Editor’s Note: Every Monday Evening From Now Until the End of Spring Ball, FTB Unpacks All the Interesting/Unique/Quirky Play Calls We Saw During Mike Yurcich’s 1st Season as the Nittany Lions’ OC
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Shoehorned in the southwest corner of Beaver Stadium – a space that prior to 2000-2001 renovations was nothing more than a poorly-guarded corral of riding lawn mowers — the Penn State All-Sports Museum is a must-stop for any Nittany Lions fan looking to kill a few hours on a Football Weekend Friday.
This place has got everything: large pictures of James Franklin, small pictures of Bill O’Brien, a weighted dummy for lifting in the wrestling section to remind you how weak you are next to a scale (for some reason) to remind you how fat you are, a bench chair from Rene Portland’s embarrassing blowout loss in the 2000 Women’s Final Four, bowl trophies, useless trivia, John Cappelletti’s Heisman, and enough interactive touchscreens to keep Clorox stock (NYSE: CLX) viable in a volatile market.
Oh, almost forgot…the All-Sports Museum also contains former Penn State coach Rip Engle’s offensive playbook from the 1950s, a cool nugget current OC Mike Yurcich shared with beat reporters on a Zoom press conference last October. The way Yurcich spun the anecdote made it sound like museum curators let him thumb through Engle’s playbook, because inside of it he was shocked to find a shovel pass concept from 70 years ago that 100 percent mirrored his own.
It’s March 27 and Penn State is just about a full week into spring practice.
Too early to write about the quarterbacks?
Naaaaahhhhh.
We’ll start this piece with a caveat: It is very likely, given how tough it is for a true freshman quarterback to get up to Division I speed, James Franklin’s lengthy history of favoring the incumbent, and Sean Clifford’s enormity of experience as the incumbent, that Clifford will start every game and play the vast majority of the reps this season should he, the good Lord willing and Spring Creek don’t rise, stay healthy.
That said, let’s talk through a few scenarios that are less likely but – as are most things in college football – quite possible, and explore the pros and cons of Penn State rolling with a known or an unknown at the game’s most important position this fall.
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In Part 1 of our introduction to Manny Diaz, we used basic and advanced metrics to outline what immediate statistical impact he’s delivered in Year 1 as defensive coordinator throughout various stops in his coaching career.
Today, we’re gonna put Diaz’s body of work under a different microscope lens and compare how his teams have performed vs. past Penn State defenses and FBS defenses, at large. Coach Diaz has served as Defensive Coordinator or Head Coach in FBS since 2010 (2010 and 2015 Mississippi State, 2011-2013 Texas, 2014 Louisiana Tech, 2016-2021 Miami) and has commanded groups that have been above average in virtually every category in every year. But how did he stack up against Penn State – a program that has some incredible defenses and legendary players in the last decade-plus? How much should we temper our expectations (or not)?
Let’s find out…
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Now that Penn State’s first spring practice is officially in the books, the bitter, lingering aftertaste of the way up then way down 2021 season has been chased by our first shot of hope. This year, a key ingredient mixed in the collective Kool-Aid we all seem to guzzle around mid-March is the hire of new defensive coordinator Manny Diaz – The Father of the Turnover Chain and the former DC and Head Coach of Miami. Manny Diaz comes to Penn State with an impressive pedigree as a defensive coordinator that includes various stops at places like Middle Tennessee (2006-2009), Mississippi State – twice (2010 and 2015), Texas (2011-2013), Louisiana Tech (2014), and Miami (2016-2018 as DC; 2019-2021 as Head Coach).
Diaz’s lengthy resume got us wondering, “How have Diaz’s Year 1 defenses compared to what the departed DC did the previous season?” Well, we found out.
Because our tracking only dates back to 2009, we’re gonna start our analysis during Diaz’s first of two pit stops at Mississippi State (to FTB’s loyal Blue Raider readership, sorry). As always, we’re going to look at everything – from basic stats to more advanced stats — to determine Diaz’s immediate impact on a defense.
Sandy Barbour announced this week that she will retire this summer, leaving Penn State with a vacancy at the head of its athletic department at the same time its new president, Neela Bendapudi, is transitioning into the big chair.
Athletic directors – not unlike quarterbacks and head coaches – usually receive disproportionate amounts of blame and credit for failure or success, but it’s still a crucial hire for Bendapudi and the university’s board of trustees, one that could shape the future for one of the country’s largest athletic departments and its prominent and not-so-prominent teams.
Instead of getting into the list of potential candidates, today we’ll look at some of the tasks that will await Barbour’s successor, in rough order of importance.
Editor’s Note: Every Monday Evening From Now Until the End of Spring Ball, FTB Unpacks All the Interesting/Unique/Quirky Play Calls We Saw During Mike Yurcich’s 1st Season as the Nittany Lions’ OC
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With 11:25 remaining and Penn State clinging to a precarious 1-point lead over Auburn, life imitated Electronic Arts.
If the design of Brenton Strange’s slow-footed trot to the 2 – arguably the funkiest play in a Barnum & Bailey three-ring Whiteout that had failed fat-man fake punts, phantom Intentional Groundings, and a down that POOF vanished into thin air — looked familiar in the moment, well then there’s a good chance that you, like us, wasted too many days playing EA’s old NCAA Football video game franchise.
Indeed, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.”