"Everything was perfect today." - Derrick Williams

Quarterback

I normally start with the offensive line because, well, the offense starts with the offensive line. Well today we start with Daryll Clark, who did in fact get his swagger back. His 341 passing yards were the most a Penn State quarterback has thrown since 2003 and that, along with the rest of his ridiculous stat line, was enough to earn him a Big Ten Player Of The Week award for the second time this season.

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Poll

Who was the offensive MVP against Michigan State?

• Graham Zug
• Graham Zug
• Graham Zug
• Graham Zug

  382 votes | Results

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(AP Photo by Charlie Neibergall) 

This isn't going to be pretty. Let's just get to it.

Quarterbacks

Daryll Clark had his game of the season. There is no other way to put it.

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From the opening series he seemed tentative and unsure of himself. He seemed like he was struggling with his reads, his timing was off, and he often overthrew his receivers. This is a problem that has plagued him all season. This week it finally bit him with the interception in the redzone. Jason Avant had an eleven-foot-tall imaginary friend named Tacopants. Derrick Williams must have an eleven-foot-tall imaginary friend as well. Any ideas on what we should call him?

You have to feel sorry for the kid. It was hard to watch him being interviewed after the game. He manned up and took all the blame for the loss. You have to admire him for that. Sadly, he's correct in that his play was a large part of the reason we lost.

Final Grade: F

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UPDATE: BHGP had some questions for us as well.

I think we've all been looking forward to this week if for nothing else than to see some good Penn State material up over on Black Heart Gold Pants. Just to stoke the fire a bit we threw our SBNation Big Ten bretheren some questions, and they didn't disappoint. May God have mercy on our souls.

BSD: Before we start, care to make any jokes about how old our coach is?

	Joe Pater
	MR. PATERNO WILL BE FINE THANK YOU
	Fine, Mr. Paterno is so old
	HOW OLD IS HE?
	He's so old he
	HE IS SO OLD HE CIRCUMCISED JESUS.                                                                                                                                                                           .
	Hur, hur, nice joke Mr. Paterno.
	SILENCE, YOU IRISH DEVILS. THE BRIS WAS QUITE THE ORDEAL.

 

 

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All of the wrong things were happening to Penn State's offense -- botched snaps, fumbles, dropped passes, receivers coming up a foot short on third downs.  If you felt the onset of deja vu and dread, it was completely justified.  They eventually settled down, and with a little help from an amazingly stupid personal foul penalty, scored a late touchdown to make it a three-point deficit at halftime. 

Offensively, the turning point was cashing in with a touchdown after the third-quarter safety.  After Michigan shanked the free kick*, Penn State received the ball at the 50 yard line.  Four plays later, the score was 26-17 and the rout was on.

Anyway, the grades.

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Who Shot Who In The What Now? Penn State (6-0, 2-0) at Wisconsin (3-2, 0-2). Kickoff at 8:00 p.m. Eastern at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kicking Television: ESPN primetime, baby.  There have been plenty of comments about the abysmal announcing last week by Dave Pasch and Andre Ware.  We should be in better hands on Saturday night.  Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge, and Holly Rowe will guide us through the proceedings.  If you're in the car, the game can be heard on any number of radio stations including XM 197.

A Fool And His Money:  Penn State is favored by 5 1/2 points. The over/under sits at 47. Penn State is 0-5-1 against the spread in their last six conference games. Wisconsin is 2-8 against the spread in their last 10 conference games. So, yeah. Have fun with that.

Weather: Surprisingly great. Accuweather says it'll be 65 degrees and mostly cloudy at kickoff. 

Dubious Statistical Achievements: Penn State has started conference play 3-0 once since 2000.

Ouch, Babe:  Jordan Norwood (hamstring) and Mickey Shuler (ankle) are noted as "probable" in the official PSU Game Notes.

Highly Diverse?:  Also in the PSU Game Notes, we learn that Penn State is the only team in the country averaging more than 250 yards rushing and 240 yards passing per game.  Useless, yes, but true.  They're also the only team ranked in the top 10 nationally in both total offense and total defense.

Lest We Forget: Last year, Penn State was battling numerous off-field issues, and we all wondered what kind of team would show up on Saturday.  Quite simply, they dominated.  While the Penn State Football Story is unbelievably good at polishing a turd, there was no need for it after last season's encounter with the Badgers:

In Scores From Other Games: CBS Sportsline has a quality five minute preview on YouTube.   Pickin' On The Big Ten is calling for a road blowout for Penn State.  The good kind of blowout.

Smoke Signals From Enemy Territory:  Beware of a QB change for Wisconsin, as head coach Bret Bielema is openly suggesting that Allan Evridge might be on a short leash Saturday night.

