Allow me to start this rant off by stating for the record that Ohio State deserves all the credit in the world. They outplayed Penn State in every aspect of the game and I don't want to take anything away from that. Having said that, I'm officially done rooting for this team as long as all or part of this coaching staff is still in place. I'm tired of the same conservative play calling on both offense and defense against any team with a pulse. Spread HD? Sure against the likes of Akron and Temple, but against Iowa and OSU: PUCKER. Let me put it to you this way, Paterno likes to say that the people in the media (including bloggers) have no idea what we're talking about. Fine, I'll admit most of us may not but tell me this then, how can someone with such a vacuum of football knowledge predict not only a total breakdown in philosophy but entire series of plays. I won a bet Saturday when I correctly called a three and out on one of Penn State's series. Not a single play mind you, three in a row. It's so fucking obvious what's coming that anybody that has watched more than a handful of football games can see it. If I can successfully predict what the offense is going to do (remember I'm one of them dumb bloggers) what do you think opposing defensive coordinators are going to do? See: Saturday. Penn State opened up on their first play by not blocking anybody and the coaches went into their play calling shell. Game over before it started. For 10 weeks now we've watched horrible special teams get worse as the season goes on. They put return men back on punts whose job is to fair catch and they don't even do that well, forget about putting someone back there with some athletic ability, just fair catch the ball and get the mash-the-ball-up-the-middle offense on the field. There is absolutely no excuse for the horrid special teams coverage that has cost Penn State time and time again. That, my friends, is coaching (or lack thereof). The defense doesn't get a pass either, there was plenty of whiff tackles and boneheaded breakdowns to make any fan's head explode. (Hey, did you know Terrelle Pryor likes to run? Yeah? Might want to cover that next time, you know… Purdue did).
In the end, give credit to Ohio State for being prepared and executing but know this, this was a complete FAIL by the entire coaching staff. This team wasn't prepared to play, had a remarkably stupid game plan, and executed said retarded game plan horribly. This season Penn State has beat Akron, Syracuse, Temple, Eastern Somebody, and Minnesota at home. The two teams with a pulse beat Penn State badly. All criticism of their schedule is TOTALLY warranted. Let me put it this way: if you purchased two season tickets you dumped roughly a grand for you and a friend to watch that crap. Hope you feel you got your money's worth. Me… I took the $1000 and put it to good use… like beer.
Totally made the right choice.
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I notice that we were both woefully wrong in our predictions, likely because of all the Kool-Aid I drank.
I couldn't even watch most of the game on TV because for some stupid reason ESPN2 was showing the ACC crap? GUH FUH BUH FUH BUH.
I don't know if I can get behind the "this is the fault of the crappy schedule" group, though, as much as I think the crappy schedule should have karmically doomed us to this performance. It is hard to see how the offensive line could have been worked more in those stupid useless games than they actually were - they just are now proven to be, fundamentally, really not capable of playing well against good D lines.
I’m a firm believer in you get more out of being beat by a good team than you do beating the snot out of a lousy team. Even in defeat you quickly learn how good you are and what weaknesses need addressed. That doesn’t happen against a woefully outmatched opponent.
Yeah, but still playing devil's advocate, we knew what the weaknesses were against those should-have-been-easy-to-beat-but-weren't-all-that-easy-to-beat cupcakes. Some of us, self included, got optimistic after we did a little better against the Illinoises and Minnesotas, but the same basic problems that made us not blow out our cupcakes quickly enough were what Iowa and Ohio State were able to do something with.
In other words, I think this year was shot either way it went. We deserve bad karma for scheduling this OOC crap anyways, but I don't think it hurt us this time around, not in the short-term anyways.
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