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Introduction

Oh man, what a terrible loss. After winning nine straight games following the home loss to Iowa in 2020, the Nittany Lions’ streak is over. The team jumped on top of the Hawkeyes 17-3 and then the bottom dropped out when Sean Clifford left the contest with an apparent upper body injury. After he departed, Iowa outscored Penn State 20-3. The difference in offensive performance before Clifford’s injury and after was stunning. It’s borderline masochistic to evaluate the team before and after Cliff left the game but that’s what I’m going to do. I hate that Penn State lost the game but I also firmly believe they were the better team and it makes me feel better to show it.

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There was a moment late in Saturday’s game when Iowa running back Tyler Goodson picked up decent yardage and, on his way back to the huddle, took some time to strut and pound his chest, as a crammed Kinnick Stadium wildly roared its approval, the momentum firmly on the side of the home team.

Penn State linebacker Ellis Brooks, a few feet away, watched Goodson with a somewhat incredulous look on his face, as though he were wondering if his opponent had forgotten about the three previous hours, when the Nittany Lion defense had Goodson and the Hawkeye offense in figurative shackles.

Look, let’s give Goodson and his teammates and crusty old Kirk Ferentz and the Kinnick crazies their collective due for Iowa’s very Iowa 23-20 win on Saturday. Let’s also not pretend that, if not for one incomplete pass early in the second quarter, this game was well on its way to a wholly different result.

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• Well, this is the risk you knowingly take when you construct a beautiful sand castle so close to the edge of the beach during high tide. In the blink of an eye, it can all violently wash away. Penn State’s inability to land a competent backup in the Transfer Portal, (or its misguided assessment of its current quarterback situation beyond Sean Clifford) meant the 2021 season would always be a heartbeat away – or in this case, a wrapped right shoulder away – from flatlining.

• Granted, Ta’Quan Roberson was dropped into an unenviable scenario – on the road, at Kinnick, facing a desperate crowd searching for any reason to use (and likely by now, lose) its collective voice. In the Big Ten, that’s pretty much the deepest of deep ends…but, good lord, Roberson did NOT look prepared for the moment. Took about 4 seconds to figure that out after the third-year, former 4-star belly-flopped on a bobbled snap. From there, Roberson piecemealed together a clunky 3^rd Quarter scoring drive full of Sandlot scrambles and dump offs. Sure, those 3 points upped the Nittany Lions’ lead to 20-10 but they also revealed to Iowa DC Phil Parker that this hobbled offense was no longer a threat to do anything downfield or capable of completing levels concepts (like Clifford did repeatedly in the first half) that put Iowa’s zone defenders in damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conflict scenarios.

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Introduction

Raise your hand if you predicted back in August that this Saturday’s Penn State-Iowa tilt shoehorned inside Kinnick Stadium would feature a pair of Top 5 teams.

Put your hand down, liar.

Sure, Blue-and-White/Black-and-Gold LASIK patients might have envisioned early season success for their OWN team, but given the September gauntlet the Nittany Lions and Hawkeyes both faced it’s a minor miracle neither squad has a blemish in 2021. And so here we are, just a few days away from the biggest Big Ten game that didn’t include Ohio State since…since…man, IDK. The 2015 Big Ten Championship between Top 5 Iowa and Top 5 Michigan State?

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October 14, 2000: Prior to this Weekend, that Date Marked the Last Time Indiana Football was Shutout AND the Last Time Someone Actually Bought a ‘Zero’ Candy Bar – the RC Cola of Desserts

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Here we stand, a shepherd without a flock, a non-objectionable 16^th century European explorer (if there are any left) without a map, a yappy social media influencer without a WiFi signal holding an off-market energy drink that tastes like battery acid chased by the melted droplets found at the bottom of a Fla-Vor-Ice.

In other words, we are lost.

Twelve months ago, our unprofessional, unreliable and definitely unprofitable media empire arose from a firm foundation of snark and sarcasm fueled by the early-season ineptitude of Brent Pry’s 2020 Penn State defense. Missed tackles. Blown assignments. Communication issues. Lack of gap integrity. Jayson O-sacks-weh. Lamont Wade in coverage.

God, it was glorious…a bottomless reservoir of maladroitness (August 28^th on my Word of The Day desk calendar) that quenched our thirst to be a condescending jerk in print – an act that will never grow tiresome (cough).

But now…well, now there’s nothing to point and laugh at.

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Introduction

Another Monday morning, another tolerable trip into the office as we all ride the high of another Penn State victory – the Nittany Lions fifth this season and ninth in a row dating back to last season’s fake season. Against the Hoosiers, Penn State’s defense was its normal dominant self. Nuff said there. The offense, for really the first time in 2021, showed a pulse in the run game while the normally in-tune passing attack sputtered along as if a few hazard lights popped up on the dashboard. We’ll explore those trends and much more as we patiently wait for one of the biggest football weekends in many a year.

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Sometimes on the first tee, you’ll get paired up with a single, and after a few holes it’s still hard to get a read on whether he’s a player or not. He’s tall, fit, and has a nice-looking swing, but he seems to spend almost as much time in the woods as on the fairway. He’ll drop a 25-footer for birdie on one hole and then three-putt from 10 feet on the next. At the end of the round, you’re not sure if he shot 78 or 88, but either way you’re left feeling that it should have been lower.

Five games into the season, we pretty much know what the Penn State defense is — a swarming, confident, ball-hawking bunch that stacks three-and-outs like James Franklin stacks 1-0s in a tweet (five more on Saturday). The special teams have been solid if unspectacular, with the occasional field-goal block or Jordan Stout 50-yard bomb thrown in here and there.

The offense? Lots of birdies, even an eagle or two. But even with arguably the best receiver in college football on the field, this group can’t seem to string a full 18 holes — err, four quarters — together. The Nittany Lions’ 24-0 victory in Beaver Stadium was mostly a slog of bogeys interspersed with the usual Jahan Dotson SportsCenter highlights and some nifty footwork from Sean Clifford.

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