One Last Look at Saturday’s Mess – This Time With an Eye on the Nittany Lions Defense – Before We Bury The Ball, Burn the Tape, and Convince Ourselves the Season Can Still be Salvaged. 

FTB CHARTING – BOX SCORE

Just let this sink in…if Devyn Ford does the right/smart thing and belly flops on the 3-yard-line, Penn State’s defense would have held Indiana to less than 150 total yards of offense.

(Stares into space for 3 minutes…)

I’m too tired/still-not-over-Saturday to type something clever about that stat, so let’s just get to the damn review. 

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It’s Not the Debut We All Expected, but the Show Must Go On. Film Shows Plenty of Room for Improvement and Plenty of Reasons to be Optimistic.

FTB CHARTING – BOX SCORE 

For those expecting us to spew venom for the next 1,900 words, you got the wrong blog. 

Because for as frustrating as Penn State’s bed-wetting in Bloomington was on Saturday, the offense wasn’t the 1970 Gremlin sporting a duct-taped bumper many message-board Marthas (we’re taking back Karen for all the Karens out there) claimed it to be. 

Kirk Ciarrocca’s Lions gained 488 total yards against a veteran defense. In 2019, Penn State failed to reach that yardage mark in 9 of 13 games. Two of the games they did (Idaho and Maryland) shouldn’t even count. So just calm down and let us offer some perspective. Film review shows the offensive line fluctuated between Very Good to Dominant – despite a lot of negativity heaped on this group after the game, the Penn State skill players were pedestrian at best, and Sean Clifford was Sean Clifford.

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This was not the opponent that Penn State wanted to see for its season opener. Not in any season, really, but certainly not this (insert whatever adjectives you’re using to describe 2020 these days) season.

Indiana, the punchy punchline of the Big Ten. Maybe someday someone will come along and lead the Hoosiers to back-to-back-to-back conference titles, and they’ll smack around Alabama in a playoff game, and the five-stars will flock to Bloomington. Until that day arrives, though, Indiana is not a name that will be taken seriously among fans of other Big Ten programs. On the contrary, people will expect Indiana to find new and creative ways to hand opponents the game, because, well, that’s what Indiana does.

The Nittany Lions themselves had little reason to take the Hoosiers lightly after getting healthy scares last season (34-27) and the season before (33-28), but players hear the Indiana jokes, and they know who they’re playing next week.

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Editor’s Note: Each Saturday FTB will release rapid, unfiltered stream on consciousness notes after every Penn State game. We picked a helluva day to debut this segment, huh?

• I really don’t know how that last 2-point conversion (ruled a successful try) isn’t overturned. YOU COULD NOT HAVE A BETTER CAMERA ANGLE! If I was an Indiana fan, and I saw the initial replay, the first words out of my mouth would have been, “Ugh, we lost.” If Sean Clifford was the one carrying the ball, the first words out of my mouth would have been, “Ugh, we lost.” What exactly am I missing here?
• Franklin’s running back rotation continues to make absolutely NO SENSE.  Caziah Holmes gets benched for a fumble that isn’t a fumble. Keyvonne Lee flashes a hot hand in the 2nd quarter then he’s exiled until the 4th. BUT Devyn Ford makes a completely bonehead and SELFISH play, and he’s out there to start overtime.
• I hated the play on 2nd and inches with 11 seconds left in regulation. Hand the ball off and get 3-5 yards! Penn State was out of timeouts, but a first down pauses the clock temporarily, leaving more than enough time to spike and send the FG team out. The line to gain is literally inches away. Instead Ciarrocca calls a play with .0001 percent chance of success. Stout kicks a FG 2 yards shy of being good. Seems like those extra yards via the handoff might have mattered.

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Editor’s Note: Each week during the season, the FTB Staff will release its scouting report on Penn State’s upcoming opponent. Normally, these blogs will be posted at 11 a.m. EST Thursday and Friday…but we’re a little premature this week. Hey, happens to the best of us.  

Despite Tom Allen’s undeniable enthusiasm (see above) coaching defense at Indiana isn’t always the most pleasant experience. Even last season, the Hoosiers’ winningest campaign since 1993, Indiana ended a pedestrian 9th among Big Ten teams in Scoring Defense (24.4 Pts/Gm), Total Defense (352.2 Yds/Gm), and Sacks (25). No Indiana player on this side of the ball made any All-Big Ten teams last season. 

