its condition.
Damn Bad Amish, leavin a brotha hangin…..
"For me the game wasn’t grounded in reality. It was about the uniform you put on that turned you into a warrior. It was about the mythology of the battle, the victory, the defeat, the struggle." - Mike Reid, PSU '69
I think he should
chisel his teeth into points, then re-shoot this picture.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
The thing that impressed me about Crawford is his dedication to the thinking side of the game. The night after the B&W game while everyone else was out with their families, or partying and getting arrested, he was watching B&W game film.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
Here...
Let me turn that comment green for you.
"I thought the kid we were using had the potential to be a good quarterback, and I blew that one." - Joseph V. Paterno
by leeharvey418 on Aug 21, 2009 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Some insights from Twitter regarding the PSU scrimmage yesterday:
Scimmage yestered
QB’s threw for 4 TD’s, and ran for 2 more:
Jay says:
“A lot to like in scrimmage #2. QBs threw 4 TDs, & ran for 2 more. Did throw 1 pick. Still need to improve consistency.”
Bradley says:
“Didn’t think the defense had a good day in yesterday’s scrimmage.Took a step back.Open in 2 weeks .Lots of work to do”
emphasis mine.
Yeah, I’m not filled with warm fuzzies about this one. I know Clark is excellent and our Wr’s are going to be good as well, but you have to expect that our secondary to be putting things together by now. You have to assume Clark isn’t the only QB getting snaps, so that means McGloin and Newsome are throwing TD’s too. A walk-on and true freshman should not be throwing TD’s against our 1st string defense.
After the b&w I was a little concerned about our secondary playing like they did, now I’m worried.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
"A walk-on and true freshman should not be throwing TD’s against our 1st string defense."
They could be throwing against the 2nd and 3rd string D’s, as well.
"We heard all that talk all week about the SEC and their speed, but we knew personally that they weren't nearly as tough as us."
-Tony Hunt
by Cpiritual27 on Aug 21, 2009 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Let's hope the Andrew Quarless from the Illinois 2008 video
shows up this year, and not Boozy McDriveington
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
SHOP THE BLACK SHOE DIARIES STORE
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
