Hypothetically Speaking (Or The Obligatory Terrelle Pryor Post)

We’ve seen quite a jump in traffic recently and send out a welcome to all those who may be visiting for the first time. The Nittany Line is your guaranteed one-stop shop for asinine incompetence regarding Penn State, but in a gesture of kindness to our new visitors, we will experiment with a little thoughtful, measured analysis. Under contractual obligation, we are required to offer at least on Terrelle Pryor centered post per week.

As is generally the case in one way or another, Signing Day became it’s own little circus. A fevered dream amidst irrational speculation that suggests the fate of the entire world hinges on the decisions of high school seniors. A day where logic and reason apply as if we were living in an M.C. Escher work.

Yay! It’s Signing Day

For his part, Terrelle Pryor delayed his decision to announce, causing the world to cease spinning on its axis. There was a collective reaction of “what the hell is happening?” from analysts, because it had been fait accompli that a decision was to be made between Ohio State and Michigan, there were no other potential suitors. Penn State? Oregon? Yeah, JoePa visited him, but the old man has lost it, no chance he was going there and the Ducks, are we sure they even have football team? Terrelle explained that he went from football season to basketball season and never really had an opportunity to fully weigh his options. I felt bad for the kid, he clearly looked uncomfortable in interviews. Watching analysts proclaim him as perhaps the most important recruit of all time, it was title he did not want. He seemed like he was set to choose Ohio State, but his dad was most impressed with Penn State. In the course of their discussion, he seemed wonder if he was making the right decision and all along he had wanted to visit Oregon, but didn’t have an opportunity yet, thus the delay. I would say unless he’s a terrific actor, Michigan really did seem out of the running though.

So, let rampant speculation reign! Hypothetically speaking, say Pryor chooses Penn State, what does it mean? Ideally, he should take a redshirt, but there’s little chance of that happening. Currently, Darryl Clark has 2 remaining years and Pat Devlin has 3 at the quarterback position, taking a redshirt would allow him to get acclimated and give him at least 2 years as the starter. In a perfect world, I would like to see Devlin under center and have a Darryl Clark line up in some sort of slash role (lined up at receiver/running back/sometimes under center), allow them to utilize both players and slide Pryor into that position and eventually strictly under center. Michael Robinson had said that his time at the other positions made him a better quarterback, because he intimately knew what each would be doing on any given play. Not taking a redshirt creates a potentially sticky situation resulting in a probable position change (Clark) or transfer (Devlin) of one of the current roster occupants. Whatever the case, patience would be the best policy with Pryor, the hype is so over the top and needs to be tempered to a realistic level of expectations.

From a recruiting aspect, Pryor could be a huge draw. Regardless of JoePa’s contract situation, Pryor alone could be the selling point to a lot of skill position players next year and the opportunity to potentially jump right in, particularly at receiver can be even more enticing.