Sometimes on the first tee, you’ll get paired up with a single, and after a few holes it’s still hard to get a read on whether he’s a player or not. He’s tall, fit, and has a nice-looking swing, but he seems to spend almost as much time in the woods as on the fairway. He’ll drop a 25-footer for birdie on one hole and then three-putt from 10 feet on the next. At the end of the round, you’re not sure if he shot 78 or 88, but either way you’re left feeling that it should have been lower.
Five games into the season, we pretty much know what the Penn State defense is — a swarming, confident, ball-hawking bunch that stacks three-and-outs like James Franklin stacks 1-0s in a tweet (five more on Saturday). The special teams have been solid if unspectacular, with the occasional field-goal block or Jordan Stout 50-yard bomb thrown in here and there.
The offense? Lots of birdies, even an eagle or two. But even with arguably the best receiver in college football on the field, this group can’t seem to string a full 18 holes — err, four quarters — together. The Nittany Lions’ 24-0 victory in Beaver Stadium was mostly a slog of bogeys interspersed with the usual Jahan Dotson SportsCenter highlights and some nifty footwork from Sean Clifford.
