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How to view a Penn State football program firmly ensconced among the nation’s top title contenders, yet also a leader among that frustrating tier of perpetual playoff bridesmaids; a team widely regarded as the surest threat to Ohio State’s Big Ten dominance, yet coming off a historically-horrendous five-game losing streak to open 2020?

Let’s consider our Dear Old State through fresh eyes, and see it both ways….

MAYBE IT’S ACTUALLY BAD

We can start with the obvious. The team started 0-5, something that had previously occurred exactly ZERO times in Happy Valley, despite two World Wars, a pre-Zoom pandemic, social upheaval, 9/11, lousy recruiting with awful teams, and then an emotionally-devastating scandal resulting in ludicrous sanctions meant to devastate the program’s ability to compete. Zero. So cry me a river about some new coaches and missed practice time.

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In What’s Becoming an Annual Tradition, Fox 8 New Orleans Sports Reporter/AP Poll Voter/Friend of the Blog Garland Gillen Spoke With FTB About His Preseason Rankings on the Eve of Monday’s Release

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FTB: No need to beat around the bush here…did you rank Penn State?

GG: I actually don’t have them ranked, and it’s largely due to their quarterback play. Not that impressed with a lot of the quarterback play in the Big Ten, to be honest. I know Penn State rebounded from an 0-5 start and finished the second half of the season blazing, but that doesn’t erase a preseason Top 10 team starting 0-5. I think a lot of this season falls on Sean Clifford – when he protected the ball, Penn State won; when he turned the ball over, they lost. So you have a guy who was up-and-down last season, and now the backups aren’t experienced after Will Levis transferred to Kentucky, so that security blanket is gone. I know (James) Franklin is killing it in recruiting, so that bodes well for the future, but obviously those guys are a year away from being on the roster.

Now, with all that said, I have Wisconsin ranked No. 13 in my preseason poll. If Penn State goes to Madison and beats Wisconsin, then yeah they’re in the next week. Firmly in. Nothing is written in stone. After Week 1, my preseason poll could be flipped upside-down. We won’t have to wait long to see where Penn State stands.

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To all the men and women sequestered in that sauna/storage container on stilts, also known as the Beaver Stadium press box, thank you for your service.

On Saturday, the college football calendar finally got back on schedule when Penn State held its annual early-August Media Day, even though the alterations to this event’s usual minutiae — Zoom-powered press conferences, 1-on-1 interviews done from a six-foot distance behind a plastic white chain  – reminded us that normalcy hasn’t completely returned to the fold. 

But, for a few hours anyway, it was fun to keep refreshing Twitter like it was a mechanical pencil and make way too much of various reporters’ observational notes from the 25 minutes of practice open to the media.

For those of you with a life, and better things to do on a summer Saturday, the martyrs here at FTB rummaged through the cornucopia of clichés and plucked out every enlightening spoken word/observation for you.  You’re welcome.  

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Former Texas OC Mike Yurcich’s Lone Season in the Lone Star State Resulted in a lot of Points, a Pink Slip, and Perhaps Some Perspective of What to Expect This Season at Penn State. 

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If Mike Yurcich is a man of his word – and thus far, we have no reason to believe he’s not – members of Penn State’s keyboard crew (like us) apparently got carte blanche to wildly speculate, spew half-truths and do it while not wearing pants.

Because Penn State’s new offensive coordinator DGAF about any of that…even though his stern, frustrated tone kinda suggests he does.

Confused? Just watch this Yurcich press conference toward the end of last season when the cyber sharks were circling Texas head coach Tom Herman:

Actually, wait…rewind that. Did Yurcich say he COULD care less??!?!?! Ugh, come on, man. So he DOES give a rip about what we type and how clothed we are while typing it? Sigh…well, great. Give us a second to find another noteworthy anecdote from Yurcich’s 51 weeks on Herman’s coaching staff at Texas. 

Let’s see here…

…noteworthy, noteworthy…

…gosh, there’s not much.

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Soooo…What The Heck Is It?!?!? A Deep Dive Into The New Offensive Coordinator’s Trends and Tendencies During Oklahoma State’s Explosive 2017 Season Provides Some Answers But Also More Questions

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s preseason coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Gear up for College Football season with Nike’s 2021 Penn State sideline collection of polos, t-shirts, hats, pullovers and more right HERE.

*Each FANATICS purchase helps support For The Blogy.

