Dispensing Thoughts and Opinions: PSU-Indiana

Editor’s Note: Each Saturday FTB will release rapid, unfiltered stream on consciousness notes after every Penn State game. We picked a helluva day to debut this segment, huh?

• I really don’t know how that last 2-point conversion (ruled a successful try) isn’t overturned. YOU COULD NOT HAVE A BETTER CAMERA ANGLE! If I was an Indiana fan, and I saw the initial replay, the first words out of my mouth would have been, “Ugh, we lost.” If Sean Clifford was the one carrying the ball, the first words out of my mouth would have been, “Ugh, we lost.” What exactly am I missing here?
• Franklin’s running back rotation continues to make absolutely NO SENSE.  Caziah Holmes gets benched for a fumble that isn’t a fumble. Keyvonne Lee flashes a hot hand in the 2nd quarter then he’s exiled until the 4th. BUT Devyn Ford makes a completely bonehead and SELFISH play, and he’s out there to start overtime.
• I hated the play on 2nd and inches with 11 seconds left in regulation. Hand the ball off and get 3-5 yards! Penn State was out of timeouts, but a first down pauses the clock temporarily, leaving more than enough time to spike and send the FG team out. The line to gain is literally inches away. Instead Ciarrocca calls a play with .0001 percent chance of success. Stout kicks a FG 2 yards shy of being good. Seems like those extra yards via the handoff might have mattered.

• Shaka Toney’s performance on what SHOULD have been the final Indiana possession will be forgotten because of the mayhem that ensued afterwards, but it shouldn’t. The 5th-year senior took over and put his stamp on the win-turned-loss.
• No way to sugarcoat this – if Ciarrocca’s debut was a Broadway play, critics would have panned it.
• Can we please retire the Turnover Hallmark Thank You Card? It’s not cool. It’s not clever. It’s just dumb.
• Journey Brown’s absence (for however long that is) will hurt more than Micah Parsons’ absence.
• Penn State possessed the ball for 40:22. They outgained Indiana 488 to 211. I now know how 2016 Ohio State fans felt.
• TCF made himself some money today. Dude was dominant in coverage. Same with Toney.
• I hate the targeting punishment, not the rule. Make it 15 yards. Ejections only if egregious.
• Were Indiana players holding up folded lawn chairs on the sideline during the opening kickoff?
• If the refs called the 2-point play correctly, I still think I’d be ticked off right now.
• It appears Sean Clifford hit his ceiling mid-season 2019 and is on a steep regression. Not sure it’s fixable with the talent surrounding him. The same issues highlighted in our preseason evaluation video – poor pocket presence, erratic mechanics – still exist. With that said, I have to give him credit for finding a way to slop together this win-turned-loss. We he needed to, Clifford made the play.
• We were wrong to label Indiana MLB Micah McFadden with the red tint in our Indiana Defense scouting report. The guy played great today Kudos to him.
• Conversely. Indiana QB Michael Penix Jr. didn’t look good for the first 58 minutes of play. Expected more from him.
• A mature team absorbs this and learns from it…not sure this is a mature team, though.