PSU Review: Eastern Illinois

TNL said 45-6 (PSU)
Actual Score: 52-03 (PSU)

I'm not going there, make up your own captions.

I was amazingly close to the final score so I'll take that as a WIN! I also said the following in my preview:

I would love to see PSU score early and often on Eastern Illinois and get some of the younger guys some game experience, especially Kevin Newsome.

Score early and often: check.

Get a lot of younger guys playing time: check.

Get Newsome significant time under center: check.

Not much really to cover, this was total domination of every sort so really it's going to be a short review, just like the game was.

Offense

Clark's interception aside, everything was coming up Lions on offense. They doubled EIU in almost every statistical category: first downs, rushing and total offense as they outgained EIU 206–553. Average gain per play: EIU 3.3 – PSU 8.9! That's almost 9 yards per freaking play. Penn State scored on the first five possessions (4 TD's, 1 FG) to take a 31-0 lead and never looked back.

Royster rushed 8 times for 94 yards for an 11.8 yard average and Stephon Greene had 7.2 per attempt on his 8 carries. Chaz Powell led the team with 4 catches for 79 yards and a TD and even true freshman Justin Brown made his first career receptions (3 for 45 yards).

The aforementioned Newsome completed 4-5 for 34 yards and rushed for 47 yards and a touchdown. As far as Newsome is concerned he's one hell of an athlete, let's just hope Clark stays healthy for the rest of the season and I'll leave it at that.

Defense

Penn State had 11 tackles for loss, an INT, and a fumble returned by Navorro Bowman for a TD.

Josh Hull was steady yet again leading the team with 11 tackles but EIU had no answer for Jared Odrick who led the team with 3.5 tackles for loss including 2 sacks. It was the kind of carnage on the defense that everyone expected.

Special Teams

Even the special teams did an admirable job which is not something I say too often this year. Collin Wagner made good on his only field goal attempt and Ryan Breen got a chance to punt for Jeremy Boone and made good pinning EIU inside the 20 on a 43 yard punt. Justin Brown even chipped in on punt return with a nice 20 yarder which is sadly, the longest one of the year so far.

Overall

With all that said, this game was less competitive than the Blue-White game and you can't come away felling anything but "yeah, but… it was a Div I-AA team." It's nice and all but it was a boring beatdown over an overmatched opponent. Now that we're past that God-awful OOC schedule let us never speak of this again. For those of you that spent good money for the game Saturday, good for you I hope you got what you paid for. For me, I took a nap somewhere in the 3^rd quarter.