Game Reviews
Making Big Plays?
by BSD on Nov 9, 2009 8:30 AM EST
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218 comments
We just couldn't make some big plays. -Joe Paterno
When I heard Joe Paterno mutter those words in his post game press conference, I just shook my head. What kind of big play were you hoping for, Joe? Were you hoping Evan Royster could run over right guard for four yards instead of two? Were you hoping tight end Mickey Shuler was going to turn that five yard pass into a seventy yard touchdown? Please don't tell me you were hoping the special teams were going to bail you out sooner or later. You can't return fair catches for touchdowns, you know.
It's not hard to figure out what went wrong on Saturday. Ohio State kept pinning the Penn State offense deep. The special teams couldn't buy them any room. Joe didn't want to take chances, so he played it safe by running right into the teeth of the Buckeye defensive line. Then they kept giving Ohio State the ball at midfield which allowed them to take some chances on offense. Once the Buckeyes got the lead, they shoved the dagger home. Or arm-punted it home. Whatever. Joe Paterno got suckered into playing Tressel Ball, and he lost again.
I felt bad for the players as the boos rained down in the fourth quarter. It's important that they know those boos were not intended for them. Though the players made their share of mistakes, they just ran the plays that were called. It's not their fault that the play calling did not put them in a position to succeed.
Nobody should pin this loss on Daryll Clark. He played well considering his offensive line stood about as stiff as a house of cards in a hurricane. He made some ill-advised throws late in the game, but you could tell he was pressing and trying to make something happen. You can't blame him for that.
218 comments | 1 recs |
And Here Come The Pretzels
by Run Up The Score on Nov 8, 2009 11:42 AM EST
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168 comments
On yesterday's ESPN GameDay show, Chris Fowler and the crew passed along information that Penn State coaches indicated their offensive playbook would be uncharacteristically open against Ohio State. The coaching staff trusted the improved offensive line, and especially trusted Daryll Clark to win the game for Penn State. If such a strategy was ever in place for the Penn State offense, it was scrapped after their first offensive play of the game as defensive end Cameron Heyward bolted through Dennis Landolt and Evan Royster, defensive tackle Todd Denlinger spun around Johnnie Troutman, and defensive end Thaddeus Gibson hopped over a weak chop attempt by Ako Poti. The result, 2nd and 16, and 59 minutes of puckering.
And shame on you for not fighting through your doubleteam, Doug Worthington!
Sifting through the rubble this morning, and nothing has changed. Yesterday's game was an absolute owning of the home team -- coaches, players, fans, offense, defense, special teams -- from beginning to end. Cameron Heyward is an unblockable monster. No matter which Penn State offensive lineman he lined up against, they were quickly and embarrassingly thrown aside. Daryll Clark was hit and hurried, and again unable to carry the team in those circumstances.
Clark will take some justified heat for this loss. Fair or not, his place in Penn State quarterbacking history will be roughly alongside Wally Richardson's 1995-1996 run -- fondly remembered, but nowhere approaching legendary. Daryll will leave Penn State with a shared Big Ten title, love and respect from a vast majority of the fanbase, and gaudy stats against awful teams. People will be happy to see him when he returns to campus in 5, 10, 20 years. But he won't be a Penn State legend or anything close to it.
I suspect the coaching staff feels embarrassed this morning. There's absolutely zero excuse for the ongoing clusterfrick that is Penn State's special teams unit. If Joe Paterno expects to win games with defense and special teams, it's probably a fine idea to actually have good special teams. Given the athletes on this team, are we supposed to believe that Drew Astorino is our best punt returner designated fair catcher? Penn State's punt team practically handed Ohio State their first touchdown and took the life out of the crowd. And it's clearly not a matter of putting bad athletes on the field for kicking plays -- the players chasing Ray Small down the field on his first punt return are A.J. Wallace, Knowledge Timmons, Josh Hull, Chris Colasanti, Navorro Bowman, Brandon Beachum, and Andrew Quarless. And they were put in a bad position by an awful Jeremy Boone punt.
The playcalling was atrocious. If you don't have enough confidence to throw the ball on 3rd and 5, do us all a favor and kneel on the ball three straight plays and punt. Your defense will get the same amount of rest, and there's no risk at all! Beats the hell out of running the same tired crap right at Ohio State's strengths, or letting your quarterback get battered play after play.
