The Blue-White Game is easy to take for granted. It has some of the perks of a game that counts – tailgating, a chance to yell at players (or coaches … or officials), a look at incredible athletes making plays mortals could only dream about, and uh, tailgating – without the possibility of a crushing defeat. Everybody plays, no one gets (actually) sacked, LaVar stops by to chat. It’s a great time for all ages.

At the same time, Penn State’s annual spring game, back in Beaver Stadium for the first time in three years on Saturday, is also the very definition of empty calories. That’s partially because no coach in his right mind wants to give any future opponent any hint of a playbook wrinkle, or risk anyone on his two-deep to injury, and partially because there are no bowl ramifications (at least not any that I’m aware of).

And yet, there are some things to watch for that can provide clues about the type of team the Nittany Lions have in any given year. You want to see proficiency. Guys don’t need to pancake a linebacker or making a diving interception, but you want to see them in the right spots and playing sound, fundamental football. You want to see the returning starters be a little bigger, stronger and more decisive than they were the previous November, sure, but you also want the likely backups to show that they’re capable of handling shotgun snaps filling in for an injured starter and not have the air go out of the entire unit.

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Editor’s Note: Before each Penn State home game this season, our friends at the 409 TAILGATE CLUB will offer up unique grilling recipes for your gameday menu.

At the precise moment when meat meets mouth and this succulent steak recipe takes your taste buds on pregame joyride, please, don’t thank us. Thank ‘That Lady.’

Which lady?

Honestly, we’re not quite sure. And though we never got her name, we’ll certainly never forget her. Therefore, she is and will forever be known as, ‘That Lady.’

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Any quarterback worth his salt knows how to see the whole field. So it should not have been much of a surprise that Penn State’s Sean Clifford – who has been reading defenses for nearly 40 games over the past four years – has been keeping his eye on perhaps the most significant development in collegiate athletics. Clifford recently announced a company he formed, Limitless NIL, that will help his fellow student athletes navigate the still-being-charted waters of name, image, and likeness.

In addition to providing each of its clients with sound financial advice from partner agency Beacon Pointe, the Limitless team also says on its website that it will work with athletes to pair them “with companies that align with (their) brand.” One such example is that of Penn State safety Ji’Ayir “Tig” Brown, who will have his own “Tig Pie” at State College’s Snap Custom Pizza.

That got us thinking about a few hypothetical (but not entirely unrealistic) athlete-sponsor fits that would simply be too good to pass up. You’re welcome, Nittany Lions.

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Sponsor: For The Blogy’s Spring Practice coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Need new Nittany Lions gear for the Blue-White Game in three weeks? Look no further than our collection of Penn State jerseys, T-shirts, and more right HERE.

Introduction

For years now, broadcasters and other football pundits have stressed the importance of converting Red Zone opportunities into points, especially touchdowns. But rarely is a word uttered about how well teams score on explosive, home run chunk plays from OUTSIDE the Red Zone…which doesn’t make a ton of sense considering evolution of modern quick-strike offensive football.

In analytic circles, measuring an offense’s explosivity has become an often used metric when evaluating college offenses. Until now, measuring a team’s explosivity has consisted of a combination of points per play and yards per play and while I believe that is a good indicator of explosivity, it is also somewhat incomplete.

So today we’re introducing a new metric to assess explosivity – Touchdowns Out of the Red Zone (TORZ or as it’s sometimes labeled in the graphs, TD-PORZ). TORZ is as simple as it sounds — take a team’s total TDs, subtract the number of red zone touchdowns scored, and multiply by 7. This gives us the total TORZ for the season. From there, we divide that number by the number of games played to give us our final metric.

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There will be a lot of Penn State players on the field and coaches on the sideline with a lot to prove this fall.

Perhaps none more than Mike Yurcich.

A year ago, just as many Penn State fans (if not several more) worried that State College would be a mere pit stop for Yurcich en route to a major head coaching job as those who worried that he might not be able to tighten up what had been a talented but inconsistent Nittany Lion offense in 2020. After an encouraging start to the season during which Penn State was carried most often by its defense, the wheels wobbled and spun off, the team dropping six of its final eight contests. Coaches and players from offense, defense and special teams shared responsibility for that, but the offense was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment, with some ugly stats that matched the failed eye test.

Penn State finished 80th or worse in the nation in rushing offense (118th), total offense (82nd), red-zone offense (97th) and scoring offense (90th) last season, stats that harkened back to the early sanction days.

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In the Span of 12 Months, the Penn State Pass Rusher Went From Surefire Starter/Budding Star on the Edge to Almost an Afterthought Coming Back From Injury This Spring. It’s About Time We Get Reacquainted, Don’tcha Think?

Sponsor: For The Blogy’s Spring Practice coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Need new Nittany Lions gear for the Blue-White Game in three weeks? Look no further than our collection of Penn State jerseys, T-shirts, and more right HERE.

Background

At 6-foot-4 and 244 pounds, returning Penn State pass rusher Adisa Isaac is a classic “tweener” — tall but short-armed, lean even for a 4-3 DE. Probably projects in the NFL as a 3-4 OLB (I happen to know the Steelers’ Alex Highsmith is 6’4/242) so Isaac may eventually need to get comfortable playing backwards (in coverage) on roughly 10-20% of his snaps at the next level. Assuming Manny Diaz’s defensive system doesn’t deviate too far from what we saw from Brent Pry the past 6 seasons, Isaac won’t have many opportunities to show that facet of his game this season or next.

As a senior in high school, Isaac was the consensus No. 1 recruit out of the state of New York in 2018. He recorded 25 sacks (that’s twenty, and then five more) during his final season at the prep level, shattering both school and league records.

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Wherever his long and eventful coaching career may take him, James Franklin owes Bill O’Brien a debt of gratitude.

Not for deciding on New Year’s Eve 2013 to leave Penn State for the Houston Texans. Not for leaving the program in pretty damn good stead, all things considered, after the punitive measures the NCAA had laid on it 17 months before that.

No, Franklin should thank O’Brien for the simple fact that no one wants to be the guy AFTER The Guy, and that O’Brien’s brief but memorable tenure allowed Franklin to avoid having to directly follow the winningest Division I-A coach of all time.

Even if O’Brien couldn’t quite help him escape the inevitable comparisons to Joe Paterno altogether.

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