The Penn State Football Show

Please excuse my absence last week, it was Minnesota. I had to work last Saturday so I missed the game. But from what I can surmise, Penn State still played pretty lousy. We had 21 hung on us by a 1 win team. That's not good. Obviously I can't comment on much else from last week so I'll just skip on to this week.

Michigan comes to town in what many are calling a must win for Rich Rodriquez. He has yet to produce a valuable win for his program and with the struggling Nittany Lions, he may be able to silence his nay-sayers temporarily. The Wolverines play football like I would imagine the Denver Nuggets would play...all offense, no defense, a few terrible passes, turnovers, sloppy play, but in the end they win most of their games. From the little that I have seen of the Maize and Blue this year, I have been impressed with the ability of Denard Robinson as a runner, but his decisions throwing the ball can occasionally be worse than the Mets' front office. The team as a whole is mistake prone, they drop passes, and this is what Penn State needs to take advantage of in order to come away with a victory Saturday night.

PSU cannot get into a shoot out. They only put up 33 points against the worst defense in the Big Ten, so the defense will probably have to hold Michigan under 28 points to have a shot. Michigan's defense is nothing to brag about, and they almost gave away a game to Div. 1-AA UMass. We saw Rob Bolden come out on fire last game, but since then he's been questionable to play due to a concussion. Rumors have it that he passed his medical exam Wednesday and could play. Whether he does, we shall see.

Despite all of Michigan's woes, they are still a very athletic team that Penn State will have a hard time stopping. The linebacker play to this point in the season has been disappointing to say that least, but the return of Gerald Hodges last game was huge. He has tremendous speed and will most likely be used as a spy on Robinson. Michael Mauti has been playing fairly well recently as well and he really looks to be another great at LinebackerU.

Offensively for Penn State, they got things rolling a bit against Minnesota which was encouraging. There was more passing on first down, more play action, and the pass protection was, again, pretty decent. The running game got going a little, but it was due more to the hard running of Royster and vision and shiftiness of Silas Redd. Moye continues to play well, and the WR's overall played well. Points will be scored on Saturday...Penn State just needs to limit mistakes, but stay aggressive.

My current prediction is a Michigan win, but part of this is due to the uncertainty surrounding Bolden's status. If he is good to go, and if he can play without any adverse effects, I say Penn State wins by a field goal. God, I hate Michigan.

Fight on

Sitting in the stands at Beaver Stadium last Saturday, watching the crowd filter out before the end of the 3rd quarter, I started questioning the last time I saw a Penn State team play this bad. The answer I came up with was a few of the games in 2004. These two teams (2004 & 2010) have very similar features. They are young, inexperienced and lacking a leader/playmaker on both sides of the ball. The only problem is, I think this 2010 team has more talent. So to see a performance like the Illinois game, AT HOME, is extremely frustrating.

The attrition on defense is certainly a problem. Clearly, the defense looked uninspired and extremely lackluster, but I think you have to look at the personnel. For most of the second half, true freshman DT DaQuann Jones was playing DE and two freshman, Malcolm Willis and Stephon Ogben-Agyapong, who really have not seen much time, were shuffling in at Strong Safety and looked lost out there. The LB corp has bent to the point of a complete break so I'm wondering...where is the other stud LB recruit Mike Hull? The problem with all the injuries is the guys who are injured need to play for this team to get better. Sitting on the sidelines for the next 2 months is a wash and we are back at square one in the spring.

I was not aware of the rumors of dissension among the coaching staff, but I think there are some areas of concern. As Pete stated, I also noticed a few players celebrating big hits/tackles after significant Illinois gains. I too cannot stand this. Its like pimping a solo Home Run in the bottom of the 9th when you are losing 7-1. I saw Khairi Fortt make a nice tackle for about a 1-2 yard gain late in the 4th quarter and then come up and make a celebratory gesture. This looks bad and indicates we have a bunch of individual players rather than a cohesive unit. I expect these kind of things from the Florida States and Miamis...not Joe Paterno's Penn State.

Furthermore, what is going on with Derrick Thomas and Sean Stanley? Why are their absences going undisclosed? I mean, Joe is quick to tell us that true freshman Paul Jones is having academic inadequacies; Brandon Ware is in the doghouse for physical, mental and academic instabilities; and we all know about the documented legal issues of the recent past that Joe did not hesitate to comment on. So, why keep it quite with these guys?