Tom Bradley and the defense don't get a pass for this either -- they let the team down repeatedly on some crucial third downs. D'anton Lynn blew a coverage that led to DeVier Posey's long touchdown. On Pryor's rushing touchdown, Bowman had him dead in the backfield and was shaken off. They had their chances to turn the game around, or even just get off the damned field, and failed.
Finally, man up and give credit to Terrelle Pryor and Ohio State. This can't be stressed enough: they dominated every single aspect of the game. As for Penn State, they had their two toughest opponents at home and blew it. While 10-2 is still within reach and sounds great, this season has already been cast upon the disappointment heap. Penn State will end up in some middle-tier bowl with a cheesy sponsor. Don't worry. We'll pretend to care about it.
168 comments | 2 recs |
Grading the Penn State Offense Against Northwestern
by BSD on Nov 3, 2009 8:15 AM EST
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120 comments
It was slow to get started, but eventually the Penn State offense came to life in the fourth quarter and scored three touchdowns on three consecutive offensive snaps.
Quarterbacks
Another fantastic stat line for the senior captain.
It shocks me to see commentary on some of the Penn State message boards about Daryll Clark not looking very impressive. Excuse me, but, what else do you want? He's on pace to smash just about every single season passing record in Penn State history. He's about to take the career passing touchdown record. He's leading the conference in passing efficiency, and he's No. 14 in the nation. He has now gone three games without throwing an interception, and he's only thrown one interception in his past five games. I don't see how he can play much better than this.
On Saturday, I can't think of any glaring mistakes. He made good decisions. His throws were right on time with the pattern. He tucked the ball and ran when he needed to. He spread the ball around completing passes to ten different recievers. Even his fakes score points. Royster's long touchdown run was set up by a pump fake to a wide receiver in the flat. It froze the linebackers and pulled the safeties out of position opening up the middle for Royster's scamper. Clark is just playing at an incredibly high level right now.
Final Grade: A
Receivers
It's hard to believe that Derek Moye is just a sophomore. Saturday was his third 100 yard receiving game of the season. He and Daryll Clark appear to be completely in sync right now. Take a look at his stats for the season.
With three games and a bowl game, he only needs 88 yards per game to eclipse 1000 yards on the year. He can pass the mark in the regular season with 117 yards per game. If you're counting at home, Bobby Engram has the school record for single season receiving yards with 1084. It's a difficult mark to reach from here, but it's achievable.
Graham Zug had an off day. He had four catches for 34 yards, but he also dropped a wide open pass that would have gone for a big gain, and dropped an easy touchdown in the endzone. Also, what's up with fair catching a punt at the six yard line?
Eight other guys caught passes in the game. It was a really good team effort.
Final Grade: B+
120 comments | 0 recs |
Grading The Penn State Defense Against Northwestern
by BSD on Nov 2, 2009 8:30 AM EST
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60 comments
It was a rocky start, but the defense clamped down and did the job holding the Northwestern Wildcat offense down until the Penn State offense could come to life. Let's grade them out and discuss their performance.
Defensive Line
It's a little disappointing to me that Penn State gave up 119 yards rushing to Northwestern after I said they have a pretty sad running game. But 84 of those yards were gained by the quarterbacks, which should be no surprise considering Mike Kafka came into the game as Northwestern's leading rusher. The Wildcats were running a lot of short crossing and hitch routes which didn't give the defensive line much time to get to the quarterback, but they still managed to record six sacks as a unit.
Jack Crawford had an okay game. He had a sack and recovered Kafka's unforced fumble, but there were a few times where he got sucked inside on a fake handoff and gave up a big gain to the quarterback. I could see his inexperience there. No matter how much it looks like he's handing it off to the running back, you gotta stay home and drill that quarterback, big guy. He made some nice adjustments and played a few option plays really well where he would force the quarterback to make the pitch and then he would slide outside to make the tackle.
Odrick had a slow first half but really turned it on in the second half. He just had to stop being cute and go to the bull rush. He had a sack to go with five tackles, and he blocked a field goal.
I was really impressed with Jerome Hayes and Eric Latimore in this game. Each of them got a sack, but I thought he looked really good in defending the run. The few times Northwestern tried to run the ball to the outside, these guys did a good job of getting up field and forcing the ball carrier to bounce outside. This allowed the pursuit to get there and usually drop the play for a loss.
