2022 Season

Dispensing Thoughts and Opinions: Penn State vs. Northwestern

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• Thanks to the 4th Estate assigned to cover all the ins and outs/nooks and crannies/snaps crackles and pops of Penn State Football, we learned this week that the Gen Z Nittany Lions are huge fans of cranking the loud speakers up to 11 and blasting Phil Collins at practice. Who knew? Since that’s the case, might we suggest skipping the haunting tones of In The Air Tonight or sick synth beats of Sussudio and instead just play Land of Confusion on a continuous loop this week and next? Because no song title hits the nail on the head better when it comes to describing the current state of the Penn State offense.

• Yes, the Nittany Lions pushed their FBS-best streak of 30+ point games to 12 today. But it wasn’t easy. And it definitely wasn’t pretty. EVERYTHING THE OFFENSE DOES JUST SEEMS HARD. I don’t know how else to explain it. Zero flow. Zero rhythm. Zero consistency. Zero identity. As we wrote in our ‘Dial M For Methodical’ blog post earlier this week, “…like a disgruntled significant other who sat you down for one of those ‘We Need To Talk’ talks, it’s not just ONE thing. It’s a lot of things.’”

• For the second consecutive road game, Drew Allar failed to play like Drew Allar. Most concerning today was his sporadic field vision – typically, one of his many superpowers. Here’s hoping that during the Bye Week Allar rewires his mindset, ditching the “Take What The Defense Gives You” mentality for a “Take What We Want” approach. The TV broadcast angle is extremely limiting, but we refuse to believe Allar didn’t have quality downfield opportunities until his final drive in the 4th Quarter. It’s Northwestern. Take a shot. Let your 4-stars out-athlete their 2-stars. It feels like Allar’s attempts-without-an-interception streak is an albatross restricting his willingness to be a rocket-armed, down-the-field gamechanger.

• What’s the deal with Nicholas Singleton? Is he fighting through a nagging injury that we’ll finally learn about in February 2024 and all collectively say, “Ohhhh, so that was the issue. Makes sense”? Is he carrying excess weight? Is he thinking too much? Something is just…off. Trey Potts – a serviceable not sensational back – looks more explosive/electric than both Singleton and Kaytron Allen through five weeks.

• Giving Dante Cephas a pass on the 4th quarter, outstretched Superman touchdown catch that wasn’t…but the 2nd Quarter incompletion that hummed by his ear while he was clearly blocking on a pass play can’t be excused. Sure, unlike 2022 WR transfer gem Mitchell Tinsley, Cephas came in late and missed spring ball, but by the last day of September you HAVE to know the playbook.

• Penn State’s defense…WOW. Nuff said.

• Not sure if anyone else caught this, but during Penn State’s initial touchdown drive, the BTN broadcast cut to a quick field-level, endzone camera angle in which you could briefly see the Ryan Field scoreboard flash a noise meter that bounced between 99 and 100 decibels. According to the first hit on our half-assed Google search, everyday items ranging between 85-100 decibels include hair dryers, blenders, and lawn mowers. Since Penn State was on offense, we’re dismissing those decibel readings as bogus. Come on, 14,000 bored theatre kids aren’t outlouding (not a word, but should be) John Deere. Don’t whiz on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Ryan Field.

• As someone who spent fall Sundays since 2011 producing football content on television, the BTN producer/director in the truck really should have saved the network’s geriatric Rules Analyst from himself and not opened his mic after Beau Pribula’s TD toss to Potts. For those who turned the channel to USC-Colorado by that point, the rules analyst claimed officials should have blown the play dead once Pribula “faked taking a knee.” Kudos to BTN color analyst Jake Butt for politely saying in so many words that that faceless old man was an idiot.

• Good teams win. Great teams cover.

• On that note…

September 30, 2023by FTB Staff