Real ones from Day 1 who bother reading these blog subheads just raised an eyebrow.

The reason?

Well, we plagiarized ourselves. Yep, hand up. Send us to Rick Reilly journalism jail or wherever. Less than 10 months ago, once the Big Ten finally caved to social pressure derived from its own self-righteousness and decided to let their pearls dangle and play football, we published ‘The Kirk Ciarrocca Experience.’ The premise of that blog was to introduce Penn State fans to the new offensive coordinator. The premise of this blog is to introduce Penn State fans to the new offensive coordinator.

So why get cute, ya know? Swap out a few words, slap in a new picture, and keep our fingers crossed ‘The (Insert Name) Experience’ trilogy is years, not months, away. 

This time around, we charted three Mike Yurcich games from 2017: Oklahoma State’s 59-21 depantsing of Pitt, the Cowboys’ back-and-forth, defense-optional 62-52 loss vs. Oklahoma, and OSU’s 50-39 slugfest (well, comparative slugfest) against West Virginia.  

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On Thursday, James Franklin Punctuated This Endless Summer Recruiting Revival by Warding Off a Couple SEC Heavyweights and Landing the Crown Jewel of the 2022 Class   

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s preseason coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Gear up for College Football season with Nike’s 2021 Penn State sideline collection of polos, t-shirts, hats, pullovers and more right HERE.

*Each FANATICS purchase you make helps support For The Blogy.

Promise we’ll get to the clips soon enough – because, let’s face it, we know you clicked on this to WATCH not READ – but spare a few paragraphs for us to put McDonogh High (Md.) DL Dani Dennis-Sutton’s verbal commitment to Penn State in the proper context…because it’s a pretty big deal. 

Ranked as the No. 11 overall prospect in the country by Rivals.com, DDS (assuming he stays true to his word when it’s time to sign in December) becomes the first defensive line recruit ranked among the Top 100 overall high school players to choose Penn State since James Franklin took the job nearly a decade ago. Granted, a couple of guys have been close: Shane Simmons (104), PJ Mustipher (107), and Jayson Oweh (140), for example. So it hasn’t been a complete talent desert along the defensive line, but, technically, DDS will be the first Penn State prep prospect to crack the century mark. 

OK, that’s cool but so what?

Well, for as much as rabid college fanbases obsess about the somewhat-factual notion that transcendent quarterback play remains the surest path to success, the true correlation amongst teams that play in the CFP and win national championships could very well be the stockpile of elite talent along the DL chasing those quarterbacks.

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In Tune with Penn State Football’s More-Spit-Than-Polish Tradition, an Underhyped Core of Key Players are Tasked with Turning Things Around

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s preseason coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Gear up for College Football season with Nike’s 2021 Penn State sideline collection of polos, t-shirts, hats, pullovers and more right HERE.

*Each FANATICS purchase you make helps support For The Blogy.

Black Shoes. Basic Blues. No Names. All Game.

It’s a memorable slogan we all recognize, a sly bit of marketing attributable to Penn State’s former branding guru Guido D’Elia, who understood and cleverly seized on a paradox: The best way of preserving the program’s stoic, old school mentality in an age of disposable glitz was by embracing the sales process, packaging up its essence and proudly advertising it. The resulting catchphrase just might make an especially appropriate rallying cry for this year’s Nittany Lions, a group intent on emerging from the long shadow cast by a lost 2020 season that, however unconventional, nevertheless featured the worst start (0-5, friends, lest you’ve forgotten) in the august 134-year history of Penn State football. 

The team will undertake this task with a roster noticeably short on individual starpower. No Names.

Around this point in the Summer, the first real signs of Autumn’s approach start becoming evident in Happy Valley. The Town&Gown Football Annual joins the national preview mags on newsstands. The latest shipment of replica jerseys hits the racks of local outfitters. So whose face should grace the magazine covers this time around? Whose jersey number should Nike appropriate for one final season in the revenue-hoarding sun?  Recently, luminaries like Saquon Barkley, Trace McSorley, and Micah Parsons have been no-brainers in those roles. Owing to a variety of factors, this year’s team has no such obvious spokesman. 

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Coach Nick Codutti talks Wide Zone Read in the Mike Yurcich Offense Keystone Sports Network · Q4 Mike Yurcich Offense 07 – 15 – 21 KSN Podcast: Mike Yurcich Offense