Dispensing Thoughts and Opinions: PSU-Iowa

FTB’s Rapid Reaction/Stream of Consciousness After Penn State Made History in the Worst Possible Way

• Penn State is 0-5 for the first time in the history of the football program, which began play in 1887. Here are some other things that happened in 1887:
  • Punxsutawney celebrates the first Groundhog Day.
  • Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show opens in London, England.
  • Construction of the Eiffel Tower begins in Paris, France.
  • Jim Thorpe is born.
  • Nikola Tesla begins experimenting with X-Rays.

• Hypothetical: Let’s say the devil suddenly appeared in your living room on Oct. 23rd and wanted to make a wager. The devil pays you $10,000 if Penn State has one or more wins before Thanksgiving. If they don’t, you have to chop one of your balls off. Raise your hand if you’d be down a testicle like me.

• You can’t bitch about Penn State playing without emotion in one tweet then yell at clouds when defenders celebrate a turnover or sack in your next post.

• Why is Sean Clifford holding a ridiculously small notepad on the sideline? How much information could he possibly be relaying to Will Levis that he needs to write it all down, lest he forget it? This isn’t STAT 101 at 8 a.m. in the Forum, man. 3rd Quarter Update: Perhaps he wrote “Throw TDs when you enter the game.” If so, good note.

• No more Penn State commercials featuring footage shot in the winter unless it’s snowing, OK? Pennsylvania is a beautiful place…so make it look beautiful! Even the sunny shots in that commercial look gloomy and depressing. Life is sad enough these days. Lie to me for 30 seconds, Penn State.

• Haven’t heard anyone mention this yet, but did the fan base take former defensive line coach Sean Spencer for granted? Because that unit – which brought a lot of talent back from last season — isn’t getting consistent push, isn’t staying true to gap assignments, and isn’t creating organic “chaos” on passing downs.

• Did James Franklin really just punt down 13 points with 3:27 left?!?!?

• And did Franklin really go for it on 4th and 2 at midfield with 53 seconds left in the first half trailing 17-7?

• Soooooo…who starts at QB next week? There are no wrong answers here. I guess I’d start Clifford, but I’m not incredibly enthusiastic about it. For the second straight season, Levis followed up an encouraging relief effort (Ohio State 2019, Nebraska 2020) with an absolute dud as a starter (Rutgers 2019, Iowa 2020). I don’t think starting Ta’Quan Roberson against Michigan – a dysfunctional team, but one that still features elite defenders and a coordinator capable of making life hell for young QBs – would be wise. If Clifford steps on another rake next week in Ann Arbor, then roll out Roberson for Rutgers and Michigan State.

• I was surprised to hear Matt Millen hint that Penn State doesn’t have the correct personnel to run Kirk Ciarrocca’s offense…because on the surface, this doesn’t seem like it’s a seismic shift in offensive philosophy. This isn’t Rich Rodriguez taking over for Lloyd Carr at Michigan in 2008. This isn’t Geoff Collins trying to run a modern offense at Georgia Tech after Paul Johnson ran the option for a decade.

• Kansas is the only winless Power 5 school with more losses than Penn State.