The Penn State Football Show

Once again, Penn State found a way to break the BCS Championship dreams of their fans. This ranks up there with Michigan 05 and Minnesota 99 with one of the most disappointing losses I can remember. There are too many problems with this game to name them all, but I will go over a few.

1. 23 minutes and change to 6 minutes. That was the time of possession in the first half. How your high powered offense only puts 13 points on the scoreboard with this is unacceptable. The conservative play calling on away games has been a major reason PSU has sucked on the road since 2ooo. If it wasn't for Pryor fumbling the ball, I doubt they would've won the Ohio State game.

2. Ricky Stanzi is not a good quarterback. Watching the Iowa-Pitt game earlier in the year, I thought this would be an easy game for the defense to dominate an over matched inexperienced quarterback. That did not happen. Shonn Green is one hell of a running back, but so is Chris Wells and we kept him in check. How do you not play bump and run coverage on Iowa's wide receivers? Instead, our cornerbacks gave the wide outs eight yard cushions. Watching Iowa's recievers during the final quarter run freely off the snap is the reason they marched down the field to set up the game winning field goal. Where was the pressure from the linebackers? They dropped back into zone coverages and all they covered was grass. It was very frustrating seeing our defense play soft. It looked like a funeral on our sideline. Where was the intensity? Where was the Senior Leadership? Why didn't we have heaters on the sideline in a 33 degree game?

3. Daryll Clark 9-23 for 86 yards 1 interception with an average of 3.7 yards a pass is not going to win you a big ten road game. Derrick Willams one completion went for 23 yards. Clark was under considerable pressure most of the game. I thought it would've been a good idea to let Devlin take a series and air it out. It worked at Florida with Tim Tebow and Chris Leak, so I don't want to hear you can't rotate quarterbacks, especially with how ineffective Clark was.

4. Evan Royster 26 attempts for 90 yards and Stephfon Green 3 attempts for 31 yards. Why didn't Green have more rushing attempts. He brings the element of the big play every time he touches the ball. I'm not trying to bash Royster, he is a fantastic running back, but I thought mixing a little Green couldn't hurt. Hell, they put D wheels back at quarterback and ran direct snaps with him, could've did the same thing with Green.

Even though I am extremely disappointed with this loss both on a coaching and player performance level. I will still be very proud of an Big Ten Championship 11-1 squad going to the Rose Bowl to take on a extremely talented USC team. No one, not even myself, predicted this at seasons start. Lets take care of business in these next two weeks!

For the Glory