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Introduction

Cue Sarah McLachlan singing, “I Will Remember You” as we watch Brent Pry walk out the door towards Blacksburg. An Altoona man with an Alabama accent, Pry orchestrated steady, reliable and occasionally dominant defensive units throughout his six-season reign as DC in Happy Valley. That level of consistency on defense was the Yin to the offense’s erratic Yang – explosive in 2017, plodding in 2020, one-dimensional in 2021. For his final act wearing blue and white, Pry and his talent-rich defense compiled one of the best statistical defensive performances in recent history…which we’re about to explore.

Our format for this Penn State Defense Year-in-Review will mirror what we did earlier this week with the offense: basic stats first, more complicated advanced stats second. Unlike the offense blog post from Monday, however, the stats/numbers in this defense article won’t need a NSFW warning. In fact, you might gain a newfound appreciation for Pry after reading this one.

As always – all data herein is only against FBS competition (sorry Villanova) unless otherwise noted.

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Introduction

Same deal as last year: we put the much-hyped (in the preseason, anyway) 2021 Penn State offense under the microscope and examined every data point available. It’s funny, because in the Jan. 2021 edition of this blog post we spent close to a dozen paragraphs whining and complaining about how Kirk Ciarrocca’s offense underperformed versus expectation. Twelve months later, man, what I wouldn’t give for some ho-hum 2020 offensive output.

Penn State obviously took a step or two back this year (to be polite). You don’t need us or the numbers we’re about to present to tell you that. But what these basic and advanced stats DO reveal is a clearer picture of how and why Mike Yurcich’s Happy Valley debut was a bit of a flop. So with out further ado let’s all hold our breath, pinch our noses, dive face-first in this mess and analyze Penn State in various offensive metrics compared to the rest of FBS and Penn State squads from the recent past.

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It wasn’t all that long ago that James Franklin bemoaned the difference between good and great and elite.

For those who don’t know what I’m referencing, a quick refresher:

In a passionate post-game speech following Penn State’s 27-26 loss to Ohio State on Sept. 29, 2018, Franklin vented frustration with a program that was “comfortable with being great” — too comfortable for the coach’s liking — and vowed to help push it to that next and final level, the land of milk and honey where only the likes of Alabama, Georgia, and, yes, Ohio State, could call home.

“It’s the little things that are going to matter,” he said.

The Nittany Lions are 27-16 since that moment, including 1-2 in bowl games, and have as many wins (11) in their last two seasons combined as they had amassed in three of the previous four seasons. After going from average to good to great, Penn State has somehow, but assuredly, slipped back to the “average” rung of the ladder, with “elite” barely in sight.

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Introduction

Coincidentally, Penn State’s 60-minute trajectory in the 2022 Outback Bowl mirrored most every red-blooded eater’s typical experience at game’s title sponsor.

Much like the Nittany Lions did in the first half, you roar into the place looking to devour every calorically-dense morsel in sight. Then, about halfway through (like the start of the second half) you slow down and eventually hit a wall. Finally, when the waiter comes and asks if you’ve saved any room for dessert (late stages of 4th Quarter) you puke all over yourself.

Arkansas completely dominated Penn State in the 2^nd half, outscoring the Lions 17-0 and lapping them in total yards. Following an initially sweet turned super sour 2021 campaign, we go into the off-season with a lot of uncertainty on both sides of the ball. We will have lots to write about in the off-season, but before we get there, we have one last very exciting and not at all grueling (cough), postgame wrap-up.

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You’re never quite sure what to expect in a bowl game. A team and a coaching staff gets a month-plus to scout and gameplan and practice, sure, but that also means a month that the team is out of action. Players have time to recover from major and minor injuries, but they also have time to decide that maybe a bowl game isn’t in their best interest.

Sometimes a bowl game can be a pleasant surprise, a chance for redemption after a season that didn’t go quite as expected. Sometimes a team that has been consistently good will show up and look entirely discombobulated.

Sometimes, a team can show in only a few plays the recurring themes of the entire season, as was the case for Penn State late in the first half of Saturday’s deflating loss to Arkansas in the Outback Bowl.

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Introduction

Considering we’re above .500 in Over/Under selections and ‘Against The Spread’ picks thus far, hopefully you’re happy to see us again for what will be the final installment of our ‘Bowling For Dollars’ series.

Specifically, our Over/Under picks are 17-10  through the end of action Thursday and our ATS picks are at 14-13. Had you put $100 on ALL of our projected O/U and ATS selections (factoring in the standard casino -110 vig) you’d be up $518.21. Not bad.

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Introduction

For the newbies that missed our  initial bowl prognostication/Get Rich Quick scheme published on December 17th, shame on you…

…and welcome!

And to the loyal, never miss an ‘ABC’s of Penn State Football’ blog post crew (what we like to call our faithful ‘Read Or Dies’) here’s hoping you’ve been hammering the Over-Unders based off our WAR model’s projected point totals. Why? Well, our Over-Under selections are an insanely good 11-4 (73.3% winners). ATS…not so much. We’re 7-8…but hey, lots of bowl games left — at least there were at the time this was published (note: the Military Bowl and Fenway Bowl both bit the dust in the 15-20 minutes we took editing this piece.)

Additionally, just like in Part 1, we’re going to include some local flavor to these bowl picks by also selecting the best musician/band associated with the region. It’s fun. And we’re pro-fun.

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The knee-jerk reaction from many fans when a player decides to pass on his final college season in favor of prepping for his potential pro career – a relatively recent phenomenon – is disappointment dressed up as approval, with a hint of sour grapes.

“Well, best of luck to him … he’ll need it.”

“I thought he could have benefited from one more college season, but I hope he does well.”

The natural next step of the early departure to the pros, of course, is saying farewell to the team not at the completion of the season but prior to the team’s bowl game, as Penn State’s Brandon Smith and Ellis Brooks did recently. (Others, including Jahan Dotson, Rasheed Walker, and Jaquan Brisker, could make the same call prior to the Nittany Lions’ New Year’s Day Outback Bowl date with Arkansas).

The fan reactions to those decisions are essentially variations of the above, but are sometimes accompanied by rhetorical questions like “Don’t they owe it to their teammates to finish the season?” or “Wouldn’t they want one more college game?”

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Nicholas Singleton, the electric running back from Governor Mifflin High School, this week became just the third player from Pennsylvania to be named the Gatorade National Player of the Year since the sports drink juggernaut created the award – whose past winners include Emmitt Smith, Payton Manning and Kyler Murray – in 1986.

And yet he wasn’t even the most heralded recruit Penn State signed on Wednesday.

That unofficial honor went to the only player ranked ahead of Singleton in a rather impressive and nearly full Penn State Class of 2022 – Drew Allar, the five-star quarterback from Medina, Ohio. The signing of either player would have been a watershed moment for a program that has recruited lots of good recruits over the last few years but few great recruits, but landing both of them as part of an already solid class gives the Nittany Lions a chance to have some dynamic offenses in the coming seasons.

That is, if Penn State can get some guys to block for them.

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