“Allan is going to start on Saturday,” Bielema said. “But there comes a point in time where you have to make an assessment as to where we are as a football team. … The next guy would probably be Dustin Sherer.”

Still, Bielema recognizes there are aspects of Evridge’s game he must work on.

“The part that Allan has to improve on more than anything is his accuracy as a passer,” Bielema said of the left-handed quarterback. “The bottom line is that we have to expect the ball to be delivered with better accuracy. … He has to see a clearer picture of what we’re trying to get done.”

Better late than never and all that...the offense showed capable but you don't earn high marks in this post for playing Paternoball.  Penn State has an explosive offense and there is nothing wrong with using it.

 

Offensive Line

The line continued to dominate in the traditional sense, allowing Royster and Green to average 7.8 and 7.7 ypc, respectively.  There were timely errors, however.  Clark was sacked twice in the game, one near the 20 yard line on 2nd and short.  The other major mistake was a false start on a 2nd and goal at the Purdue 5 yard line; the drive was stalled and Penn State was forced to settle for a chip shot field goal.

I continue to be impressed with the line's ability to get down field for the occasional screen pass.  With such a strong ability to protect the pocket, keeping defenses honest usually isn't a major issue.  Just in case, though, the screen passes are a deadly weapon and one any defensive coordinator has to respect when preparing a game plan.  I don't have the ability to go back and look at every single pass play, but it's worth noting thatRoyster, on 16 receptions , is averaging 11 yards a touch.  I know these aren't all screen plays, but you get the idea.  For comparisons sake, Chris wells is at just just 2.5 yards per catch on (sample size alert) four receptions andJavon Ringer is at 8.6 on seven receptions.

Final Grade: B

 

Poll

Your Purdue Offensive MVP Award goes to:

22%

The O Line

92 votes

66%

Evan Royster

269 votes

0%

Stephfon Green

2 votes

4%

Daryll Clark

20 votes

1%

Derrick Williams

5 votes

1%

Deon Butler

5 votes

3%

Graham Zug

13 votes

406 votes | Poll has closed

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Here are some news and notes from Joe Paterno's weekly press conference leading up to the game between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Wisconsin Badgers this weekend.

• Playing a team like Wisconsin creates different challenges than playing a team like Purdue. This is like saying tackling a wild boar is slightly more challenging than stepping on a bug.
• Jordan Norwood should be good to go this weekend. Quarless and Shuler are questionable.
• Joe lists himself as day-to-day. Some days he feels good and some days he doesn't. Whether he will coach from the sideline or the press box will be determined on game day. But Joe doesn't think this makes a difference to the team or the coaches.
• Joe had thought about playing A.J. Wallace on offense as a backup to Derrick Williams before the season started. But his hamstring injury nixed that and gave Chaz Powell an opportunity to switch sides of the ball.
• Joe is pleased with our situation in the defensive backfield. Joe says we are "fortunate" to have Wallace, Sargeant, and Davis at the corners and with the emergence of Drew Astorino we have three good guys on the inside too.
• Joe hopes we see more Chaz Powell as the season goes on. He says Powell has struggled with confidence because they switched him to offense just before the season started.
• There was an amusing moment where Joe was asked about coaching in the booth and he took the time to explain how a headset works as if we didn't already know.

Actually, as far as making a significant contribution to the strategy side and on the tactical side, you're better off upstairs. You can see more. You can get, as long as we have the kind of communications we have now, I can talk to everybody on the sideline with the one microphone and the one set of ear phones, and they can all talk to me.

Thanks for explaining that, Joe. This is why I love the man.

• Joe refused to say the turf was to blame for all the running backs slipping. Then he told a story about some guy who used to coach at Penn State 450 years ago that would preach against cutting on the inside foot. It's actually good advice when you think about it.
• Joe repeatedly said things like he's going to have to live with the pain in his leg for a few weeks. Then he said what he has "can be fixed" which leads me to believe we're talking hip replacement surgery or something like that. My guess is Joe wants to tough it out until the season is over. Say what you will about Joe Paterno, but he's a tough dude.
• Joe mentioned that Evan Royster was good enough to play lacrosse on the Div. I level. He said he would consider letting Royster play lacrosse for Penn State if he came to him and asked.
• Not surprisingly, Joe says his most recent injury will have no effect on his coaching future. Some poor reporter actually wasted their one question in asking this. Probably some guy that flew all the way from Wisconsin too.
• Joe refused to compare this team to the '05 team saying this team hasn't been in as many tough spots yet. But he finished it up saying this is a good squad that he likes very much. This is a mantra he has repeated several times this year which is very unlike Joe Paterno.
• To compensate for his absence on the practice field and the sideline on game day Joe is spending more time hanging around the locker room to build camaraderie with the team.
• Joe has been very pleased with the performance of the defense. He pointed out that Purdue didn't commit a single penalty and only turned the ball over once. They played a sound game against us and we held them to six points.
• When asked about Wisconsin's defensive line he said, "they'll knock your jock off." I love that line. But then he followed it up with "They're not flopping aroudn out there. They're not big strong fat guys."
• This quote was kind of disturbing.

