You know, I don’t think Akron / Syracuse / Temple are all that different from UNI / ISU / Arizona as a group. It’s not that big of a gap.

Weather could be a ginormous factor in this game. Saturday and Saturday night are looking pretty wet at this point (the National Weather Service currently calls for a 60% chance of rain Saturday, 80% chance of rain Saturday night). This will make play in the trenches and on punt/kickoff coverage even more vital to success.

Penn State special teams just need to come out and smash some people in the mouth. Play like crazy men on coverage and blow up some blocks on returns. A Iowa fumble or a big Penn State return will get the White Out crowd so loud and crazy that no Hawkeye will ever want to hear Zombie Nation again!

“Let’s be the loudest fans in the whole world!”-Joe Paterno

This is an interesting chart.

Iowa gave up 5 red zone rushing touchdowns last year, second in the country to Auburn. That’s correct. PSU scored 40% of the red zone rushing touchdowns against Iowa over 13 games. Iowa has not given up a rushing touchdown since the third quarter of November 8, 2008. Iowa was 9th in the country in rushing defense. (Who was 8th? PSU. PSU gave up 10 fewer yards over 13 games. These defenses performed identically against the rush.) So that’s, what, 25 quarters now without a rushing td. I doubt that continues against PSU, but it’s an interesting streak that says something about intention and effectiveness.

The scoring defense stat is distorted by a pick six against Ariz. Actual scoring defense is 9.6 per game so far this year.

If one feels charitable, the last score by Arizona was a garbage time score, which puts the adjusted scoring defense mean at 7.3. But I guess I find this stupid. They scored on our defense at the end.

The takeaway is that we play a big play-averse defense. We don’t think college teams can execute 12-15 plays in a drive without making a mistake. When the field shrinks in the red zone, this scheme improves. Further, it’s been 320-odd days since someone has been able to run the ball for a score; you usually have to throw the ball to score once you’re in the red zone. If Iowa run defense is a little softer this year (we’re surprised at the yards that have been put up), it might just be an early season anomaly; we can’t say.

It looks to me that one of two things happens Saturday night:

a) if either team can run the ball, and the other can’t, the game is over. I don’t think this is likely. But it happened in the first half last year; we were gashed, overwhelmed, lucky to be alive.

b) one of the two quarterbacks will be better and his team will win. This was the story of the second half last year, wasn’t it?

I go with b). The defenses are going to play their games, and well. Both O-lines have been unsettled, Royster is better than our backs but we are just tough, just plain tough and smart, against the run. (We’re also confident after outrushing Ringer, McCoy, Royster, and Grigsby in the last 1.3 years.) The quarterbacks are going to have to do it. If either team has three drops by the receivers, that could decide the game.

I’m ignoring turnovers (except Stanzi-balls) and the effects of a monsoon.

Footnotes: Iowa doesn’t do a lot of the things other teams do to generate sacks. So the sack comparison may not mean much. We generally rush four, attempt pressure, and try to force the QB to be accurate against 7 in coverage. That pressure sharply amped up against Arizona.

We haven’t scored a kickoff return TD in 5 years or so, but really, although it would be nice, the guys who return kickoffs are asked politely not to fumble. We’ve been able to win some without kickoff return TDs.

I had a little to drink before the last Whitehouse against Illinois last year… But I thought Derrick Williams did return a Kickoff? Maybe that’s the alcohol talking?

it could come down to that