I am curiously unaffected by this loss, which is strange for a guy that bleeds blue and white, lives on a steady diet of Kool Aid and looks at the world through blue-tinted glasses. I do not feel the anger that Paterno exuded in his post-game conference. I am disappointed in our performance, especially in our defense, but that is as emotional as I can get right now. During the game, I felt frustration, but I never gave up hope until the clock ticked down to the point of no return about midway in the fourth quarter. No one is going to score three touchdowns against Bama in an eight minute time frame.
Against all odds, I have come to a quiet acceptance. The Crimson Tide is a strong team—physically and mentally. Paterno feared he might be out-manned and he was. There is no shame in that. The sky is not falling. I am not Chicken Little, but I may be just a little chicken.
I was actually somewhat optimistic before kick-off, but schizophrenic at the same time. My mood swung from “we have a chance to upset these guys” to “I hope we don’t embarrass ourselves on national TV.” The result, a lop-sided 24-3 loss to the #1 ranked team in the country, was actually somewhere between those two extremes.
As I said last week in my YSU recap, a team that wins upsets has to play arguably their best game of the season—relatively mistake free. We made way too many mistakes to win this game. And if we make mistakes like that against OSU, Iowa, and THEM, you will probably see the same result. Maybe against any other Big Ten team. But there is hope.
Rob Bolden is a work in progress, but he is a play by Shakespeare, not a sophomore essay like some past quarterbacks. The pieces are all there and will come together. His first INT was caused by his arm being hit at the throw. I also think the second one was due to interference with his throw although it was hard to tell on the replay. Contrast that with Justin Brown’s throw which was into coverage and underthrown and with no one hanging on him.
The fumble by Chaz Powell early in the second quarter, the score was 14-0 at that point, was the game changing play if ever there was one. Penn State ultimately recovered the ball, but not until it was returned and refumbled at the PSU 2. After a punt and a short field, Bama tacked on three and took a 17-0 lead into the half.
Yet, I still remained optimistic and Penn State continued to move the ball on their first possession of the second half. But then another INT killed yet another scoring drive. The play started from the 26 yard line, so it was not technically a red-zone turnover, but it did erase a potential scoring attempt.
If you like to play the “what if” game, Penn State could have had three scoring chances lost on turn-overs in scoring position. Let’s assume Alabama’s D held and Wagner remained cool as a cucumber. That’s a score of 12 for Penn State. Maybe more if we found a way to make it into the endzone.
On the flip side, the Tide scored their second TD after an INT, and while the fumble that took the ball all the way back to the PS 2 didn’t directly lead to a Bama score, it did set up the short field after the punt when Bama tacked on the field goal. That’s 10 points following turnovers or miscues. The ‘what if’ game ends in a score of 14-12 with a whole lot assumptions. I especially assume that Bama wouldn’t fumble on their fumble return and that the refs wouldn’t give the Tide possession at the PS 1 yard line as some people think should have been the case. It was reviewed though and the call held.
But had we not turned the ball over so many times, I do really think the game would have been closer. But there were other mistakes. Zug dropped an easy slant pass that killed a drive. Fera had an awful 29 yard punt that followed—Bama went on to score after that. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. It was a game fraught with missed opportunities.
Some would argue we shouldn’t have tried the gimmick play that resulted in an INT. We had moved the ball out from the shadow of our end zone with Newsome now at the helm. But I like the call. We were moving the ball at the time, so there is no reason to think Alabama would expect something like that. It was unfortunately well defended and poorly executed.
I really liked the fact that we let Bolden throw at all. I like the fact that Joe got Newsome some playing time. I think our offensive line did better this week against a vastly superior opponent than YSU, though perhaps not good enough to actually win. And while special teams didn’t make something happen this week, they didn’t let something happen either, 29 yard punt notwithstanding.
As I said above, I was disappointed with our defensive line. Our string of games holding rushers to less than a hundred yards was snapped, but I didn’t expect us to hold Bama under the century mark. I was hoping for less than 180 yards total, though. But Richardson bench presses something like 300-400 lbs and squats 600. He looked like a locomotive barreling through our line and reminded me of Bernstein at Wisconsin a few years ago ( I still have nightmares.) You ought to just put the mascot costume on that dude--he's like a frickin' elephant running through a tribe of pygmies. I pity the fools that have to face him the rest of the year.
Hopefully, this game will better prepare us for playing in Columbus or Iowa than beating another cupcake like we have done the past few seasons. And we are still undefeated in Big Ten play. The remainder of the OOC schedule should not give us any trouble, and I expect our offensive and defensive lines to improve as the season goes on. Zug will eventually join the team and make his first catch.
And if the weekend could not get any worse, the women’s volleyball team suffered their first loss in something like 109 straight matches. Hats off ladies to a remarkable streak!
INTANGIBLES:
Alabama won the toss and elected to receive.
Joe is now 3-3 versus Saban, and Alabama leads the all-time series 9-5.
September 11th is the Bear’s birthday. We were doomed when this game was
THE BIG (TEN) PICTURE:
The Boilermakers beat Western Illinois 31-21. The Spartans spanked Florida Atlantic 30-17. Northwestern beat Illinois State 37-3. Wisconsin beat San Jose State 27-14. Iowa beat its State rival 35-7. The Buckeyes beat Miami (FL) 36-24 and THEM topped the Irish 28-24.
The Gophers lost to South Dakota 41-38.
Indiana did not play. Hard to tell the difference, though.
SHEDDING TEARS:
1. Va Tech x 2—follows heartbreaking loss to Boise State by laying an egg against James Madison, losing 21-16.
2. Georgia Tech—beat by Kansas (who lost 6-3 to Jacksonville State)
3. Marshall—two late TD’s and an extra point send the game to OT where their kicker misses a field goal, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Marhsall has never beaten WVU.
4. F$U—apparently Oklahoma isn’t Samford
5. Boise State—chokies loss really hurts the already weak schedule strength
LOOKING AHEAD:
Kent State comes to Beaver Stadium.
The Golden Flashes (like sparklers?) beat Murray State (is that between Montana and Idaho?) 41-10 in their opener, but then fell to Boston College 26-13 on the road. But it was 6-3 BC at the half.
The big question here is whether Penn State can regroup after this loss. Paterno’s staff and teams have not handled early season losses well this past decade—in fact, not since Minnesota derailed the 1999 campaign. And with a question of good leadership on this team, who knows how we will handle this. Exhibit A is Beamer’s Chokie team that collapsed against James Madison less than a week removed from an emotional loss to Boise State.
Personally, I think this group will rebound. I predict a slow start ala YSU with a fairly close score at the half. Then, the depth and strength of PSU overcomes the Flashes in the second half to post a reasonable final score. I also look for Newsome to get some more playing time—not just in case Bolden goes down, but as a change of pace in games where Bolden can’t get things going, or an option quarterback would be a better choice against a given defense.
GO STATE! BEAT FLASHES!
PS(u): A big shout out for the guys over at Black Shoe Diaries for linking my recap last week. THANK YOU!
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