Q. Will this be your offensive line's toughest test (so far)?

Yeah, I think so. They're going to play eight guys in a box. They're going to stop your run. They've got good corners. That number 17 (Allen Langford) is a heck of a football player. Number 25 (Shane Carter), their safety is really a big time safety. As I said, they've got three good linebackers. So I think it will be a test for us to be able to move the ball. (ed. - emphasis added)

Sounds like Joe is already convinced we won't be able to run on this team. Could he have tipped his hand that he plans to open the playbook and throw down field in this game?

From Adam Rittenberg's Big Ten blog on ESPN.com:

"Everybody looked at the way that he carried himself, looked at the way he carried the scout team.  You can definitely see then that he was going to be a great quarterback when it was his turn, and he definitely waited it out. ... There definitely were a lot of days when Deon [Butler], Jordan [Norwood] and myself were like, 'Man, we can't wait for Daryll to come in.'"  -- Derrick Williams

When you have a team with so many weapons, one of the challenging things isn't necessarily being able to use them all, but threatening to.  For those reasons, I love this set:

The concept is simple: get all of the playmakers on the field.   However, the way it's set up is efficient enough to make me excited about pointing it out.  Just to break this down, let's point out what we are looking at:

• Under center, a 235 lb quarterback who can throw the ball
• Six yards back, one of two explosive backs, each one bringing a different style that makes it hard for defenses to sit on a particular pattern
• On the near side, one of two very sure handed receivers who have the speed to force the secondary to protect against the deep ball
  
• Just to the right of the QB, a FB ready for the blast or used to pick up blocking.  He is also available to clear out a lane created by what is probably the best offensive line in the Big Ten
• To the right of the FB, a playmaker who can move toward the center for the ball or go downfield into a passing pattern
• Oh, and don't forget about the TE

Now just to get this rolling, lets look at one of the more traditional options:

Now that obviously went for big yardage, but it doesn't have to in order to be effective.  You get the play opened up by leaving the TE on the line for a block and bringing in the FB to clear out a lane.  The LBs can't sit on the play because they have to worry about Williams sweeping around to the sideline, not to mention the possibility of a QB keeper.  The result?  Green needs only to get past the line of scrimmage and all of the sudden things are wide open.

Now that won't work with any kind of regularity unless you force the defense to play it honest, enter the second option:

You sell the run, which brings the LBs to the line of scrimmage, but then give the ball to Williams, already at full speed.  On the near side you've already brought the FB over to help Williams turn the corner, and as a bonus you have the WR blocking the corner and giving the ball carrier more room. 

Something that should be clearly pointed out here is that the coaching staff may have finally figured out a way to get Williams the ball without the terrible telegraphing we've grown oh so accustomed to over the past couple of years.  All the different threats on the field mean the former #1 overall recruit is getting a fair shot at a big play.  If he learns to run through traffic it is only a matter of time before he starts breaking a couple of these.

Moving on to a third option:

Ah yes, the pass.  What originally looks like a running set is, only moments after the play fake, a passing play with options all over the field.  You hope someone bites on the fake to Williams and then get the chance to look for the big play to Bulter (or Norwood) streaking across the middle or the TE who has by now released his block and gone straight north.  If those options aren't there?  You have Williams or the RB available for a quick dump off.  Also, The way this clears out the box, Clark can easily gain positive yards without even giving up the ball.

I'm going to stop here but it's only because I'm out of video; we've hardly covered all the different options of this set.  I never claimed to be and X's and O's guy, so I'll leave the finer details alone, but the bottom line is this thing is going to work.  They won't run it every play, or even every series, but four to eight times a game and you are looking at solid yardage with big play potential.  All of the best football players are on the field and all of them are a liability to the defense.

 
The offense rolls. Against Syracuse. As always, performance is relative to competition and the actors in The Express could have probably beaten the Orange this weekend.

Offensive Line

Well after the "oh, come on!" second play from scrimmage, in which Clark was quickly forced outside and proceeded to cough up the ball, the line looked same old. That one play was the only time Syracuse would get near the quarterback as both Clark and Devlin avoided being sacked for the rest of the afternoon. Each QB was given reps with the first team and the offensive line provided the protection that lead to the two passers throwing for over 130 yard each.

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