The Penn State Football Show

Thoughts on 2009:

For me, personally, 2009 was a pretty boring football season all around. We have been spoiled the past few years with some awesome college football filled with shocking upsets (App. State over Michigan!! Stanford over USC) and unbelievably dramatic games (Boise State over Oklahoma, Texas over USC, Texas Tech over Texas). Maybe it’s just me, but this year just seemed to be kind of lacking. Overall I found myself much less interested in college football this year than I typically am. Nevertheless, I still watched my share of college football, so here are my thoughts on the past year:

We all pretty much agreed heading in to this season that Penn State’s schedule was set up beautifully for the Lions in 2009. The two biggest games, Iowa and Ohio State, were both at home. The game against the Hawkeyes was a night game at Beaver Stadium, and it was the Big Ten opener, with last year’s crushing last-second defeat at Iowa fresh on the minds of all players and fans. It was a recipe for great revenge for the Lions. The current state of Michigan football made this year’s trip to the Big House not nearly as intimidating as usual. Penn State dodged the Badgers on the schedule this year, and the non-conference opponents consisted of four cream puffs once again. Heading in to the season, I heard many Penn State fans express the same feelings that I had: An undefeated regular season was well in reach, and anything less would pretty much be a disappointment. Realistically though, most people knew that 11-0 is a lot to ask for, and a 10-1 mark is not too shabby.

We all know what happened. The Lions handled all of the opponents that they should have, and lost in the only two tough games that they played. I guess this is why it was kind of a boring season. But a lot of people take those wins for granted, when taking care of business each week is not as easy as people assume. It’s easy to sleep against an inferior opponent at some point during the season (Ohio State against Purdue, Iowa against Northwestern), but PSU managed to avoid this, and that should be commended.
The efforts against Iowa and Ohio State were very poor and disappointing, especially on the offensive side of the football, where they couldn’t do a thing. The early non-conference wins were pretty sloppy and ugly, but the team hit full stride in an impressive performance in Ann Arbor. Overall, a solid season, but again, with the way the schedule was set up for them, you couldn’t help but be a little disappointed.

So sitting at 10-2 after the regular season, it really came down to the Bowl Game to determine whether or not this year was a success. Win, and they notch a solid W over a tough SEC opponent that has been one of the nation’s premiere programs over that past 10 years. Lose, and it’s a 10-3 season with 10 wins that they were expected to win and 3 losses in the only three difficult games they had all year. I would call that an unsuccessful season.

The conditions at the Capital One Bowl were clearly horrendous, so it’s hard to take a whole lot from the game. It’s pathetic that the field was in such poor condition, but that’s a whole different discussion. I thought Penn State was clearly the better team in the game. They could have put it away by finishing off some drives, but settling for field goals kept the game close when it shouldn’t’ have been. The defense played great, shutting down LSU for almost the entire game. The offense moved the ball all game long, and the performance by the offensive line was very impressive. Perhaps they were aided by the conditions, but they were much more successful than LSU’s o-line, so perhaps not. It was a good game, and a very big win for Penn State and the Big Ten. With the bowl victory, I think you have to say that 2009 was a pretty good year for Penn State. Maybe not what we had hoped for, but it could have been much worse. You can’t complain about an 11 win season.

I would just like to add a few points to wrap up the 2009 season...

As for the Capital One Bowl...I think it is difficult and pointless to take anything away from a bowl game. The bowl game marks the ending of one season and the beginning of the next and the only thing that matters is a win. No style points. No moral victories. That being said, Penn State did what it needed to do to cap off a good season. I think we were the better team and dominated most of the game. If we cash just one of those field goals into a touchdown, it is LSU playing late-game-spoiler rather than PSU. Most of all, I feel good for Daryll Clark. Hopefully now, his legacy will hold a little more credibility. I still think he ranks among the best of PSU QB's.

As for the National Championship...very disappointed to see Colt McCoy go down early. That really tarnished the whole game. I really felt sorry for the kid. His whole career came down to this game and to see it all wash down the drain like that must have been devastating. Hopefully, he has a successful NFL career to ease some of the pain.

I agree that Alabama should have taken a knee to end the game rather than scoring again. I thought Saban was a classy guy and did things the right way?

As for next season's Penn State-Alabama game...I dont see Penn State beating Alabama next year due to our uncertainty at QB coupled with the fact that it is the second game of the season, but I think you can make their offense one-dimensional. Defense will be a key in that game and I think Penn State will compete but we can get into all that stuff later. I view this series much like the Notre Dame series. I will give them 2010 but I am pumped for their visit to the Valley in 2011!

Note to all the Big Ten bashers out there: The Big Ten has 3 teams ranked in the Top 10 at season’s end…a season which had five undefeated teams heading into the bowl games. Additionally, each of these three teams proved to be the better team in their respective bowl game. It is clear that the Big Ten is a different brand/style of football, but can we really still call it an inferior conference?

Food for thought: Since 2005, only 11 D-IA college football teams have won 50 games. Penn State is one of them with 51 while Boise State and Texas lead with 58!

Oh yeah

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State was one of three Big Ten Conference teams to finish in the Top 10 of the final Associated Press and USA Today coaches' polls released today.

It was the highest total among any conference and marked only the fourth time in the past 48 years that the Big Ten has had three teams finish in the Top 10.

Penn State (11-2) ended up No. 9 in the AP poll and No. 8 in the coaches' poll, while Ohio State and Iowa were No. 5 and No. 7, respectively, in both polls.

1) Alabama not putting the knee down with 50 seconds left and instead scoring again....despite being up 10 and Texas not being able to stop the clock. Classless

2) Holding 4 fingers up going into the 4th quarter. Enough of this shit already. Everyone and their mother does it....so who cares? "It's the 4th quarter! OMG!" Dude, shut up. We know. That's why the ref blew his whistle and you're changing sides of the field. What really pisses me off about this is that every fan and players on BOTH teams do this....even the teams that are getting blown out. Why are you so happy it's the last quarter of the game? You are closer to your demise. Ughhhh

3) The Gatorade bath. Who cares anymore. It was cool a long time ago, but now you're just ruining clothing. I don't care what kind of laundry detergent you've got....you're being a dick.

4) Michelob Ultra commercials. For those that are unaware, these commercials show people doing outdoor activities and exercising the day after drinking their Mick Ultra, clearly marketing toward health conscious individuals. But hey....guess what? Natty Light has the same amount of calories. Get a better product or just shut up.

5) Mark Ingram's Dad. The dude is in prison for a serious criminal offense. Who gives a shit if he can watch his son play in the national championship? Maybe he shouldn't have laundered money and committed bank fraud. How about giving someone else's dad some pub....maybe one that ins't incarcerated. This reminds me of a game when Penn State was playing MSU and Jeff Smoker was the MSU quarterback. The announcers would not get off Smoker's balls about him recovering from a drug addiction. They praised him allll game long and didn't even give mention to his teammates...the ones that never got addicted to drugs in the first place.

What kind of message is this sending people? My future plan is to get arrested after some grand larceny and assault, then I am going to get my kids addicted to crack so that one day they overcome their addiction and play football and the announcers can praise them about what they've overcome and talk about how great it is that I can watch my wonderful children play football while in prison.

6) Dave Matthews Band should never be played during a football game. Period. This isn't soccer

Lastly, I would just like to say that Colt McCoy is a terrific individual, and it is really unfortunate that someone that really cared about his university could not help them win a national championship.

I have Sept. 11, 2010 circled on my calendar (or I would if my parents had got me one like they normally do for Christmas). I would love to stick it to Saban....jabroni