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Though it remains cloudy whether the famous author coined the phrase, it’s a known fact that in the 1880s Mark Twain popularized the line, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.”
In other words, numbers can prove both sides of any argument, no matter how radical or preposterous…a premise like, oh I don’t know, Mike Yurcich’s 2023 offense was the most efficient of any Penn State attack in the James Franklin Era when the ball crossed opponents’ 20-yard-line.
According to our friends at teamrankings.com, last year’s Penn State squad ranked 5th in the FBS in Red Zone Scoring Percentage (94.64%) and T-7th in FBS in Red Zone Attempts per Game (4.7). So, while it certainly seemed like the Nittany Lions became lifeless and stagnant as the field shrank (shrunk?) – and that Yurcich’s limited list of concepts inside the 20 and repetitive use of bread-and-butter alignments (cough, T Formation, cough) were the major culprits of that perception – statistically speaking, new Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki has some Shaq-like size 22 shoes to fill in that particular department.
