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As heartbreaking as the season-ending interception was, hopefully we can provide enough context for the loyal FTB community to chew on until week 1 of next year.

As always, it’s impossible to point the finger at 1 individual flub on these kinds of plays — so we’ll give you all the context needed to draw your own conclusions.

First off, the concept – Inverted Smash H-Cross.

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At this level of football, where the talent is so evenly matched and the margins are so, so slim, the outcomes become less about the stellar plays and more about the mistakes.

Penn State made the biggest error on a night both teams committed their fair share, Drew Allar’s inexplicable interception with 33 seconds left that set up Notre Dame’s game-winning field goal, but the Nittany Lions made more than enough mistakes big and small before that to bring what had been a strong postseason run to a sobering end.

The Nittany Lions did a lot of good stuff in their final game of the season. They ran for 204 yards. They turned the Fighting Irish over twice and nearly came up with another on a Notre Dame fumble. They responded after the Irish had scored 17 unanswered points to take a 7-point fourth-quarter lead, then came up with a big stop in the final minute to give Allar and the offense a chance to win the game or at least send it into overtime.

But, upon closer inspection, it was a performance built more on sand than stone.

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Sometimes, the universe corrects itself.

For all the annual handwringing (most of it coming from the western part of the state) about whether Penn State and Pitt should play every season, the natural rival that the Nittany Lions have needed all this time has always been Notre Dame.

Two perennially strong programs from excellent schools, with rabid fan and alumni bases and distinctive, lucrative national brands. When they battled in the 80s and early 90s as independents, it was the marquee game on both teams’ schedules. When Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993, it was somewhat understandable the Irish would rotate off the schedule … although, Notre Dame, positioned smack dab in the middle of Big Ten country, was already playing teams from that conference each season anyway.

But aside from a fan-servicey, mostly forgettable home-and-home split in the mid-2000s, this series has long been dormant. It took the expanded college playoff to renew it again. And if anyone—Pat Kraft, Pete Bevacqua, James Franklin, Marcus Freeman, hell, Tony Petitti—has any sense, this won’t be the only matchup between these teams we see for another decade plus.

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58 Yards Through The Heart Of The Desert.

While the fate of the Fiesta Bowl wasn’t in much doubt midway through the 4^th Quarter, Nicholas Singleton’s punctuation-mark long touchdown run did officially put the Broncos to bed and entitled our digital audience to at least ONE MORE of these X’s and O’s breakdowns! Rejoice!

Therefore, let’s thoroughly dissect this iconic-ish, gap-scheme jaunt on GT Counter.

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Maybe it’s just not going to happen this season. Maybe Penn State is never going to play a complete 60-minute game.

But maybe, just maybe, these Nittany Lions won’t have to do that to complete their primary goal.

Penn State turned in another uneven performance in Tuesday’s Fiesta Bowl, but the best parts were better … and the other parts weren’t as bad, allowing the Lions to cruise to a mostly comfortable 31-14 win over Boise State and advance to the national semifinals.

In the middle two quarters, the Lions’ offense was hamstrung by penalties and mystifying third-down playcalling, and a defense that was missing Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Abdul Carter allowed the Boise State passing attack to move the ball up and down the field.

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With all due respect to Abdul Carter and Jaylen Reed, the strength of Penn State’s sensational defense throughout the (exceedingly longer) 2024 season has been its balance, its depth, its collective skill and power. There are very few, if any, weak links in the chain, and the way the Nittany Lions are playing together on that side of the ball in the ultimate team sport has brought them here, where they are one of the last eight teams standing.

It should also serve them well against a singular offensive weapon the likes of which this program hasn’t seen in several years.

Boise State, which entertains Penn State on New Year’s Eve, is led by tailback Ashton Jeanty, who in most seasons would have entered this game as the reigning Heisman Trophy winner if not for the diverse skill set of another singular talent, Colorado’s Travis Hunter. The Jacksonville, Florida, native leads the nation in carries (344), rushing yards (2,497), and rushing touchdowns (29), and he has put up a mind-boggling 5,505 yards from scrimmage over 39 games over the last three seasons.

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True to his nature, Penn State OC Andy Kotelnicki pulled-apart then contracted the Hoberman Sphere in the blink of an eye for a gift TD near the goal line.

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While Penn State’s first playoff game might’ve lacked some anticipated offensive fireworks, there were still a handful of very intriguing plays that caught the eye of us football sickos.

For me, personally, a pre snap movement that Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki plucked out from deeeeep in the vault brought a holiday smile to my face. Let’s take a look at Kaytron Allen’s early 4^th quarter touchdown…more specifically, how Kotelnicki used the Picket Fence Shift to gain a gap and create a walk-in score.

PLAY ON DIGITAL TAPE (until the corporate Grinch at Veritone blocks it…so hurry up and press play!):

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