Lake The Posts - Two-A-Days: Penn State
Your humble blogger answers some questions for a Northwestern blogger.
over 2 years ago
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On ESPN radio yesterday afternoon the guy who’s been visiting the practices in the B10 says PSU’s line is fine, and that Paterno has been underselling it. He says barring injury it’s probably the best int he conference. Take that FWIW.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
Was that Rittenberg?
From what I’m reading, things are really starting to come together over the past week. Positions on the offensive line and the secondary are mostly solidified. I’m feeling a lot better than I was a month ago about this team.
Mike
Black Shoe Diaries
Dave Revsine from BTN.
--
Order your copy of "We Are Penn State", like, now. One team, 128 pages.
by Run Up The Score on Aug 25, 2009 11:36 AM EDT up reply actions
yeah
I didn’t know who it was, but I know it wasn’t Adam b/c it sounded like this guy actually knows what he’s talking about.
Rittenburg would have just sold the legend of Terrelle Pryor like a snake oil salesmen. The dude has bought into the hype hook line and sinker.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
I think Rittenberg is about as fair and balanced as you're like to see on ESPN
and perhaps it is the newely coined (at least new to me) Howard Cosell syndrome, where he heaps praise on all teams pretty equally, but I’d say he’s been pretty favorable towards PSU, and OSU, etc.
by The JuggerNitt on Aug 25, 2009 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions
I think you nailed it. He’s too pragmatic. “Everybody’s awesome!” I don’t necessarily want him to always compliment our team, but be thought-provoking and original. After a year of daily reading it seems he’s just regurgitating the same talking points you hear all over tWWL. And in the case of Pryor, I believe he’s particularly guilty of towing the company line. Not that you can’t believe Pryor is a great talent who has every opportunity to be great, it’s just that Pryor has not earned the reputation that preceeds him.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
In the case of Pryor, he has not been towing the company line.
Besides the above link, Rittenberg literally said the following:
Daryll Clark is the league’s best quarterback and should have gotten the nod for preseason Offensive Player of the Year.
While the blog posts are too short for my taste, ranking the quarterback positions to include the strength of the second (and third) stringers is something I don’t often see.
Does he overhype Pryor outside his blog or somewhere else I haven’t seen? (I don’t watch much of their online video, so maybe on a vidcast?)
Perhaps he’s toned it down, Iike I said after a year (July to July) I basically stopped reading his stuff. Maybe I’m over-reacting, but the sum total of what I’ve read over that period of time left me with the feeling that he was just towing the line for tWWL. I’ll surf thru this stuff to see if I can find some examples…
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
Appreciated (if you have the time, of course)
Upon further reflection, you might have been annoyed by the news-aggregator pieces; the reporting-what-everyone-else-is-reporting stuff. I think there’s a difference between saying that “everyone is saying x is true” and saying “x is true,” but that’s obviously a fine line.
But yeah, if I’ve been drinking the Ritten-ade, let me know.
Yet in that same article
He still has tOSU ahead of us in the QB department, and their backup is apparently a former minor league baseball player! I know Newsome still has work to do to be good enough to be an adequate back-up, but if he really think Clark is the true B10 OPotY, it’s odd he’d have Ohio State #3 and us #4
Experience
- Joe Bauserman got some experience as a 3rd stringer last year in practice and a few plays in two games.
- Kevin Newsome wasn’t in college last year so all his experience consists of Spring/Fall ’09 practice.
Based on his descriptions of #1 and #2, Rittenberg is putting A LOT of emphasis on backup QBs. If he’s wrong here (Minnesota? No.) it’s not because he’s selling the ESPN-line. (Unless he argues somewhere else that OMG Brett Farve makes every team in Minnesota better at QB…)
Well I'm sure Little Red
also got a little third string experience last years as well. I mean I’m fine with Rittenbergs analysis, I’m just confused as to why tOSU is the spot ahead when we have essentially the exact same, or at least very similar situations with backups, while admitting DC17 should have been BT preseason OPotY
Joe Bauserman (Ohio State #2) got game time last year but Kevin Newsome (Penn State #2) and Matt McGloin (Penn State #3) did not.
Again, that’s why he ranks Minnesota #2 in the Big Ten, because their backup has even more experience than Ohio State’s backups or ours.
(I don’t agree with the premise; Nick Sheridan has plenty of experience, but nobody thinks he’s good.)
kinda like Indiana being "predicted" to be better than us based on that
O-line “# of game starts returning” stat. Just because you have played more doesn’t mean you are actually better. Returning a bunch of crummy (man this family friendly experience is tough) players isn’t necessarily a good thing.
by The JuggerNitt on Aug 27, 2009 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions
Why Can't Us?
It’s time to bring that one back
"If you let the men in you've got to let the women in. I don't want a bunch of women walking around in my locker room when guys take showers". Joe Paterno
Dude
You’re awesome in these interviews. I love reading them. This line was great:
Stefen Wisniewski will be fine at center
"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
One of my favorite photoshops (or perhaps it is an actual photo?) ever!
by The JuggerNitt on Aug 25, 2009 1:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Wait!
JoePa is Yoda! He’ll live 800 some years, and when he dies will become a part of the force, so he’ll still be able to coach as a shimmery blue ghost in a Jedi robe, unless the NCAA makes a rule about dead Jedi’s being HC.
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