Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

The Penn State team that took the field in Columbus on Saturday was a very different team than the last one that had played Ohio State a year ago. It was also a very different team than the one that had started this season.

After a relatively even first half, though, the Buckeyes made it look like the same old predictable horror movie that has played out on so many Fall afternoons.

With an interim head coach and what increasingly appears to be an interim quarterback, Penn State fought bravely against the nation’s No. 1 team, but in the process displayed that it was not at all equipped to handle it for four quarters and really wasn’t even if Drew Allar, Tony Rojas and (gulp) James Franklin had been on the field and sideline, either.

Continue reading

Bye Week’s over now. Back to the real world.

Penn State didn’t get the win in Terry Smith’s debut as interim head coach versus Iowa, but they did cover the spread for the first time this season. Can the Nittany Lions make it a streak and keep the margin within three touchdowns in Columbus? It seems like the best a beleaguered Nittany Nation can hope for. The guys ponder PSU’s quest for small comfort against the top-ranked Buckeyes and a college coaching carousel that is quickly spinning out of control.

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

Expectation: Adding Jim Knowles, the coordinator of the nation’s best defense a year ago, to a Penn State defense that was already among the nation’s top 10 would allow the Nittany Lions to be a true lockdown unit.

Reality: Penn State is a middle-of-the-pack defense in the Big Ten that hasn’t really stopped the run at all since conference play began.

Expectation: Five-star running back Nick Singleton, who ran for 2,912 yards in his first three seasons, would have another banner year behind a veteran offensive line despite continuing to split carries and reps with roommate Kaytron Allen.

Reality: Singleton is averaging 3.6 yards per carry, doesn’t yet have 100 yards total in four Big Ten games, and can’t seem to stop running directly into defenders.

Continue reading

Sponsor: FTB’s Donors Club – the most direct way to support our efforts – is back for another year! (sad Sarah McLachlan music plays) For $9.99 you can feed a starving blogger…and get a cool FTB bottle koozie in return! JOIN HERE.

EXT. MIDWESTERN FARM/KINNICK STADIUM – NIGHT

RED GRANGE (ghost) walks out of cornfield, stumbles into Kinnick Stadium, watches Penn State and Iowa live…because streaming doesn’t exist in the afterlife. As the clock strikes zero, Grange approaches another legend.

GRANGE

Is this college football hell?

KIRK FERENTZ (shrugging)

It’s Iowa.

Annnd scene…

All kinds of unpredictable stuff happens every week all over the country in college football. Kinnick Stadium at night is a different animal. In one sense, one of the nation’s loudest environments against a top-10 defense is a nightmare venue for a team starting a redshirt freshman quarterback. In another sense, if you’re gonna bounce back from one of the most gut-punching weeks—hell, months—in program history, why not go for broke and play like you have nothing to lose against a team that has made a living off of beating more talented teams with a lot to lose?

The Nittany Lions, with Terry Smith and Ethan Grunkemeyer (and, uhhhhh, Jaxon Smolik) leading the way rather than James Franklin and Drew Allar, played mostly like they had nothing to lose in Saturday’s 25-24 loss to the Hawkeyes, using turnovers and the churning legs of Kaytron Allen to hang around until the final minutes, when Grunkemeyer’s inexperience and Andy Kotelnicki’s, um, familiar habits stalled the offense.

Continue reading