Final Grade: A
Linebackers
I was not impressed with the linebackers in the early going, but in their defense this had a lot to do with the playcalling. More on that later.
Bowman looked slow to me. He just wasn't jumping the passing routes, and he whiffed terribly on several blocks. This was just not his best game, but he did still manage to record nine tackles.
Sean Lee saw his most extensive action since tweaking his knee against Temple. He led the team with 12 tackles (10 solo). I thought he looked great in playing against the run, but like Bowman I thought he looked just a step slow in covering the Northwestern short passing game. Much more so in the first half than the second half.
Did Josh Hull even play? He was out there in the early going and didn't look good in either defending the crossing routes or in stopping Kafka why he tried to tuck and run. After Northwestern's long scoring drive it looked to me like Penn State switched exclusively to the nickel defense, and Hull was the odd linebacker out.
Final Grade: B
60 comments | 0 recs |
It Was A Slow Turning Engine: Penn State 34, Northwestern 13
by Kevin HD on Nov 1, 2009 2:04 PM EST
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58 comments
It was an easy start for Northwestern against a BBDS defense that came out in its softest form. Poor tackling and bad angles helped with Wildcats score early and easily with six and ten-yard gains all the way down the field. Before being injured, Kafka was taking the easy slant routes and running successfully when the zone defense spread out too thin.
A lot of the game wrap-ups today cite Kafka's injury as the setback Northwestern would never overcome, but I'm not sure he would have maintained his early consistency. The veteran quarterback was also completing 77% of his passes, 10 points higher than the season average he has posted against lesser defenses. I suspect we would have seen some regression to the mean.
Northwestern was winning the game by working long drives that kept the ball away from Daryll Clark. They ended up in 19 third down situations against Penn State's defense, the most any team has totaled all season, and converted early. Combine that with the free downs (we'll get to that in a second), and the best defense was a slow, clock eating offense.
The turnover stat in the second half read Penn State 0, Northwestern 1; as often happens in football, the stats fail us here.
Three times the defense forced a punt, only to see possession slip away through mistakes. A late hit turned a 4th and short into a first down. The punt return team had an illegal substitution that allowed the Wildcats to keep the ball. Finally, and most painfully, was the fumbled snap on a Northwestern punt that they somehow back-yard-balled into a first down that could have ended with Penn State ball inside the red zone.
Northwestern ran the kind of "you'll have to throw to win" defense we saw a lot of earlier in the year, yet Penn State was too stubborn to counter it. Corey Wootton, who played as well as expected, led a blowing-up of the Penn State o-line that never allowed Royster to get any momentum.
It wasn't until almost 25 minutes into the game that the offensive brain trust did the obvious: five passes, two QB runs (one a busted play), zero Royster carries, and the first Penn State touchdown.
In the end Clark finished with 274 yards and a QB rating a couple points above his average. Royster had 118 yards, but just a 3.3 average excluding his 69-yard TD run.
The defense fixed the holes and posted a second half shutout, but they'll have to play a complete game next week if they want to beat Ohio State.
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Grading the Penn State Defense Against Michigan
by BSD on Oct 26, 2009 4:15 PM EDT
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54 comments
Oh, we heard a lot of talk about the Penn State defense before the game. Who had they played? They hadn't seen a rushing offense like Michigan. I think one of our resident BSD Wolverine fans predicted Minor and Brown BOTH going over 100 yards with Forcier getting another 60. So much for that, huh?
Defensive Line
Outside of that first series, they absolutely dominated the Wolverines who only gained 110 yards on the ground. This is the team that led the Big Ten averaging 235 yards per game
. Jared Odrick's 2 tackles and 0.5 TFL don't accurately illustrate how dominating he was. Eating up two blockers on pretty much every play, he disrupted everything Michigan wanted to do. And he should have had a safety but he overran the tackles and let Forcier get it away. On the next play he had the center so nervous the kid snapped the ball right out the back of the endzone.
Jack Crawford had perhaps his best day yet. After getting sucked inside on a few fake handoffs, he settled into his assignment and finished with 3 tackles, all for a loss, and a sack. He also forced the fumble on Robinson late in the game. In all the line finished with 13 tackles, 6.5 TFL, and 3 sacks. Devon Still and true freshman Jordan Hill recorded the other two sacks which makes me feel good about next year after Odrick is gone.
