The Penn State Football Show

Pete, I agree with you that Northwestern is incredibly dangerous. Their offense under Persa is very efficient. He's a good player and will create some problems, but he's also coming off of a major injury and isn't quite as mobile as he was last year when his team put up 21 points in the first half. The defense on the other hand is terrible. The fewest points they have given up all year was 17 in week one to a Boston College team that doesn't know their ass from their elbow. Since then they have lost to Army, Illinois, Michigan, and Iowa, where they surrendered 41 points...although one of the TDs was a TAINT (Touchdown-after-interception).

Iowa's offense came into Happy Valley as the best passing attack in the Big Ten. Shut down. Northwestern will be a different type of challenge, but when you look at games like this it's pretty simple: the PSU defense will give up somewhere around 17-21 points. Can the offense score more? That's it. Last year McGloin played hero to Joe's 400th victory en route to a total offensive output of 530 yards and a defensive effort that didn't give up a point in the second half. I think this might finally be the day we see Penn State put some points up against legitimate competition.

Silas Redd has been a godsend. He's 18th in the country in rushing yards and is the only person in the top 50 that doesn't have a rush over 25 yards. What does that mean? It means he's getting good yardage, but not quite breaking one. It tells me that the defenses are playing run, and having their secondary focusing on him. They don't have their backs turned covering a receiver...they are watching Silas, making sure he doesn't get past their last line of defense. Now, with how bad Northwestern's pass defense is, I expect PSU to come out winging it and I expect results. The run defense isn't much better. Army ran for 381 yards against them and completed 1-7 passes on the day for 6 yards. The moral of the story: Penn State could run the ball on every play and still beat this team. Playcalling and execution will win the game, and I think they've had enough time to figure out that reverses are stupid, and they should really just run off tackle and throw in some tosses and misdirection.

Getting to 7-1 would be huge before their final 2 game homestand against Illinois and Nebraska. Every game is winnable with a great defense, and although Penn State has faltered against some pretty inferior competition in Purdue and Indiana, I think they've learned their lessons and should be able to work over those purple-panted-poopball-players. Taking care of business - 31-17 good cats