Lynch Mob

On a perfect, sunny September afternoon, the Nittany Lions struggled against themselves in the first quarter, and only led 17-7 at the half.  The defense pitched a shut-out, but the scoreboard was marred by an unearned TD when true Freshman Christian Hackenberg let the ball slip through his fingers on an unforced fumble error which gave the Eagles their only points of the day.

The offense eventually produced 574 yards, but sputtered early in the game.  Hackenberg made an early mistake, throwing into double coverage that killed a promising drive with an INT.  But the kid bounced back, maintained his composure, and went on to set a record for a freshman quarterback at Penn State.

Lynch debuted in the second quarter, and immediately showed the crowd that he was the "real deal."  He sealed the real deal in the second half with a dominate performance and 108 total yards on the day, joining fellow running back Belton who also made a buck eight for the game, thanks largely to a highlight reel run up the middle for 51 yards and a score in the fourth quarter.

Lynch's performance was fitting, given that his #22 was retired in honor of Penn State's only Heisman Trophy Winner, John Cappalletti.  In a locker room address to the team, Cappalletti told Lynch to keep wearing the number . . . but he has to give it back to him at the end of the season!



So let's look at the big picture.  It was only EMU--a team ranked near the bottom of the FBS schools.  And while we struggled offensively early on, that is to be expected to some degree given the level of excitement about the opponent (pretty low compared to Syracuse last week I would think) and a freshman quarterback who is bound to make mistakes.  The Lions were only 1-10 on third downs this week (2 for 26 on the season!) but it didn't keep them from rolling up the yardage and scoring points. 

Statistics are just damned lies!  Here's the one that counts:  Penn State is 2-0 on the season with what looks like a lot of potential on offense and a defense that shut out an opponent.  And while Syracuse lost to Northwestern 48-27, Penn State held the Orangemen to 17 points, and you have to wonder if the close loss last week emotionally drained Syracuse a bit which contributed to the larger margin of loss this week.  Now we're really reading tea leaves here!  My Magic Eight Ball tells me to MOVE ON.  Where have I heard that before????

Sam Ficken has set a school record by successfully kicking his 14th consecutive field goal in a streak that started last year after an abysmal start.

I will address some other gameday issues in a separate post (the music and the new ban on bags.)

BY THE NUMBERS:

From the GoPSUSports site:

	EMU	PSU
FIRST DOWNS...................	11	25
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............	35-61	39-251
PASSING YDS (NET).............	122	323
Passes Att-Comp-Int...........	28-18-0	35-25-1
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS.....	63-183	74-574
Fumble Returns-Yards..........	1-11	0-0
Punt Returns-Yards............	2-20	3-43
Kickoff Returns-Yards.........	5-111	2-44
Interception Returns-Yards....	1-10	0-0
Punts (Number-Avg)............	11-41.9	5-41.4
Fumbles-Lost..................	2-0	2-1
Penalties-Yards...............	2-8	5-46
Possession Time...............	31:43	28:17
Third-Down Conversions........	3 of 16	1 of 10
Fourth-Down Conversions.......	0 of 1	2 of 2
Red-Zone Scores-Chances.......	0-0	4-4
Sacks By: Number-Yards........	4-35	3-21

EMU had a slight edge in time of possession, which obviously didn't make a damned bit of difference.  But in the first quarter, they actually had the ball for 10 and a half minutes.  This was a combination of our own offensive inconsistency early on (PSU did not get a first down until the clock was below 4 minutes and we were already down 7 on the scoreboard!)  I also felt the Eagles were doing really well on first down plays, which put our defense at a disadvantage. 

But be that as it may, the defense allowed no points, held a second opponent to under 100 yards rushing, and held EMU to 3 of 16 on third down conversions.  EMU punted 11 times!

INTANGIBLES:

The Drum major stuck both flips.

Cappalletti's number 22 was retired at halftime in a ceremony that featured the 1973 undefeated squad, now celebrating their 40th anniversary of that milestone.

Bill O'Brien is 10-4 as head coach.

The Lions are 3-0 over EMU.  I don't give an Emmert's ass about vacated crap.  I was at both those previous games and we WON.  You can draw your own asterisk here if that's the kind of person you are.

