My Grades for Penn State against Purdue

Even though I'm disappointed that my prediction came true, I still cant help but note that I saw this coming from a mile away. For starters, we always play flat after coming off of either a big win or a big loss. And let's not forget how Purdue has a knack for playing us close. Remember 2005? Sure, we blew them out 33-15 but it was 23-15 at one point and Purdue had the momentum after forcing a punt. And in 2006 we beat them by a baseball score, 12-0 to be exact, but we dominated the game from start to finish. Then in 2007 in a game with a boatload of field goals and special teams plays, we survived Purdue 26-19, at one point they even attempted an onside kick. And 2008, perfect example. We beat them by a semi-deominant 20-6 score, but their kicker missed two field goals and an extra point. We were lucky to not be stuck with an ugly six point win over the Boilermakers. And, unlike the 20-6 game that could have been 20-14, this one was actually close on the scoreboard at 23-18, but it was a mixxed extra point and missed field goal away from being one that would have gone into overtime. It's just a good thing that Purdue's even more experienced at shooting themselves in the foot than we are, so they could show us how it's done. They had almost as many yards as Alabama, but we held them to 18 points thanks to our secondary at least doing its job in this game. When is more than I could say for the rest of the defense

Week One's grades against Indiana State
Week Two's grades against Alabama
Week Three's grades against Temple
Week Four's grades against Eastern Michigan
Week Five's grades against Indiana
Week Six's grades against Iowa

Overall - C-: We're over the halfway mark in the season and although I've seen some improvements game to game, the biggest issues still seem to refuse to go away. Namely the lack of production in the red zone. However, I thought the offense played better against Purdue than they did against Indiana or Temple (although Temple may not be comparable to the others in this case). I saw a lot more of a balance at a lot of times than I did against even cupcakes Eastern Michigan and Indiana. Purdue was a huge underdog and came in and played their hearts out, but the biggest thing is Penn State played down to the competition just as much as Purdue played up to the competition. No matter how nice you want to be to this team after winning, sometimes a win is not a win, especially given how we've struggled the past two years on homecoming. We used to be pretty much invincible on homecoming. Remember 2007 when Penn State destroyed Wisconsin 38-7? Wisconsin finished the year with a better record than us. But it's been the story of this year, outside of Indiana State and Eastern Michigan, we've looked very very vulnerable at times. But despite the win being a "win", we're bowl eligible.

Offense - C: I actually thought we did alright on offense against the Boilermakers outside of that stupid red zone turnover (something that seems to be a Penn State specialty in 2011). Bolden looked great on our second drive but outside of that looked like his usual self. Matt McGloin had moments of looking great, while usually he looked downright average. It was nice to strike first against Purdue with a touchdown, usually our opening score is a field goal, that was even the case against the EMUs. Silas Redd continues to look great despite the offensive line looking shaky at times, racking up heaps and heaps of yards. Curtis Dukes is a great complement to Redd's shiftiness, so he should continue to be co-starter. There was also a Stephfon Green sighting. He went for two yards but it was nice to see him in the running game again. Green has big play speed, afterburners that even Silas Redd doesn't have. So if he can be worked in the way he was in 2008 and 2009, that'd help us out in the long run. I was also impressed with the play action passes. One thing I was NOT impressed with, however, was the reverse. Dear JoePa, stop running the reverse, please, I'm BEGGING YOU! NO! MORE! REVERSES!

Defense - D: As decent as I thought the offense did, the defense really left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Quite honestly, this looked like last year's defense. 344 yards from Purdue? A couple lucky bounces away from giving up 20 or 23 to them? Who are we, Rice? If we want to beat Nebraska, Ohio State, and Illinois, or even hang close with Wisconsin, our defense can't play like this again. Purdue ran the ball against us surprisingly well. Ralph Bolden had 97 yards, almost as much as Alabama's own Trent Richardson who had 111 and 12 more than Eddie Lacy. The defense came alive in the second half of the fourth quarter, shutting down a Purdue team that had spent the game moving the ball at will on Penn State. And we only forced one sack all game. Pathetic. However, I will say that Still, Hill, Stanley, and Crawford had their moments, but the only part of the defense that seemed to care was the secondary. Purdue's pass-happy game was "limited" to 182 total yards. In all, this is the worst I saw the defense play all year, and I'm absolutely including that Alabama game!

Special Teams - C+: It was hard to grade these guys but I settled on C+. This is not a "fair to middling" C+ where they played an overall okay game with a few bright spots, this is a C+ that's a mix of wonderful and dreadful. Quite simply, this is what you get when you average an F (coverage), A+ (return game), and B (kicking game). Had the kick coverage been better, this would have been much higher, and I'm not just talking about that annoying 78 yard return by Purdue, I'm also talking about how they'd often start around the 40 or so. However, something of note is that when Anthony Fera got a good punt off, it was a GOOD punt. Our special teams were the little girl with the curl, when they were good they were VERY GOOD, but when they were bad they were horrid. Pinning Purdue at the 1 may have been what really cinched the game for us, and let's not forget the other punts. Plus we saw Anthony Fera make some nice field goals despite the nasty win. And of course, Chaz Powell proving that he can return kickoffs against more than just I-AA teams. But let's not forget how good Fera was.

Gameball goes to - Anthony Fera: It was hard to pick between Nick Sukay, Nathan Stupar (apparently if your initials are NS, you shut down Purdue's north and south game), and our do it all on kicking man, Anthony Fera, but after the day he had, how could I not give it to him? Fera did not miss a single kick or shank a single punt, unlike Purdue's usually accurate Carson Wiggs, and accounted for 11 of our 23 points, which is almost half. If it weren't for our mango run drinking kicker, this game might have been a loss. The most important thing he did for us was when he could lengthening the field Purdue had to work with, really helping out our defense.

It was over when: Nick Sukay intercepted Caleb Terbush on 4th down to seal away the game as a win for Penn State, sealing Purdue's fate as the team that hung around all game long but couldn't take the lead at any point or even give themselves something to hold onto. Despite keeping it close, Purdue was actually one of a few teams that never led or tied us at any point in the game (not counting the 0-0 tie to start the game, of course). The closest they got was cutting the lead to 7-5 and to 13-12. In the fourth quarter, after their touchdown run, Purdue couldn't generate anything on offense, and Nick Sukay finished them off late in the 4th.

Next Opponent - Northwestern: I know we like to think of these guys as "just Northwestern" and they're looking pretty pitiful this year, along the same lines as Purdue and Indiana, although nowhere near as awful as Minnesota. They gave up 41 points to Iowa and just have not looked solid at any point this year. They even lost 21-14 to Army! Now, apparently that doesn't mean anything, because Purdue lost to Rice and Indiana to North Texas and they still gave us games. Unless they prove otherwise, I'm certain this will be another ugly win.