Lastly, the problems with the run game are clearly a result of an offensive line who does not like to be physical and play trench-warfare football. And, there have been a few times this year when we fail to pick up 1 yard on 3rd and 4th down. I still think running Stephon Green up the middle on 3rd-and-short is a senseless play. So, my question is, where is Curtis Dukes? I thought this guy was supposed to be a stud? And he is the biggest, strongest back we have. Why not give him some touches?

Feel free to shed some insight and provide some answers to these questions. Hopefully the bye-week patches up some of the holes because this ship is taking on some serious water and heading under fast.

The loss last weekend to Illinois was one of the worst games I've ever seen Penn State play. They played four quarters of completely uninspired football. The team just did not come to play at all. I really can't think of any bright spots from the game. All facets of the team played lousy.

The thing that annoyed me most was there were a few instances where Illinois ran for a big gain, but then a PSU defender made a vicious hit to get him down, and the guy who made the tackle celebrated his big hit. The most glaring case of this was Drew Astorino after a run of about 40 yards. If the other team gains 40 yards on you in one play, you don't get up and celebrate. I don't care how hard you hit him. Especially when they are dominating the game! This happened a few times and this indicates to me that the mindset of the players is not in the right spot. That is the crap that Penn State usually does not do, but I saw it a few times on Saturday and it really bothered me. The coaches need to get this team on track or they may not win another game this season.

I've heard a lot of bad rumors regarding dissension among the coaching staff. I won't repeat them because at this time they are nothing more than rumors. But I think it is clear that Joe does not have control of this football team, and nobody else seems to either. Something needs to be done.

Wisconsin will beat #1 Ohio State this weekend.

I honestly was at a loss for words during most of the Illinois game. I'm used to seeing Penn State offenses play terrible, which they did. But I haven't seen a defense that bad since the Iraqi Royal Army in 2003. We made Nathan Scheelhaase look like Joe Montana. Our usually solid linebacking corps was easier to get through than panties on prom night. The lone bright spot was Nick Sukay getting yanked and never seeing the field again. That kid sucks at defense. He's a good athlete with great hands, and the way Zug is dropping passes like they're going to give him cooties I think we can work this kid in.

Last year this was the game where Penn State finally got their running game going behind a huge burst from Stephfon Green. Who will it be this year? Someone. Like Pete said, Penn State finally plays a game with someone on roughly equal footing. Both are starting freshman quarterbacks, both have decent defenses and both really haven't played too well so far this season. Penn State has more talent, but they really haven't put that talent to very good use thus far whereas Illinois gave Ohio State a run for their money.

Going back to the Iowa game for a minute, I want to solely look at a few things that I was happy with. Ollie Ogbu is getting off the line very fast and disrupting the backfield. He really turned it on last game. If he keeps this up, he will probably see more double teams opening up the linebackers. This is what Odrick did, and what earned him such accolades. D'Anton Lynn has become a very solid player. I can't think of a play where he got beat in the air (unlike Morris) and he came up and made a few nice tackles. Sukay continues to get better after that horrible Alabama game. He had a nice pick and took some great angles to the running back to make a few good plays. Fortt came in to play quite a bit, which I was pleased to see. The guy is a monster. He had one play where he shed a block and made a big tackle. With all the injuries plaguing the linebacking corps, he can really make a an impact this weekend. On the other side of the ball, Justin Brown is beginning to emerge. With the drops that Zug has had, I expect Brown to overtake him. He made some great catches and he's a big target. I am just waiting for him to explode, I think he's going to be amazing. Lastly, Royster had some very tough runs. He didn't get too many carries, and there obviously wasn't much room to run against the best defensive line in the country, but I liked what I saw.

Hopefully the team can fix their mistakes and keep the good things going. The defense overall played very well after the first quarter, and this will be a big home game for these guys. Illinois doesn't have much firepower, but they are a decent team. Penn State really is the much more athletic, and I expect them to impose their will. Ohio State last weekend was more conservative than Ted Nugent, and they kept Illinois in the game. Penn State needs to go out, have fun, and play up to their potential.

Everyone keeps yapping about opening up the playbook, do this do that...but Paterno is right...it's all about execution. Their play selection hasn't been that bad (the QB keep on 4th and goal was the right call) but they just aren't doing some things correctly. I expect them to have that corrected this week and the Lions will make like a bunch of homecoming floats and roll.

Greatest Bar for the game. Who's coming?

I could see this game going either way. Illinois looked pretty good last weekend. It all depends on how the offensive line holds up. If they are able to control the line of scrimmage and generate a running game, Penn State will win. If they are unable to run the ball, it could be yet another Lion loss. This is probably the closest match-up PSU has had so far this year, and will be the best indicator of where they are at.