THE BIG (TEN) PICTURE:

THEM held on to defeat the Irish 41-30 in the match-up of the week.  However, the real surprise was Illinois taking out Cincinnati 45-17.  Couple this with a Purdue "win" over Indiana State 20-14 (Indiana beat Indiana State 73-35 last week) and we can safely conclude that Purdue is not very good.  Add to that the fact that the Hoosiers Cinderella season was shattered early when Navy sank the Battleship Indiana, 35-41, making the Hoosiers the lone losers this past weekend.

Wisconsin rolled out the barrel all over Tennessee Tech, 48-0, and have won 93-0 in the first two cupcake games.  The Buckeyes got a fright as Toni Braxton went out with a knee, but the Columbus Titans beat the crap out of San Diego State 42-7.  The Gophers are 2-0 with a win over New Mexico State 44-21.  The Huskers shucked Southern Miss 56-13 and Michigan State hung on to beat the South Florida Bulls 21-6.

Future members Maryland and Rutgers both posted wins with the Terps beating Old Dominion 47-10 and Buttgers bouncing back with a 38-0 win over Norfolk State.

SHEDDING TEARS:

1.  USC--lost to WSU 10-7. 
2.  Texas lost to BYU 40-21.
3.  Florida lost to Miami 21-16.
4.  West Virginia--almost beat Oklahoma but came up short 16-7.

LOOKING AHEAD:

Beaver Stadium becomes the site of a UCF Cage Fight next week at 6pm.

The magic number for UCF is 38.

They beat Akron 38-7 and Florida International Airport 38-0.

I don't think they will score 38 this week.

GO STATE!  BEAT KNIGHTS!

EM-Who?

Penn State opens the home season at Beaver Stadium against the Emus of Eagle University.  Um, strike that.  Reverse it.  The Eagles of EMU.

I haven't seen an official line yet, and am too damned lazy to look one up, but I suspect we will be favored.  And we all know how accurate those odds ratings are.  Good grief, what odds maker had a stroke and made Pitt only a 10 point underdog???

According to USA Today Sports, EMU is ranked 117th out of 125 teams.  Very impressive indeed.

Eastern Michigan has created some separation between itself and conference rivals like Massachusetts and Akron, though the Eagles remain football fields removed from being mentioned in the same breath as Mid-American Conference frontrunners like Toledo, Northern Illinois and Ohio. At the very least, EMU can continue to hover between two and four wins and remain one step above the bottom rung of the MAC's ladder – which is fine, and certainly familiar ground for a program now more than 25 years removed from its last postseason appearance.

And by the way, Ohio got pasted by Louisville on Sunday.  So if EMU is football fields removed from them, I don't see Saturday being a problem.  Of course, I didn't see Ohio being a problem last year, so maybe I need my glasses checked.  Any one know a good eye doctor?

Thomas Bieszk of The Eastern Echo -cho, -cho, -cho, writes about EMU's victory over Howard (Cosell?  Schnellenberger?  Hughes?  Stern?) this past weekend.

The first half started off slow, as each team drove the ball to midfield only to have the drives stall. . .  The Eagles followed that with a touchdown drive of their own, capped by a 33-yard touchdown pass from Benz to junior wide receiver Demarius Reed. The extra point was blocked and the Eagles went into halftime with a 13-10 lead. 

The start of the second half was frustrating to say the least. Howard opened up the half with an 80-yard drive that ended with a 32-yard catch and run by sophomore wide receiver Jonathan Booker for the score and the recapture of the lead. The play was an eight-yard out route, but a couple missed tackles opened up the long run afterwards.

Do you think ARob might make them miss a few tackles?    Our game versus Syracuse started out slow . . .I think it was 6-3 at the half and I was beginning to wonder if someone was going to intentionally take a safety to secure the win!

An EMU football blogger (yes!  I Know!  AN EMU football blog actually exists!) writes about their moral victory . . .

Remember when I told you that the  closest Howard had ever come to a Division I-A/FBS school was 23 points?

I almost wanted to just end this recap there. If there is such a thing as a moral victory, then there also must be such a thing as a moral loss, and if so, this was surely one.

