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• Hang Manny Diaz’s gameplan in the freakin’ Lourve, Frenchie. Move over, Mona. Later, Leonardo. Behold you Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys (Groundskeeper Willie’s words, not ours). Make room for this masterpiece and stick it behind a few strands of velvet rope for safety. When all the damage was done, and all the Van Heusen-clad, three-named, thick-banged Southern Dandy students had filed out of Jordan-Hare, Penn State snuck out of The Plains with 4 takeaways, 6 sacks, 11 TFLs, all while grounding Auburn’s mauling run game to an unremarkable 3.3 yards per carry. Beyond the stats, Penn State’s D dominated in the trenches, clamped down at the second and third levels of the defense, and was in such total control that all James Franklin had to do on offense was not screw things up.

• The nonsensical 4^th Quarter ramblings of CBS color analyst Gary Danielson offered us the perfect mental off-ramp from the game…or what was left of it. It also got us thinking: What’s the best historical parallel for this game? Note: Please don’t go all Mother Dunn on us, Mortimer, OK? According to Vegas, this was a slightly-weighted coinflip that Penn State turned into an entertaining clown show for those wearing white and a complete waste of a sunny afternoon for those wearing orange. Not sure Michigan 2017 fits in this bucket considering Penn State entered as a 8 -to 9-point favorite. The ONE game that does compare (in our eyes, anyway) is Wisconsin 2008….road game, big-time opponent, thorough behind-whooping. 1999 Arizona works, too. Any others come to mind?

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A Couple of Young, True Freshmen ‘Nursery Lions’ Graced the Beaver Stadium Stage for the First Time and Wound Up Stealing The Show as the Vets Rest for an SEC Showdown.

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(Dino Babers postgame preacher voice)…Click link for context. Jokes are always funnier when you have to explain them first. Comedy 101.

THE LAST TIME IT HAPPENED…the 2020 Chevy Equinox, outfitted with a 1.5-Liter Turbo Engine, EPA-estimated 39 MPG Highway Rating, and Low-Speed Forward Automatic Braking, was the baddest thing on the road!

(gathered crowd yells in approval)

THE LAST TIME IT HAPPENED…’WAP’ topped the charts, as a torn nation collectively came together to determine, once and for all, whether there were or whether there were not some W***** In This House?!?!

(Awkward, scattered, confused claps)

THE LAST TIME IN HAPPENED…gas was $2.10 a gallon, Baby Yoda dolls were on back order, Antonio Valentino was Antonio Shelton, musicians we’ve never heard of had their own personal combo meals on sale at McDonald’s, the Queen of England was a spry 94, and Sean Clifford was a senior.

(Silence…not even a cricket chirp)

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Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2022 season coverage is sponsored by FANATICS. Spare the embarrassment of showing up to Beaver Stadium in LAST year’s sweat- & alcohol-stained gear. Grab something fresh from our collection of Penn State jerseys, T-shirts, and more right HERE.

Introduction

“It’s only Ohio. It’s only Ohio.” – Me, muttering myself over and over while I look up ticket prices for the CFP National Championship Game in LA.

Yeah, it’s only Ohio, but over the past two years we’ve witnessed Penn State play down to the level of lesser competition often enough (see: Illini, Fighting) to not take any game for granted. Saturday, against the Bobcats and their retro helmets, Penn State showed why we fans should return to a state of unfettered optimism for 2022 and beyond. The guys with college experience under their belts – Sean Clifford, Chop Robinson, to name a couple – had very good games. And the young guys – Nick Singleton, Drew Allar, Harrison Wallace, DDS, and so many others – got real reps against a real opponent and showed why they were so coveted as recruits. Most importantly, their early-season emergence provides insurance that if there are injury issues down the line (which 100% will happen) the team isn’t going to collapse as they did last year. Penn State’s depth is as good as it has been in a very long time.

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Love was in the air for the Nittany Lions in their home opener against Ohio, in the form of a feathery 32-yard touchdown pass from rookie quarterback Drew Allar to rookie receiver Omari Evans, and it was on the ground, in the form of 179 yards and two big-play tuddies from freshman Nick Singleton. A dozen true freshmen saw the field for the home team in a mostly clean, well-rounded 46-10 pounding of an overmatched MAC squad, but Allar and Singleton were the darlings of the crowd, and they underscored what has been an inescapable theme of the season:

Now that Penn State has found love, what are they gonna do with it?