 To Allen’s credit – and to a lesser degree DC Kane Wommack’s credit, although Allen’s thumbprint is on everything the Hoosiers do defensively – he squeezes all the juice out of players who are juuust a few inches too short or juuust a few pounds too light to play on bigger stages than the community theater that is Memorial Stadium.

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Editor’s Note: Each Week During the Football Season Stand-Up Comedian and Co-Host of the Punch Drunk Sports Podcast, Jayson Thibault, picks games against the flips of a John F. Kennedy Half-Dollar. 

The Contestants

Jayson Thibault is a stand-up comedian and original member of the Punch Drunk Sports Podcast along with Air Shaffir and Sam Tripoli.  On Nov. 27, Thibault will be recording his new comedy album, “Covidiot” during his performance at The Market Lounge & Comedy Club in Valparaiso, Indiana.  FTB is without question THE No. 1 Penn State football site in Northwest Indiana, so far all our readers in the area (Brian) be sure to check him out! 

The JFK Half-Dollar Coin was first minted in 1964. This particular 50-cent piece were flipping has been in the cup holder of a 2015 Toyota Camry for some time and is a tad sticky. If it picks winners, we’re not going to wash it. If it doesn’t, we’re spending it.  

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Editor’s Note: Each week during the season, the FTB Staff will release its scouting report on Penn State’s upcoming opponent. Normally, these blogs will be posted at 11 a.m. EST Thursday and Friday…but we’re a little premature this week. Hey, happens to the best of us. 

Before Indiana caught up with the Joneses and finished construction of its new football facility in 2018, the coaching staff had their offices buried on the ground floor of Memorial Stadium. I know this because work took me there in 2004.

Though dated, the place wasn’t bad. It had chairs and furniture and a pleasant receptionist. Down the hallway, to the left, was a trophy case. It contained what you might expect. Lot of Randle-El stuff. Lot of Anthony Thompson stuff. If there was a second trophy case, I don’t remember it.

Across from there, large framed team photographs of every Indiana bowl team hung on the wall. John Pont’s 1967 Rose Bowl Team. Lee Corso’s 1979 Holiday Bowl team. Bill Malory’s final bowl team – the 1993 Independence Bowl squad. Then, there was another picture frame…except it didn’t have a picture. No, it had a question mark. The gold-plated placard at the bottom read, “Indiana’s Next Bowl Team,” or maybe it said “Indiana’s First Bowl Team This Century.” Doesn’t matter. Point is, the frame was empty…and let’s face it, a little cringy.

More than motivational – which I assume was the intent – the “Next Team” frame felt more like a stark reminder that there’s always going to be a low ceiling of expected success at Indiana.

Although, if there’s ever a year Indiana could bust through that low clearance, it’s 2020.

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Fox 8 New Orleans Sports Reporter/AP Poll Voter/Friend of the Blog Garland Gillen Spoke With FTB About the Big Ten’s Place in the Rankings and the Tough Task of Picking 25 Teams When Everyone Isn’t Playing 

FTB: How have you handled placing Big Ten teams in your Top 25 considering the on-off-then-on-again nature of the conference’s season?

GG: It’s been difficult. Initially, the AP preseason poll came out before the Big Ten’s decision to cancel the 2020 Fall season, so you saw a lot of Big Ten teams in the poll. To be honest, before COVID forced conferences to mess with all the schedules I had a Big Ten team, Ohio State, as preseason No. 1 in my poll that I submitted. 

Then, they told us to take the Big Ten out when they decided they were going to punt on the season. So for a lot of September, I didn’t have any Big Ten teams in my rankings…not until they changed their mind and decided they’re playing again. So I have Big Ten teams in my poll right now, but there are some AP voters who are only including the teams playing on Saturdays – so no Big Ten. That’s their right. They can do that.

FTB: So if not every AP voter is including the Big Ten currently, do you expect Big Ten teams to shoot up in the polls after this Saturday?

GG: Probably. If you look at the latest AP poll, you have all these Cinderella teams – teams like BYU and Cincinnati – ranked higher than they normally are in mid-October because 2/5ths of the Power 5 conferences aren’t playing yet. Are the darlings like Coastal Carolina going to hang around in the poll once the Big Dogs start rolling this weekend?

You look at Ohio State. If they smoke Nebraska by 40, they’re probably going to catapult a team like Notre Dame who has looked shaky, and a one-loss Georgia. If Wisconsin does what they’re supposed to do against Illinois on Friday, then they probably leapfrog No. 12 BYU. The Big Ten is the new shiny thing this weekend, so you’ll see a real bump for those teams in the rankings assuming they look good. 

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