The Mountaineers’ teeth-chattering fear of the Penn State ground game opened the door for this potent Cover 1/Cover 3 beater

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2023 football coverage is brought to you by Happy Valley United – the NIL collective representing every Penn State student-athlete. CLICK HERE to join the team and pledge your support.

Hate to say we told you so, buuuut…

Avid FTB readers might recall that two-ish weeks ago we predicted “shot” plays would become a point of emphasis this season now that No. 15 was slinging the rock instead of No. 14. Sure enough, our shake of the Magic 8 Ball didn’t steer us wrong…further proof that a broken clock is right twice a day.

In fact, our prediction came to fruition early in the first quarter.

Continue reading

There was a lot of Week 1 stuff on Saturday night in Beaver Stadium. Missed tackles. Confusion on blocking assignments. Burned timeouts in the middle of both halves. We won’t talk about the field goal kicking.

But there was also a lot of stuff that you could see — and, if you’re a Penn State fan, desperately hope to see — holding up in October and November. And while the Nittany Lions’ season-opening 38-15 win over a game but outmatched West Virginia team won’t turn many heads around the country away from, uh, Deion Sanders postgame interviews, it can be a pretty damn encouraging night if you view it as pretext for the season at large.

Some of the stuff we thought we knew — Nicky and the Fatman would again be awesome, Manny Diaz would bring pressure, Mike Yurcich would draw up some fun stuff — turned out to be true, but some of the stuff we thought we knew — Whither Chop Robinson? Was the offensive line really any better? Is linebacker truly a strength on this defense? — will perhaps require further examination at later dates.

Continue reading

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

*Please remember to click the ‘Share My Address With For The Blogy’ box when checking out so we know where to mail your gift!

• Nothing distorts reality more than the veil of great expectations. Was Penn State polished in every aspect this evening? Obviously not. Tackling was hit-and-miss. The kicking game was laughable (if you didn’t have money on the first-half spread, that is). The offensive line failed to maul one of the worst defenses in the Big XII. Receivers dropped a few gimmes. And the linebackers and defensive ends – a supposed strength of this squad – were underwhelming. But, does a 3+TD victory margin justify the waves of digital Chicken Littles spouting prophecies of doom and gloom across message boards and Twitter? IDK maybe.

Continue reading

The deep breath before the plunge: Pause for reflection and then crank some Steppenwolf: Nittany Nation is taking a magic carpet ride.

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s preseason football coverage is brought to you by Happy Valley United – the NIL collective representing every Penn State student-athlete. CLICK HERE to join the team and pledge your support.

I was fortunate enough to pen the first words published to this offbeat corner of the Penn State blogosphere following the Nittany Lions’ Rose Bowl victory (the last “real Rose Bowl” ever staged, in all likelihood) that capped the 2022 football season, so I’m digging the symmetry of being once again honored with this chance to author the final thoughts to appear here before this new season kicks off. In fact, I’ll be here every week; all throughout the season, I will be your humble blogger (Blogy-er?) for what we once called “Football Eve” ‘round Happy Valley parts.

This is going to be a column about the journey from late August to early January, one we all take together alongside our champions in Blue and White, and I hope it will be a chance to set the tone and frame a narrative heading into each Saturday. Other competent and capable folks, on this platform and several others, will equip you with the knowledge, analysis, and statistics to own your text thread or tailgate. They’ve got you covered in that department. For my part, I’ll seek to help you orient yourself as a small, but nevertheless crucial character in the much larger unfolding story of a season.

Continue reading

Country Roads – plus a late-season AD change and a Teflon $16.7 million buyout – took/kept WVU HC Neal Brown home to the place he probably doesn’t belong for a make-or-break (likely break) final stand. 

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

*Please remember to click the ‘Share My Address With For The Blogy’ box when checking out so we know where to mail your gift!

Underneath the iconic roof of a $1.3 billion architectural marvel, seated behind a plastic folding table you can buy for 50 bucks from The Home Depot, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown – fresh off a family beach vacation – drew a strategically-placed, carefully-calculated line in the sand.

I’ll say this at the front,” Brown told the hundred or so sportswriters/Marriott Rewards Point stashers inside Jerry World who picked the Mountaineers to finish last in the conference at Big XII media days back in July. “Appreciate what you all do as far as covering college football and making it one of the top, um, really, sports, in, in, that’s out there.”