It was almost worse, though; it was almost an actual loss. With EMU trailing 17-13 midway through the third quarter, I suggested to a friend that a loss to Howard should result in an immediate firing.  Moments later, the Bison scored again, taking a double-digit lead and I was ready for the entire coaching staff to lose their jobs on the spot. Let’s face it, if they had proven unable to coach the team to a win over Howard, they probably wouldn’t have been able to find any other wins on the schedule this year either; the Bison are expected to be far and away the worst team the Eagles will face this fall.

Fortunately, EMU came back with 21 unanswered points to turn an 11-point deficit into a 10-point win. Plus, I’m not the one making that decision anyway, and let’s face it, that’s probably a good thing too.

Looking at that score, looking at how the Eagles fell behind, I have to say that it’s hard to see this year ending any better than 4-8, and 1-11 is not unimaginable.

There were actually a number of vocal Penn State posters expressing concern about how close our game was, but keep in mind folks, PSU turned the ball over FOUR times, went 1-16 on third down conversions with a freshman quarterback, and gained less than 60 yards rushing . . . AND STILL WON THE GAME against an opponent that actually went to and WON a bowl game last year, thrashing West Virginia 38-14 in the Pinstrip Bowl (intentionally misspelled.)  Oh wait, is that the same WVU that almost tanked to William and Mary?  Whatever.  Syracuse was bowling and Howard was, well, whatever Howard was doing.  And I don't think we even want to go there.

The EMU blogger notes that the Eagle's running game never really got going (good luck against us) and their defense is very young and still learning. 

All kidding aside, I do expect EMU to come out fighting.  After all, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  This ain't the NCAA of 1982.  Eastern Washington's and Appalachian State's can win.  They can haz cheezeburgers!  Even Western Kentucky taught Kentucky a thing or two about football this past weekend.

So on any given day . . .but this Saturday is not a given day.  Not in Happy Valley.  The Eagles will be grounded.

And in other news, Ficken and Hackenberg were named Big Ten Players of the Week.

GO STATE!  BEAT EMU!

Pre-Season Countdown: #11

Nominees for the 11th spot (the second easiest team to beat on our schedule next season) are pretty much the same as the nominees for the 12th spot sans Indian State: Indiana, Temple, Wisconsin, and Eastern Michigan.  Wisconsin?  Forget that.  This is like the opening question to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  The Badgers are thrown in there as a junk answer that only a llama would pick.

And the winner is:

EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY.

The Eagles were 2-10 last year with victories over Buffalo (21-17) and Ball State (41-38 in OT.)  Which begs the question, are Ball State and Buffalo that bad???  The Buckeyes pummeled EMU 73-20.  Northern Illinois polished them off 71-3.

Emu

EMU returns 15 starters from a not so good team.

Defense is the problem.  The Eagles gave up 40 points or more in 7 games, with an average of 43.9 points per game.  Interestingly enough, their head coach, Ron English, used to be a defensive coordinator under Lloyd Carr at THEM.  English is 2-22 since taking over as head coach.

The front four are small and pass rushing has been a significant problem.  Giving up 70 + points twice is pretty significant too.  EMU had only 10 sacks all season last year, third worst in the nation.

Offensively, they should be better off.  Alex Gillett (The best the team could get?), a junior, should be the starting QB, and is supposedly a dual threat.  He did lead the team in rushing with 766 yards last year.  But he threw an equal number of INTs as TDs (13.) Perhaps his experience will translate into more consistency.  Last year, they averaged 19 points per game, but scored only 6 against Vanderbilt and 7 against Toledo.  The whole thing is moot, though, if the defense can't keep PSU from scoring.

Special teams shouldn't be an issue either way as this game won't be that close.

Schedule-wise, this is the fourth game of the season, coming off a trip to Temple and a week before we open Big Ten play at Indiana.  I don't think we need to be worried about injuries from the Temple game, or looking ahead to Indiana.

This will also be an early game, so I expect the team to come out sluggish, and be perhaps only up by a couple of scores at the half (10-14 points.)  Look for them to put this game well out of reach late in the game, with the back-up QB getting some reps.