An Effort Worthy of the Opponent
A visit from the Bowling Green Falcons may not inspire excitement, but the team that showed up in Morgantown has the look of one we’ll have plenty of reason to cheer.
Sponsor: FTB’s 2024 Penn State football coverage is sponsored by the Sports Medicine specialists at Concierge Medical Associates. Schedule an in-person or remote consultation at: conciergemedical.ai
When facing an opponent the caliber of Bowling Green, distraction is one of the greatest perils facing an ultra-talented team like Penn State, dreaming ambitious dreams and coming off the sort of exhilarating win that suggests they might just come true. With such promise on the horizon, you risk losing focus on the little details that make your immediate present a path to that imagined future.
While I don’t believe our Nittany Lions, relentlessly bombarded with – and seemingly bought into – Coach Franklin’s “1-0 this week” mantra, are at any risk of falling prey to this phenomenon, I’m sorry to report that I cannot say the same for myself. So here is my confession: This week’s column received the same treatment I routinely gave my homework, delayed and deferred until the 11th hour and 59th minute.
This Fall is shaping up to be the best kind of chaotic as I balance a suddenly-loaded schedule of media responsibilities covering the Nittany Lions. Fans can hear can me weekly on the Keystone Sports Network and Obligatory PSU Podcast (thanks for all those new FTB Donors Club memberships!) and on the radio daily from 1-2pm on 98.7fm The Fox, read these weekly pregame columns here on For The Blogy, and catch The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show all season long on FTB’s YouTube, including the debut of live shows on home game weekends – a first for the show in its nine-year history. In addition to all of this, I’m prepping to teach a course on the History of Penn State Football for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) that begins next week. I am spinning a lot of plates, and they’re all full. No complaints, mind you. I am very fortunate and grateful for every opportunity, but especially as this week’s workload got bogged down with prework for our first live YouTube broadcast at 5pm Friday at The We Are Inn, the task of writing this column got buried ever deeper on a long to-do list.
To make matters worse, I have been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson lately, and the king of Gonzo Journalism’s inimitable runaway-train-of-thought style has inevitably influenced my own thinking whenever I finally sit down to write. So this week we won’t have an opus of deep thoughts and deeply considered structure. You’re instead getting my meandering stream of consciousness on Penn State football coming off an impressive win in Morgantown before a routine tune-up against a standard MAC-rifice. The team cannot, should not, and will not take Bowling Green lightly, because this group, which has the feel of a player-led squad, is focused on the incremental path toward lofty achievement. I, on the other hand, can freely admit that I’m offering up an effort worthy of this week’s opponent.
They can’t all be timeless classics.
And while I doubt we’ll be assigning that status to last Saturday’s beatdown of the Mountaineers, Penn State’s 50th victory against West Virginia in a very one-sided “rivalry,” I won’t be shocked if we look back on some of the pleasant surprises that emerged on a muggy afternoon in Morgantown as harbingers of the classics to come. Foremost among them might be the emergence of Badass Drew Allar. Although I didn’t notice Drew sporting any facial hair, spectators could be forgiven if they thought that perhaps an evil twin or parallel universe doppelganger had replaced the timid and hesitant first-year starter of 2023 who openly wept after falling short in Columbus and shrank from the season’s biggest moments. From the very first offensive snap of the game, when Allar got right up in the official’s mug strenuously making his case that WVU’s defense had illegally mimicked the snap count to draw off Penn State’s offensive line, there was something different about the one-time top recruit. From the much-replayed stiff arm and gloriously captured smack talk afterward (I enjoy a good slomo F-bomb from my QB) to the key moments when he decisively tucked the ball and made West Virginia pay for abandoning the middle of the field, Drew Allar looked like a man in control, enjoying himself in full command of the offense. The dude looked like a quarterback.