Final Grade: A
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Grading the Penn State Offense Against Michigan
by BSD on Oct 26, 2009 10:17 AM EDT
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142 comments
Before this game we heard a lot of things about the Penn State offense. They hadn't played anybody. The offensive line was teh suck. The wide receivers weren't as good as last year. Daryll Clark never shows up in a big game. I hope they put a lot of that talk to rest on Saturday. Let's grade out the offense.
Quarterbacks
Some people are saying this was Daryll Clark's most complete game as a starter. I'm not sure about that. He was pretty good against Michigan State last year. But he was damn good on Saturday against Michigan.
And there were no interceptions to go with those numbers. It was a performance worthy of Big Ten Player of the Weekhonors. He made good decisions and showed some tremendous touch on fade pass to Zug in the corner of the endzone and on the 60 yard touchdown to Quarless. He was in complete control of the game. Michigan had no answer for the screen passes to Moye. And when they tried to cheat the safeties up to stop the run, Clark made them pay like a good quarterback does with a perfectly thrown ball to Andrew Quarless on the 60 yard touchdown. But he was a bit erratic at times especially in the second half.
Clark now has 17 touchdown passes on the season which ranks him third nationally. He is five touchowns away from tying the single season school record of 22 set by Todd Blackledge in 1982. I know I took some flak for saying this just before the Iowa debacle, but is it time we start mentioning Clark in the Heisman chase again? Here are his season stats.
In a season lacking any clear Heisman front runners, I would put Clark's numbers up against anyone. I'm not saying he deserves the trophy at this point, because he's not the quarterback on a team ranked in the top five which is apparently etched as a requirement somewhere on the base of the trophy. But right now, barring another Iowa-type meltdown, I think he has earned a seat at the Downtown Athletic Club in December. And I sooooo want to pwn Eleven Warriors for a day.
Final Grade: B+
142 comments | 0 recs |
Penn State 35, Michigan 10: Kneel Before Zug
by Run Up The Score on Oct 25, 2009 12:12 PM EDT
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92 comments
Your eyes weren't deceiving you -- Michigan's first offensive drive against Penn State looked a lot like their first quarter performance against the Lions last year in Happy Valley. Tate Forcier and Brandon Minor led a steady, precise 70 yard touchdown drive against little resistance from the Nittany Lions. There was good reason for concern, but the afternoon quickly turned into complete domination by Penn State. It was not just a solid road win against a pretty good team. The Lions came together and produced their best showing of the season, one week after their last-best performance of 2009.
Wish you could play Iowa next week? Me too, although nothing appears to be stopping that freight train anymore. And for the record, you haven't lived until you've perused the BHGP comments from last night's liveblog and this morning's afterglow. Hard not to root for those people.
Back to Penn State and Michigan. You know it's a good game when the reporters from the other side use terms like "scared" and "panicked". Daryll Clark threw four touchdowns -- three of them to tiny white possession receiver Graham Zug. After Michigan's opening scoring drive, they racked up a grand total of three points and 180 yards over the final 56 minutes of the game.
What flipped Penn State's switch? A little confidence from the top.
So on Friday night at the team hotel, Paterno provided a pick-me-up to his players.
"He said, 'I've been telling you guys how good I think you are. It's time you tell me how good you are, and go out and play that way,'" Penn State quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno said. "It was a great moment [Friday] night. When they left the snack last night, they were all pumped up."
The younger Paterno walked up to senior quarterback Daryll Clark after the meeting.
"He goes, 'Damn, I'm ready now,'" Jay said.
Joe Paterno's attitude adjustment continued in the moments before the game:
Paterno continued to emphasize his point in the stadium tunnel moments before kickoff.
"Both teams come out of the same tunnel, and we were waiting for Michigan to go down [first]," Clark said. "They're going rah-rah and making a lot of noise, running down the tunnel. We looked over and Joe and he's jumping up and down, talking about, 'Yeah, yeah.'
"I'm looking at him and I'm like, 'OK, it's time to play some football.'"
And so it went for Penn State, a week that began with questions about the remnants of the losing streak against Michigan, and a game that began with a cold, cutting Michigan touchdown drive ended with the Lions repeatedly dropping the hammer on a helpless Wolverine team. Penn State, with its wholly flawed national resume and the clunker against Iowa now officially in the background, established itself as a BCS contender and appears to be peaking at the right time.
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