Success With Hyperlinking's Hands Are Stinging After Batting Practice

ever see Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhall (sp?). WEIRD

We just need to have faith in our safeties that we won’t get beat deep

When they continue to get beat deep.

/calls punt block on every defensive snap

because they usually deserve it, but let’s consider something.

If we have a competent offense (like actually a strength… gasp!… and I’m hoping BOB can get us there), then a more aggressive defense is going to fit much better. Why? We want our offense on the field, chewing up clock with drives and tiring out the other defense.

When you have an aggressive defense you either get the ball back quickly (3 and out the other team) or they score quickly (and again get the ball back quickly).

Obviously keeping points off the board is excellent, but it’s pretty clear to me that our defense was really exposed against teams that had good quarterbacks. We weren’t going to win those games without an offense anyway, but if we had been a bit more aggressive we might have created some turn overs and pressure that created mistakes rather than first-downs.

Bend-don’t-break works best when you know your offense isn’t very good and you just need to make sure you don’t get embarrassed and keep it close enough that maybe your offense can get luck… which is what it really felt like a few times this year (and every year we have a bad offense).

Not saying the defense was blameless but when the offense had like 16 3 and outs to start the game. Never even gave them a chance.

that the new scheme will lead to better DB recruiting. It’s gotta be easier to sell the high-end guys on a scheme that more closely resembles what they’re doing in the NFL. It’s really not a secret that PSU hasn’t put out many pro-calibre DBs in recent years.

but do we really have a shot in most games when our offense only puts up 3 touchdowns worth of points against 4 opponents all season?

Or maybe I think I should attack this a different way. Is it more realistic to assume our offense can improve by 7 points a game? Or that our defense will allow 7 points more per game?

I think the balance of that equation favors the offense improving (can it get worse?). And, frankly, if the offense improves our defense starts to look better simply by cutting down the number of possessions in the ball game.

Imagine how godly our defense would have looked if we had Oregon’s USF’s offense…

Every team with 100 more yds/game than we averaged also averaged over 30 pts/game. That’s a 30-40th ranked offense for yds/game rather than a 95. At 30 pts. in our column our only loss is Wisconsin and most are still wins even if you give the other guys 2 TD’s or more. Also, you can bet Wiscy wouldn’t have put up 45 points if we had done better than 4-13 converting 3rd down and 12 first downs all game.

All I’m saying is, I can handle a more aggressive defense even if they give up one more touchdown per game to a long ball as long as they get a few turnovers in the process that helps our offense actually score some points.

Funny thing I noticed in looking at the stats above. Vanderbilt has nearly identical offensive stats to PSU for 2011, but Vanderbilt put up almost 7 more points per game against the great SEC defenses despite throwing 6 more INTs (point 1…on average I really don’t think the SEC is appreciably better and that bowls might go a different way if played in cold weather and in front of northern fans from time to time) .

What is the other difference? Vanderbilt’s defense had only 3 less sacks, but 5 more interceptions (19-14), 4 TD’s (to our none), and 190ish more total yards from interceptions. They allowed 798 plays vs. our 823 and gave up 31 TD’s to our 22 (most of the diff is in passing TD’s, so they got burnt a few times), and 25 more YPG.

That is the stats of a more aggressive secondary (without the athletes PSU has). They gave up 31 TD’s minus 4 INTs for TDs by the defense and minus about 13 more TD’s on offense (they scored 6 more points per game * 13 games). So their defense gave up 14 TD’s that weren’t offset by INT’s for touchdowns or for better scoring production from their offense (many of which pretty much have to be the result of better field position on certain drives since they threw more interceptions and had about the same number of yards/game). Our defense gave up 22 TD’s with nothing to offset. Even if you won’t grant VU’s defense credit for any of the 13 more TD’s that Vanderbilt produced, when all other offensive stats are similar, the comparison is 27-22 for TD’s allowed by the defenses. So PSU’s vaunted defense only did 5 touchdowns better than lowly Vanderbilt.

The only place this comparison falls apart is that Vanderbilt lost 3 more games than us, but they should have beaten Arkansas (a top 10 team that they gave a game they had won back to.. seriously, watch it… gift-wrapped), they took TN to overtime, and lost by 7 or less to GA, FL, and Cincinnati. Their big losses were #1 Alabama (34-0) and #9 SC (21-3), but we had worse losses. Their season could have been 9-4 just as easily as ours could have been 6-7… and most years we probably would both have had 7 or 8 wins.

Im still bitter. That one haunts me more than the UM game because if we had one that, I really do not see Florida or Oklahoma beating us and USC was absolutely the best team in the nation by the end of 08

into Woodie, Pete Seeger, et. al., you start to realize the depth and breadth of this country’s folk music. It is really a bottomless well.

Bound for Glory (This Train)
House of the Rising Sun
This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land

And when I talk about “good offenses” I mean an offense like Oregon, Oklahoma State’s, our offense 1994, even Houston’s Offense this past year. I never thought that Ohio State team was great offensively. In fact, I bet they weren’t even top 50 in FBS that year…

Notre Dame 06 — refs were bad too, but yeah, a Penn State team that was vastly more talented than ND got picked apart by Brady Quinn

Michigan State 07 — how do you blow a 17 point lead? Let the opposing QB nickel and dime you all the way down the field. Granted, going from “Morelli, throw!” to build the lead followed by a quarter and a half of nothing but runs and then asking Morelli to save the game late in the 4th didn’t help, but yeah, the soft zone lost that one.

USC Rose Bowl — Sanchez with time = death

Iowa 09 — Clark’s general failing against Iowa, in tandem with a costly Royster fumble, didn’t help, but a more aggressive defense wins that game.

Ohio State 10 — a game PSU had no business being in saw PSU with a double digit lead. Then we just let Pryor sit in the pocket, wait for the defense to break down, and run for 3rd and 8 upon 3rd and 8. A couple costly INTs inflated OSU"s MOV; they never would have had a lead with some pressure

Nebraska and Houston 11 — Martinez killed PSU with time, so did Keenum. A couple really bad calls / no calls hurt too

Granted, I’ve tried to block it from my memory, but what I seem to recall is that we dominated that game early, then let them creep back in due in part to the BBDS defense and conservative play calling on offense.

and Anchorage puts out a mean, mean beer on par with the absolute best of the Belgian (or anywhere else) brewing world. Thankfully a few bars around me have bottles available.

I’m also on a sour ale kick, lately, so Duchess du Bourgogne and Blue Sunday Sour were winners.

A few companies make it, Aries. It is different, but I also enjoy it. My favorite is this one:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/429/1769

It is also good in the can at tailgates since you can’t take bottles.

Maggie is prettier than her, I say.

There’s a higher degree of boot-licking involved with being a lackey, but performing menial tasks (picking up dry cleaning, serving as cannon fodder, running a university) is a core job function of both positions.

My brother when going to PSU, was playing raquetball and Spanier walkes in and challenges my brother and the guy he is play to a doubles. Well here Spanier brings in this amazing chick as basically a ringer and destroys my brother for like 3 games.

Brother still a bit pissed about those games, and wanted a rematch, 1 on 1, never got it though.

Also a bit lazy.