As a young child, I remember watching Penn State dismantle Rutgers quite often and quite thoroughly in Beaver Stadium, and in between series I’d study the Scarlet Knights’ players and coaches in the game program and wonder just what the hell a Rutger was.

Eventually, I learned that Rutgers University, formerly Queen’s College, was re-named in 1825 for Henry Rutgers, a Revolutionary War colonel and philanthropist whose timely donation saved the school from closing for a third time in its young history. I also learned that Rutgers’ remains were lost for several years, which I suppose is either a mundane bit of trivia or an apt metaphor for most of the team’s offensive organization in the years since. Or maybe both.

Which brings us to Saturday’s Rutgers-Penn State contest, which pitted the Scarlet Knights’ run-heavy but aerially deficient attack, led by old friend Kirk Ciarrocca, against the Nittany Lions’, um, shall we say inconsistent attack, led by interim co-OCs Ja’Juan Seider and Ty Howle following Sunday’s unceremonious canning of (Ciarrocca replacement!) Mike Yurcich.

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Familiarity breeds contempt, but all things considered, Penn State fans should get comfortable with the devil they know.

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A final few games remain in the season, but already this much is chiseled in stone: Penn State will go down as the four-team playoff era’s perpetual bridesmaid.

No program teetered as consistently on the cusp of inclusion in the postseason final four without ever actually taking the plunge. Fellow 900-win programs Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame all made multiple playoff trips, and even lesser brands such as Michigan State, Cincinnati, and TCU, despite some forgettable results, still got to hang a banner marking their membership in an exclusive club ordained to forever exclude Penn State. This year began with sky-high hopes and flowery prose about the potential for a magical Autumn in the Nittany Valley and ended with a sickeningly familiar goose egg in the win column for the two games that mattered most.

That means the time has come to turn our attention toward the future. Even these final two regular season games and the best bowl for which the Lions can qualify are mostly about setting the tone for the campaigns to come. The glories of the here and now are already beyond our reach. We yet again find ourselves preparing for a Winter of what-ifs.

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Umm…so…yeah.

A lot has transpired in the PSU football world since the Nittany Lions 9-point loss to Michigan on Saturday. For those of you residing the path of a massive windstorm/tsunami/blizzard/bomb cyclone that knocked out power for the past 36 hours, Penn State now has a vacancy at offensive coordinator after Coach James Franklin made the executive decision to part ways with Mike Yurcich.

Having studied Yurcich’s offense for years now, going as far as charting every play from last season, I can conclude that he is a very bright offensive mind and will better whatever program hires him next. However, I’d advise Yurcich to leave Saturday’s “performance” vs. Michigan off his resume when he fires up the copiers at Kinko’s in the near future.

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In hiring – and firing – Mike Yurcich, James Franklin demonstrated commendable willingness to take bold action, but the pressure is on to get the next move right.

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For proof of the critical importance assistant coaches play at elite college football programs, you needed only to look to the opposing sidelines at Beaver Stadium in the game that ultimately cost now-former Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich his job.

The latest ludicrous turn of this largely ridiculous Michigan sign-stealing saga saw the Big Ten hand down an 11^th-hour suspension for Jim Harbaugh while the Wolverines’ team flight was en route to State College. A legal Hail Mary by Michigan failed to yield a stay of execution, so the nation’s third-ranked team took on by far their stiffest test of the season without their head coach – insert joke about James Franklin getting outcoached by a team without a coach. But therein lies the point.

Saturday began Michigan’s second stint playing games without Harbaugh after he served out a school-imposed three-game suspension to start the year, and neither time has his absence disrupted the team’s collision course with the playoffs. Current allegations aside, Harbaugh has clearly done a good enough job building a culture and setting a standard that now, even in the stretch run of the title hunt, he can comfortably hand the keys to his assistants and the machine keeps humming. It offers a painfully instructive reminder of why James Franklin makes aggressive moves in pursuit of upgrading his staff.

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The 2-point conversion try was the icing on the horse apple and, at the same time, the all-too-fitting curtain call for Mike Yurcich.

A bunch of guys ran out to the left side of the field. Drew Allar took the snap in the middle of the field. No one on Michigan’s defense seemed really fooled, and no Penn State receiver was demonstrably open. And it, like so many other pass plays in 2023, resulted in an incompletion. This one just happened to be fancier than the rest, and in a bigger spot.

The most curious thing about that call, though? It should have been an extra point try.

And there, right there, is the conundrum that Penn State faces in the wake of Yurcich’s firing on Sunday afternoon. There were all sorts of little things wrong with the Nittany Lions’ offense this season, despite what was widely considered to be one of the most impressive collections of talent it has fielded on that side of the ball, at least in the JFE (James Franklin Era). Routes run without precision. QB and receivers not on the same page. Missed pass protections. Pre-snap issues. Problems even getting the damned play in to the quarterback.

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Somewhere, Joe Paterno and Bo Schembechler were watching and smiling (somewhere in the more earthly realm, Jim Harbaugh was watching, too, but probably not smiling). The BIG NOON matchup between Penn State and fellow top 10 team Michigan was a classic throwback. Your run game vs. my defense. My run game vs. your defense. Pass? Are you nuts? This isn’t a basketball game.

For three quarters and change, James Franklin had decided to take the ball out of his sophomore quarterback’s hands (his feet were another story) and try to beat the Wolverines in the old-school way. And for three quarters and change, his defense and his run game were at least giving the Nittany Lions a chance to do that, and in the process steal that desperately sought win over one of the league’s two bullies.

There were two problems with this plan, though, and both of them proved fatal in the guts of the game. The first was that Michigan is, well, built for this, both in terms of physical construction and philosophy. Penn State is built for … well, we’re still not sure, and that’s a problem that transcended this game. The second was that Michigan held the lead, held the high ground, and that enabled the Wolverines, even with one of the nation’s most efficient quarterbacks at their disposal, to call 33(!!) consecutive run plays on offense and, on defense, force Penn State to try this wild and crazy strategy of throwing the football and catching it.

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As controversy swirls around the mighty Michigan juggernaut, Penn State can play the role of avenging vigilante while defying the odds and expectations to save its season.

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Everyone has given up.

Perhaps, like many of your fellow Penn Staters and practically all of the national commentariat, you threw your hands up in disgust as the listless Nittany Lions were pushed around the field in Columbus a few weeks ago and wrote the rest of the season off then and there, resigned to another year of being “great, but not elite.” Maybe you shook off the Ohio State doldrums and held fast to the lingering hope that another shot at a top-four opponent, no matter how daunting the foe, held the potential to revitalize a season full of promise.

Regardless, precious few among even Penn State’s most devoted followers, and practically no one outside the borders of Nittany Nation, holds a rational belief that the home team will triumph this weekend. The prevailing sentiment among our fanbase seems to be an acceptance that PSU missed its best shot at besting the Buckeyes in at least a decade and now faces a far stiffer test against a team that throttled the Lions last season (except in the Smuckers & Skippy-scented halftime tunnel) and boasts a long and brutal history of torturing Penn State in ways both subtle and gross. Those who profess a belief that Penn State will win the game rely heavily on the sort of blind faith that makes sports fandom beautiful.

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