C'mon, people. Give me something to work with here.

It was a little sketchy in the beginning, but the defense finally clamped down and stopped the bleeding. I watched the tape again last night so I'll try to describe what happened and the adjustments that were made during the game. Let's start right off with the defensive coaching.

Defensive Coaching

Penn State started the game in nickel defense with Hull and Bowman as the linebackers. When you look at most of the plays on the first drive, Michigan spread them out with four wide receivers and Brandon Minor in the backfield forcing Penn State to pull Hull back into coverage leaving just five guys to defend in the box. This gave Michigan two options in the backfield (Threet and Minor) with five guys to block our five guys. This was clearly a good matchup for Michigan, and due to the fact they were going no-huddle we couldn't get an opportunity to change personnel. Michigan almost exclusively ran left away from Evans and Bowman choosing to attack Gaines and Hull. Obviously this paid off with a touchdown.

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Lions always run in packs

Defensive Line

Everyone keeps harping on how thin the defensive line is. You could have fooled me. Penn State used ten different guys on the defensive line on Saturday. But it didn't matter who Larry Johnson sent in because the results were always the same. The Temple offensive line could not open any holes for the running backs to slip through. I suspect Temple knew this was going to be the case coming into the game since the runningbacks Jones and Liverpool only had eight running attempts. And once they fell behind the Owls had to abandon the running game. Quarterback Chester Stewart was the leading rusher for the Owls with 15 yards on 18 attempts. As a team the Owls only recorded 16 rushing yards on 28 attempts. That is domination.

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After a quick review of Saturday's game:

Defensive Line:  Let's call it a solid B.  The rushing numbers looked great (2.9 ypc), but something was just off when watching the game a second time.  Josh Gaines was obviously magnificent in every regard, and while Aaron Maybin continues to get into the opponent's backfield, he still struggles quite a bit against the run.  The defensive tackles were surprisingly soft, no doubt due to the lack of depth at the position.  Ollie Ogbu and Jared Odrick made some plays, but they were completely blown out of the play on multiple occasions.  Freshman Jack Crawford is not only attempting to adjust to the college game, he's still trying to learn the game.  He's seen action in both games this season, and hasn't performed particularly well.  It's just a fact of being an undersized true freshman defensive tackle.  Tom McEowen and Eric Latimore were okay in the second half, at best.  It may not have been apparent on the scoreboard, but the defensive line desperately needs Maurice Evans and Abe Koroma back when Illinois comes to town.

Linebackers:  B+.  Navarro Bowman and Tyrell Sales racked up a ton of tackles.  Josh Hull played better and made an easy interception, but Tom Bradley isn't helping his defense by sending Hull on blitzes.  He's not a good enough athlete to disrupt the play in a blitzing role, not to mention how poorly disguised the blitzes are in the first place.  Still, he was better this week than against Coastal Carolina.  Bani Gbadyu allegedly played on Saturday.  Nathan Stupar looked quite good in his limited action.

Secondary:  B+.  Mark Rubin, better.  Not great, but better.  He was caught up in traffic a few times on running plays, but otherwise did a fine job shedding some blocks and making the tackle.  Nice interception, too.  Tony Davis played very well.  Outside of the clusterfrick that was Oregon State's first touchdown, Anthony Scirrotto had a nice game.  Good to see Drew Astorino in the game early and breaking up a pass.  I don't recall Lydell Sargeant doing anything great or awful.

I already know what many of you are thinking.  We held them to 7 meaningful points, and even if you take away the sacks, Oregon State only had 116 yards rushing.  I know.  I know.  But I saw what I saw:  many defensive tackles being abused far too often, and average but effective play from the defense as a whole.  They'll look great against Syracuse and Temple.  After that, we'll probably have Evans and Koroma back in the rotation, which will certainly help against Illinois.  

Too harsh?  Just right?  Your comments are always welcome.

• With all the clowns at ESPN, it was amazingly refreshing to hear Kirk Herbstreit, before the game, give his take on the whole "reefer madness" situation.
  
  He seems legitimately angry about this, and I couldn't agree more with his point.  Whether fair or not, the OTL piece was increased scrutiny for a team that has in fact had a lot of legal problems.  We didn't need another headline.  I think Kirk does a good job here.



• It was interesting to see Quarless in pads yesterday.

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The 2008 captains spoke to the media yesterday.  Clichés were plentiful.  The mandatory weight room comments were given, and the media, of course, started the whole show off by asking about the often under-reported "off the field troubles":

"I think right now all the stuff that happened last year, and all the trouble that we go into, that's behind us," Williams said

That's the right answer both from a PR perceptive and, well, it's the right answer.  Football, please.  I want to talk about football...

While the rest of the team was in high school, this group of seniors experienced first hand the level of excitement that can be created in Happy Valley when a few big games are won.  I'm of course talking about 2005, and they are, of course, doing everything they can to try and recreate what was a pretty special season:

"We'll try to bring back that same work ethic," Gaines said. "Bring back that same work habit. Bring it to this season and build on what we have now."

Speaking of 2005, I often get the impression that Williams was heavily influenced by Michael Robinson.  While the mentor/quarterback was a little more candid about his confidence (ie mentioning his championship expectations in the huddle rather than to the media the day before a bowl game), Williams confidence is needed no matter what form it shows up in.

"People that have been on great teams, they'll say it's really not what you do in the weight room, not what you do in the locker room, it's what you do off the field with your teammates," Williams said. "How your chemistry is off the field."

There must be some type of class they teach in journalism school where they demand non-substantive quotes be backed by some kind of quasi-relevant, often awkward example.  Enter text messaging:

Williams said either he or potential starting quarterbacks Darryl Clark and Pat Devlin will schedule impromptu passing drills via text messages three or four times a week as well.

Zook's influence on the conference is apparently much bigger than I realized.