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Introduction

“Oh man, what a terrible loss.” – Me, Oct. 9, 2021.

“Oh man, what a terrible loss.” – Me, Oct. 23, 2021.

Hope – the most dangerous of four-letter words – rested on the figurative shoulders and literal “right torso” (as ABC’s sideline reporter kept calling it, as if humans have two) of QB1 Sean Clifford following a disappointing, but excusable, setback at Iowa. And then Saturday happened. What began as a foregone conclusion on Tuesday – no way Clifford plays vs. Illinois, but no way Penn State loses to Illinois, either – turned into the most unpleasant surprise in recent memory – Oh wow, Clifford’s starting, and Oh Wow, Penn State lost to a bunch players the opposing coach doesn’t want on the roster. In the most ‘Big Ten’ of Big Ten games, Illinois posted 10 times more rushing yards than passing yards but couldn’t really score, as Penn State’s ‘Bend but Don’t Break’ defense once again showed off its Stretch Armstrong pliability. The Nittany Lions offense, with a clearly hobbled quarterback, couldn’t muster enough production to score more than 10 points in 60 minutes of play against an Illini defense that was allowing 28.7 points per game prior to Saturday.

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It is tempting, oh so very tempting, to dive into the abyss of the overtime portion of Saturday’s game, and just splash around in the muck and the mire of the botched Boalsburg Special or the runs to nowhere or Brandon Peters’ throw into the stands. There is agony and ecstasy — OK, mostly agony — to be found there, and maybe even some pseudo-inspiring schtick about Penn State defenders who logged roughly 100 snaps (not an exaggeration) in a game in which they were favored by 24 points.

But the longest overtime stretch in college football history is not the story of the day. No, that particular tale is the story of a would-be contender who was finally, painfully, exposed as a fully flawed pretender.

Penn State showed us who it really was in Saturday’s ugly 20-18 loss to a previously 2-5 Illinois team. For most of this season, the Nittany Lions had the markings of a talented team that could rev it up from time to time and was just a few plays or a few days away from putting it all together. The loss at Iowa was maddening and disappointing, to be sure, but could also easily be explained away — the gap from QB1 to QB2 on this particular team was substantial, and QB1 had been doing enough damage before his injury that you could make the case that the Lions could just as easily been 6-0 and sitting at No. 2 in the country as they came out of the bye week.

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• Kudos to Arby’s clairvoyant in-house marketing team for landing the title sponsor spot on ABC’s Penn State-Illinois broadcast. Great choice. In fact, I’d say the decision makers in horsey sauce-stained suits couldn’t have picked a more “on-brand” game to advertise on. I mean, this contest WAS Arby’s — soggy, repulsive, depressing, nauseating, disappointing, and really, really, really tough to swallow.

• (Deep breath) Where to even begin…

…guess we’ll dish out credit where credit is due: swollen Illinois HC Bret Bielema authored an masterful run-blocking opus today using an unwanted collection of 300-pounders that he verbally eviscerated five days earlier. The Illini somehow managed to rack up 357 yards on the ground despite posing zero threat through the air. In several standard down situations, Illinois lined up 7 O-linemen, 2 tight ends, 0 wide receivers, and just Red Rover’d right through the unprepared Penn State defense, thus validating every slow-footed Big Ten stereotype your co-worker from Chattanooga or brother-in-law from Houston has ever spouted at you.

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Penn State’s bye week fell smack-dab in the middle of the season, making for a clean landmark for those who like to take stock of what a team has done prior to the bye and predict what it will likely do the rest of the way (or for those who have a weekly column space to fill and no game to fill it with).

Few would have been all that surprised if you had told them back in August that the Nittany Lions would arrive at this point at 5-1, though the way they got here would have been a lot more difficult to nail down. Penn State’s defense, which had question marks up front and at one safety spot, has been an absolute terror, answering all of those questions and a few that weren’t even asked while staking its claim as the nation’s fourth-best scoring defense and second-best red zone defense and one that matches up well against a variety of styles.

The offense, at different junctures and at various position groups, has been a pleasant surprise, all-too-predictable disappointment, and more than a bit of a mystery, sometimes in the same quarter (and all that was before it lost its quarterback!). The special teams, after a couple of early hiccups, have been mostly solid, if lacking some of the game-breaking firepower they’ve displayed the last few years.

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Enter Understudy, Exit Undefeated Season as Penn State Fans Overload WebMD’s Servers in the Wake of Losing a 23-20 Heartbreaker to the Hawkeyes

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Late in the 4^th Quarter, well aware they couldn’t come close to running out the clock, Iowa’s coaches chose to take consecutive knees on 2^nd and 3^rd down.

I’m gonna type that sentence again for emphasis: Late in the 4^th Quarter, well aware they couldn’t come close to running out the clock, Iowa’s coaches chose to take consecutive knees on 2^nd and 3^rd down.

Pause a second and just let that sink in.

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Up a field goal – not 4 points, 5, points, 6 points, or 7 points, or 11 points – and with a makeable 10 yards standing between them and certain victory, Iowa stiff-armed the plausible approach faster than a broke dude shooing away the dessert menu on a crappy first date and instead WILLINGLY surrendered possession back to Penn State with more than 40 SECONDS remaining.

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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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