This was the game plan James Franklin had talked about executing all week, and it didn’t involve scheme or audibles. Rather, Franklin had emphasized the importance of developing depth, of getting some of these young and exciting players live reps when it counted, especially during one of the few weeks on the schedule that wasn’t supposed to be a four-quarter rock fight.

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Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

• Throughout the offseason, we paid tribute to the infamous, ludicrous, incredibly loose-jowled Beano Cook/Ron Powlus 2 Heisman prediction from 1993 by applying the same lofty expectations any time we mentioned 5-star PSU true freshman Drew Allar in a video, blog post, tweet, Facebook comment, etc…you know, to be funny. Turns out – according to the tents pitched on Penn State twitter around 2:30 pm EST today — we set the bar WAAAAAY too low with our Beano homage.

• In all seriousness, the quantum leap Allar has taken in 5 months – from shaky, raw, multiple-red-flags rookie in the Blue-White Game to the surprisingly poised, surprisingly in-command , surprisingly advanced thrower we’ve seen in limited snaps vs. Purdue and now Ohio – is a credit to not only the work Allar put in during the summer months, but a credit to Mike Yurcich’s ability to mold talented lumps of clay.

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Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

When you think of Penn State, what indelible images/mental snapshots come to mind?

Racing to finish two scoops of Peachy Paterno as it melts under the merciless sun of an Arts Fest weekend…Saying hello to the extrovert squirrels frolicking across the Old Main lawn…Choking on the musty smell of books sandwiched within the Pattee Stacks…Baking on Beaver Stadium’s metal bleachers as Penn State toys with a non-conference pushover to open the home slate.

All good choices.

But, for us anyway, there’s another image – an off-the-radar Penn State image – that always warms the cockles of our heart every time we spot it in Happy Valley.

It’s a bottle of Old Grand-Dad whiskey, proudly positioned on a shelf (not the top shelf), iconic label staring you down from behind the bar.

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Lions & Twists & Stunts, Oh My! Billed as an Exotic Break From the Brent Pry Norm, Act One of ‘The Manny Diaz Experience’ Turned Out to be Surprisingly Efficient and Effective, as well.

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Thanks for nothing, Fox Sports Graphics Team.

As the rest of you spent this holiday weekend celebrating the American workforce by driving around town in your Japanese-made cars, floating atop your Chinese-made innertubes, and sipping German beer, the infrequently hard-working folks at FTB were vigorously spinning the hamster wheel of creativity, desperate to find the perfect lead for the inaugural ‘Hindsight’ review of the Manny Diaz era.

After racking our brains for literally dozens of seconds, we spent the next hour screwing around on our phones watching some disembodied voice rip open packs of junk wax baseball cards from the 1980s (oddly soothing and satisfying, highly recommend). Then, we snapped back to the task at hand, re-focused for a good minute, and settled on this corny bit where we turned two Manny Diaz defensive formations into Rorschach inkblots and had an imaginary psychward patient guess the down and distance.

There was just one problem…the ‘splotchy’ EFX on Photoshop wasn’t enough to blur out Fox’s superimposed on-field down and distance graphic, thus ruining the bit. Such a shame.

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Though James Franklin’s well-worn weekly 1-0 objective was met, reviews of Mike Yurcich’s Year 2 debut vary from ‘meh’ to ‘Man, not this again.’

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If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then surely embedding the viral gif of Purdue safety Chris Jefferson’s Puke-6 regurgitation celebration – a true Icky Shuffle – into this blog post should thoroughly summarize Penn State’s 2022 opening act on offense.

But we’re not going to do that. Shocking, we know.

Given the sophomoric DNA of this media enterprise, you have every reason to drop your jaw and raise your eyebrow(s) right now. Leading off the third season of ‘Hindsight’ with a man vomiting on live television is the content equivalent of a hanging slider, right over the plate, seconds after the clubhouse attendant banged on a trash can to let us know what’s coming…and yet, we’re taking the figurative pitch, 1. Because it’s super gross, repulsive, humiliating, offensive, distasteful, crude, objectionable, and, according to the fable of David Hogan from the movie Stand By Me, a dangerous contagious projectile, and 2. …

…Because every time we tried to embed the gif, WordPress crashed.

Stupid technology.

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