It's Roundtable Wednesday, the day were I don't have to stress over coming up with content for you. I just answer questions. This week Alex from The Nittany Notebook provides the questions. The rest of us are the E Street Band to his Bruce Springsteen.
Run Up The Score
There Is No Name On My Jersey
The Nittany Line
William Yurasko
After being embarrassed by Ohio State at home, where does Penn State's program as a whole go from here?
What can you do? You go back to hitting the weights. You give it 110% in practice. Then you go out and play on Saturday and try to win. Hopefully we can still finish out strong and go to the Outback Bowl.
I guess the frustrating thing here is that we have the talent to compete. We just can't seem to bring all of the talent together. It starts with the coaches. Paterno has to look in the mirror and ask himself if he is giving Penn State the best chance to win. This philosophy of playing tough defense and playing it safe on offense doesn't work any more. This isn't 1972 where everyone plays the wishbone option. You can't just check out on offense now. You can't just be content to give what the defense gives you. You have to push the issue. You have to dictate to the defense. You have to take chances and attack. Paterno has to figure that out or we will never beat Ohio State again.
Following back to back poor performances, what do you see as Penn State's biggest problem on defense?
Again, their philosophy is flawed. They rarely blitzed and played soft zone coverage against Ohio State. The Buckeyes shredded them and we didn't make any adjustments. We were just flat out coached. We didn't try to take Ohio State out of their game at all. We just let them do whatever they wanted to do.
It didn't help that the defense has been quietly ripped apart by injuries. Jerome Hayes is out with a torn ACL. Jared Odrick broke his ankle. Tony Davis came down with appendicitis. Dontey Brown is banged up and not playing. Throw in the transfer of Spencer Ridenhour and we're forced to play guys like Josh Hull, Mark Rubin, and Chris Colasanti.
What happens against Purdue this Saturday?
The offense will look good at times but shoot itself in the foot. Joe Tiller probably won't call a single running play. The defense will give up 350 yards passing.
Lightning Round
What bowl game does Penn State end up in?
Alamo Bowl.
Who is going to be Penn State's next verbal commitment?
No idea. I owe you guys a recruiting update sometime soon. During the season a blogger gets consumed with game reviews, roundtables, previews, and urgent news. Recruiting is slow right now because all the high school players are in the middle of their seasons too. Maybe I'll put something together next week in replace of the Temple coverage.
Purdue score prediction.
| Purdue | 30 |
| Penn State | 20 |