The Penn State Football Show

It was good to see JoePa finally get his 400th victory, but I feel the same way about it that Joe does...its just something to fill sportswriters' columns and ESPN highlight reels. Don't get me wrong, it is a great honor and I'm glad it is our guy doing it, but coming into the game, Joe was the only major college football coach with 399 wins so why is 400 so publicized? No retort needed on that last question but, at the end of the day, the most important game on the schedule is the next one.

I think the Michigan game was about as good as this team can play for 60 minutes. On the contrary, the Northwestern game was a microcosm of what this team is capable of...in both halves. The anemic offense and sloppy defense in the first half is an example of how ugly this team can look if they play with no inspiration and no desire. They are simply not good enough to just show up and beat the middle-of-the-pack teams. On the other hand, the second half is an example of how exciting this team can be if they put things together and play fundamental Penn State football. Again, like we often see with PSU games, credit the coaching staff for the physical and emotional halftime adjustments.

As for the last 3 games...I think you have to begin to give some credit to the coaching staff for all of the adjustments they have made with this team from week to week. It is a lot easier to draw up plays and shuffle around X's and O's when your personnel is established and quite polished (i.e. 2008, 2009). But with this team, there were a lot of personnel questions heading into the season. And to couple the fact that there is a laundry list of injuries, it makes the recent success of this team rather impressive. I can imagine a lot of late hours were spent trying to figure out which combinations will work best. I mean, we have a former walk-on playing QB, a recently converted WR starting at corner, a freshman playing strong safety, DT's playing DE, and to top it off, we have Offensive Tackles catching Touchdown passes! Credit the coaches for this transformation into a respectable football team.

Granted, Minnesota-Michigan-Northwestern are not nearly the cream of the College Football crop, but for this team to be where it's at after that horrific Illinois loss is encouraging. The season is not lost and next week at Ohio State could be interesting. Ohio State is good and we need to put it all together for 60 minutes and be nearly flawless to have a chance.

As for the QB situation...I think this is a good problem to have. I still don't believe in the 2-QB system but it's nice to know if one guy is ineffective, we might have a shot with the other. I think they need to open up the competition again this week at practice and see who has the best week. The winner starts at Ohio State but has a short leash because 3 or 4 sluggish series in Columbus could be the difference between a close game and a blowout.

Finally, you gotta love the production from Silas Redd lately. This kid really gives the running game a jolt of energy. At one point I thought that Stephfon Green was a good compliment to Royster but with this team and with this O-Line, it looks like Redd is more effective in that he creates his own holes and makes big runs out of almost nothing. Royster's record might be short lived!

Like most people, I really didn't see that win over Michigan coming. I knew their defense was weak, but with Bolden out, I figured Penn State would struggle on offense. There was no doubt the Lions would have a hard time containing the Michigan offense, and I figured it would be a blowout in Michigan's favor. Clearly I was wrong.

It will be interesting to see what happens from here. Does that win give the team some much needed confidence and turn the whole season around? Or will the Lions go back to playing like crap and prove it was just a fluke. I really have no inclination of which side to believe because I could see it going either way. But to be honest, if I had to take a guess, I'd say Penn State reverts back to the way they played before the Michigan game and continues to struggle all season.

I was really impressed with McGloin given the situation. He did everything he was asked and led Penn State to scoring drive after scoring drive on their way to a huge win. All of that after only receiving one week's worth of first-team practice reps. It was clear to anyone who watched the game that the playbook was very limited for the game. But it worked brilliantly as Michigan couldn't stop it. How many times did they run the bootleg rollout for a first down to either Bracket over the middle or Zug along the sideline? As Albright kept reminding me though, all of the points may be a bigger indication of how terribile Michigan's defense is than how good Penn State's offense is. Nevertheless, that's two straight games with 30+ points, so the offense has been performing well, and I was very impressed with the offensive line in particular, which is a great sign. The defense still has a long way to go, which is very uncharacteristic. However, Michigan's offense is very tough to defend, so it's not the end of the world.

In regards to the upcoming game, I think as long as Bolden is healthy, you have to go with him. Yes, McGloin played well last week, but Bolden is the guy, and he was playing his best football against Minnesota before he got hurt. I'm eager to see him continue to make progress. I could see this game going either way. I think it will be close and high scoring. I will say Northwestern ends up coming out on top just because I'm still not convinced Penn State is a good football team. However, if they do manage to win this one, I think it's clear they are a team on the rise that could close out the season on a high note with some big upsets.

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.