As Penn State enters 2024 toting a sack full of question marks at WR, the lion’s share of optimism related to the passing game rests inside Andy Kotelnicki’s big, beautiful brain.

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Little inside peek at how the digital sausage is made here at For The Blogy…

In early July, I received this less-than-concise email from my editor:

It feels like 100 percent of the optimism around the Penn State passing game entering 2024 isn’t that the WRs improve, or Drew Allar takes the next step, BUT RATHER that Andy Kotelnicki can “scheme guys open.” I’ve heard this mentioned multiple times on various outlets.

So here’s the article: 1. Intro: Is “scheming guys open” real, or it is just some bulls**t talking point pundits use when you’re stuck with mediocre skill guys? Then 2. The Beef: If that’s the case, just how does Andy Kotelnicki scheme guys open?

Thankfully, the answer to Question 1 is an emphatic YES…or else, this would have been a real Shetland Pony of a blog post.

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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 5^th in the FBS in Red Zone Scoring Percentage (94.64%) and T-7^th 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.

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For new Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, the “why” behind his prevalent use of RPOs – the three-letter cornerstone of modern football that’s often treated like a repulsive four-letter word while keyboard thumpers melt on message boards – is best explained through a childhood toy for nerds.

It’s called a Hoberman Sphere. If your parents never bought you one, congratulations.

Invented before fun, the Hoberman Sphere is a colorful, plastic, finger-pinching geodesic dome capable of massive contraction/expansion that can be either symmetrical or irregular depending on which jagged joints are pushed and/or pulled. If you got suckered into chaperoning school field trips to any Science Center or Children’s Museum in the past 30 or so years, you’ve likely seen stacks of them in the gift shop go untouched.

So what the heck does this have to do with Kotelnicki’s catalog of RPOs?

Glad you asked, lazy transition device.

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Welp, the highly-anticipated season finale and last unchecked NY6 bowl win “box” on Penn State’s program checklist was a tough watch. No way around it. Season-long themes remained true: out of sync, stagnancy that produced little to no explosive offense. It’s also worth noting that PSU was missing some of their top players.  Negatives aside, let’s take a look at one of, if not the only, exciting offensive play of the afternoon.

Fun.

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“You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been. – Maya Angelou.”

 –James Franklin, possibly*

Starting tomorrow until some random late May 2024 afternoon when those antiquated college football preview magazines hit the shelves at what’s left of Barnes & Noble Booksellers (just a stack of Star Trek Funko Pops and a scattering of road atlases last time I checked), we’ll be Quasimodo-ing it in our depressing 1-bedroom  apartments, sifting through film after film after film and marveling over the magnificent schematic sandcastles new Penn State OC Andy Kotelnicki molded during his days at Kansas and Buffalo.

But, for now, let’s take one last glimpse at the moist, amorphous pile of washed-away dirt left on the shoreline that was the 2023 Penn State offense…if, for no other reason, to identify which specific offensive concepts Kotelnicki needs to lug his shovel and pale to and patch up first.

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Best for last, right? Penn State’s regular-season finale included explosive runs, explosive passes, and jussssst enough competency on offense for the fanbase rightly laud the substitute-teaching job conducted by Co-OC’s Ja’Juan Seider and Ty Howle. Heck, a few brazen message board warriors pounded their dust/crumb infested keyboards asking for Penn State head coach James Franklin to consider an internal promotion of Seider or Howle (or both…because we still aren’t sure who was actually calling the plays).

Not to be all Debbie Downer, but for what it’s worth, every concept PSU ran this past Saturday Friday had been called dozens of times during the  mostly-forgettable Mike Yurcich era.

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Penn State’s newly-elevated play-calling Orthrus wasted no time putting the Scarlet Knights on notice that they’d have to respect Beau Pribula as a runner.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Despite our unrealistic hopes and dreams, Coach Seider and Coach Howle’s first career game as co-playcallers, the offense was kept pretty vanilla. Bummer.

Although a lot of us hoped they would reinvent the wheel in their 6 days as interim lever-pullers of the Nittany Lion offense, the risk of coloring too outside the lines against an inferior opponent and jeopardizing Penn State’s shot at a NY6 by playing too fast and loose far outweighed the reward of showing potential employers how cute and clever they can be when picking plays off a laminated sheet.

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Umm…so…yeah.

A lot has transpired in the PSU football world since the Nittany Lions 9-point loss to Michigan on Saturday. For those of you residing the path of a massive windstorm/tsunami/blizzard/bomb cyclone that knocked out power for the past 36 hours, Penn State now has a vacancy at offensive coordinator after Coach James Franklin made the executive decision to part ways with Mike Yurcich.

Having studied Yurcich’s offense for years now, going as far as charting every play from last season, I can conclude that he is a very bright offensive mind and will better whatever program hires him next. However, I’d advise Yurcich to leave Saturday’s “performance” vs. Michigan off his resume when he fires up the copiers at Kinko’s in the near future.

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When it comes to ‘creativity’ in football, beauty isn’t in the eye of the beholder but rather in the end result of the trick play

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You know, creativity is a funny thing.

As an offensive coordinator when it “works” but doesn’t (See: KeAndre Lambert-Smith’s perfecetly-schemed 2^nd quarter incompletion on Saturday) you’re an overpaid doofus in the Cro-Magnon minds of a frothing, irascible (Word of the Day calendar entry: December 14, 2021) fanbase.

But when the rabbit you pull from your team-issued ballcap “doesn’t work” yet somehow bunny hops along a twisted, unintended, round-about route and serendipitously (April 24, 2019)  winds up at the desired destination – thanks to your QB’s quick-thinking, spot-on Steve Nash impersonation — you’re  suddenlythe bearded belle of the ball worthy of ALL the Twitter/X flowers, adoration, gold-star stickers, and get first pick from the toy box during indoor recess!

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Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2023 football coverage is brought to you by Happy Valley United – the NIL collective representing every Penn State student-athlete. CLICK HERE to join the team and pledge your support.

Hallelujah! An explosive play! For the win!

For our formerly comatose readers who just woke up, first of all, welcome back. Second, here’s what you missed: The biggest concern/gripe with the Nittany Lions offense through the first half of the 2023 season has been the unexpected Dust Bowl drought when it comes to explosive, chunk plays – both through the air and on the ground.

As Coach Franklin confirmed in his most-recent postgame presser, the Lions try to call 8-12 “shot plays” a game. Mishaps in pass protection, lack of separation down the field, mild lack of aggression by the QB, and good opposing coverage are all contributing reasons to why they have not been successful in this department.

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