After fattening up these figurative hogs with a trough full of pleasantries, Brown began leading them to the verbal slaughter.

Continue reading

Q: Why is Drew Allar like a farmer?

A: He’s been throwin’ seeds all spring and summer!

As Penn State’s 2023 football season mercifully approaches, all eyes are on the Nittany Lions’ rocket-laser-armed quarterback. His teammates have raved about his abilities. Longtime Associated Press beat guy Ralph Russo wondered if he isn’t the most important player in the country. His grrrrreatness is validated by none other than Tony the Tiger!

What’s more, the addition of Allar to the starting lineup (OK, so he hasn’t technically been named the starter…yet) also means offensive coordinator/mad scientist Mike Yurcich finally has a player who will force defenses to cover just about every part of the field. Thought Penn State had a dynamic offense with (current Packers QB2!!) Sean Clifford? Wait’ll they get a load of these guys when Allar is ripping the ball 30, 40, 50 yards downfield.

Here’s the thing, though. Arm talent is a great, great thing for a quarterback to have. And Allar’s size (6-foot-5 with some added bulk and strength) enables him to see the field and provide a stable platform for that aforementioned rocket laser arm. But if arm talent and size were all it took, Anthony Morelli and Christian Hackenberg would have achieved far more at Penn State than Michael Robinson and Trace McSorley. Allar is going to make a bunch of plays that few other quarterbacks can make this season. But it is the plays that a lot more guys have the ability make—but often don’t—that he’ll have to make consistently if Penn State is going to have the type of season that matches his talent.

Continue reading

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

*Please remember to click the ‘Share My Address With For The Blogy’ box when checking out so we know where to mail your gift!

Introduction

One week. Seven days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. 604,800 seco…check that 604,799… no, 604,798 seconds.

But who’s counting, right?

The long summer is basically behind us as the promising, high-anticipated, I’m-ready-to-be-hurt-again 2023 Penn State football season looms on the horizon! This has to be the most-hyped campaign in recent memory as it’s not just blue-and-white homers like me and you trumpeting the Nittany Lions’ CFP chances. Frankly, it almost TOO many people of relevance are hyping them up…although I suppose it beats the alternative.

Continue reading

Concepts that were no-go’s in 2021 and 2022 and run formations put on the shelf might be now be back in the fold.

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s preseason football coverage is brought to you by Happy Valley United – the NIL collective representing every Penn State student-athlete. CLICK HERE to join the team and pledge your support.

If there’s one main thing we’ve learned about Mike Yurcich throughout his two-year tenure dialing up plays in Happy Valley, it’s that the guy truly believes personnel shapes play-calling.

You’ll recall in the immediate days following Yurcich’s surprise hiring back in Jan. 2021, we gobbled up loads of bandwidth and killed several digital trees churning out video and written content dissecting his formational tendencies, situational preferences, and general offensive philosophy from stints in the PSAC, Oklahoma State, and an 11-month cameo at Texas.

Continue reading

There are only two things, if you believe the word on the street, that stand to prevent a Nittany Lion offense that appears to be stacked from threatening to blow up the scoreboard this autumn:

1. Drew Allar needs some time to become the real deal (quite possible) OR he isn’t the real deal (shut yo’ mouf!!)
2. Allar is money but his wide receiving corps isn’t up to snuff OR they don’t provide him enough support to, um, be money

Maybe KeAndre Lambert-Smith is ready to make the jump from ‘Occasionally Explosive’ to ‘Consistently The Man.’ Maybe Tre Wallace is going to step up and be the solid No. 2 that this offense sorely needs. Maybe Dante Cephas will be able to produce at the Big Ten level the way he did in the MAC for Kent State. Or maybe someone will emerge from the grab bag containing Omari Evans, Malick Meiga, Liam Clifford, Kaden Saunders, Malik McClain, Anthony Ivey, Cristian Driver, Tyler Johnson (this meeting room is standing-room only) and be a modified Cinderella story not unlike Jordan Norwood and Deon Butler exploding onto the scene from relative obscurity in 2005.

Or, just maybe, the group as a whole will underwhelm, to the extent that a Parker Washington-Mitchell Tinsley-led unit did for much of 2022 or, perhaps, even worse.

Continue reading