If that is the version of Allar we are getting this season, then the skeptics about this team within the Penn State fanbase (/raises hand) may need to adjust their expectations upward, and the rest of the Big Ten had better watch out. Even though I am reluctant to attribute his transformation completely to new OC Andy Kotelnicki, it’s hard not to get excited about how fluid, dynamic, and creative State’s offense looked against the Mountaineers. When James Franklin brought in Joe Moorhead to revitalize a struggling offense, the 2016 Big Ten champions took until the fourth quarter of their fifth game to start putting it all together. If last weekend is any indication, the 2024 Lions are well ahead of that schedule. With all the cautionary caveats of a one-game sample size (we’re all now crowning USC without determining whether LSU might just stink), an offensive line replacing three starters looked comfortable, Nick Singleton looked like Nick Singleton again, Drew Allar looked like a man possessed, and Andy’s mad scientist offensive scheme appeared as advertised. We were promised explosive plays, and we got them.
It wasn’t just Kotelnicki burdened with high expectations either. Former Indiana head coach Tom Allen faced the unenviable task of replacing a respected and beloved predecessor – Penn State’s defensive players obviously enjoyed playing for Manny Diaz and clearly still respect him – while maintaining a standard of performance set by the nation’s third-ranked defense despite losing two edge rushers, a top linebacker, and three corners to the NFL. To recycle some 80s movies references I cooked up for an earlier episode of the Obligatory podcast, if Andy Kotelnicki’s job was to turn a broke-down beater ambulance of an offense into a cool, memorable Ecto-1, then Allen’s task was to avoid crashing Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari. (I warned you about the self-indulgent stream of consciousness. It’s Bowling Green week, folks. Buy the ticket; take the ride.) Did Allen answer the bell in his debut in Blue and White?
As something of a connoisseur of great Penn State defense, I think so. The stars shined for the Nittany Lions. K.J. Winston, en route to Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week honors, and fellow safety (er, Lion) Jaylen Reed played like heat-seeking missiles (to say nothing of the solid afternoon from third safety Zakee Wheatley). Tony Rojas built on the promising foundation of his freshman campaign to turn in an afternoon worthy of a starting spot at Linebacker U. The highly touted defensive line stifled a potent West Virginia rushing attack and caused turnovers. Youngsters (Elliot Washington’s INT) and newcomers (A.J. Harris, Jalen Kimber) in the secondary settled right in, and the whole group played complementary football as Allen seemed comfortable and confident as a playcaller.
If there was a question about the 2024 Nittany Lions heading into what many (incredibly, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer among them) believed could be a possible upset, the team showed up prepared with an emphatic response. Time will tell whether these positive indicators are definitive answers or just temporary mirages, but as Bowling Green comes to town with an early first bye week and the equally uninspiring Golden Flashes of Kent State to follow, James Franklin and his staff will have plenty of opportunities to build on the encouraging effort the team put forth in its opener.
This season’s schedule may not demand an A+ column here in Week 2, but if the first 1-0 of 2024 is any indication, it may yet inspire some bangers before the leaves fall.
Three for the Road
What will I be looking for when Penn State takes the field on Saturday?
- Field Goal Kicking: For the second year in a row, Sander Sahaydak, once upon a time the top-ranked kicker in his recruiting class, shanked an attempt so badly you made that “gritted teeth emoji” face. I doubt there will be a lot of field goal attempt against the Falcons, but if the opportunities arise, will Chase Meyer or Ryan Barker get a shot?
- Pass Rush: Saturday’s game offers the chance to clean up the offsides penalties from last week, which were one of the few negatives on the day (along with the missed FG). As mentioned above, the defense performed admirably containing Garrett Greene as a run threat, the decidedly less mobile Connor Bazelak (-216 career rush yards) presents an opportunity for the pass rush to get home and for Abdul Carter and/or DDS to notch their first sacks of the season.
- Wi-fi: Penn State didn’t have to say anything, but they did, waiting until the final week before the home opener to tout the “135 new hotspots” installed throughout Beaver Stadium as part of the renovation’s first phase. Will this key addition finally pull the old erector set fully into the 21st century? We will soon find out.
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