Now, I’m doubly pissed off! Not only did the Nittany Lions make a poor showing of it in their 17-16 loss to Virginia on Saturday, but also in the game to which I’ve been looking forward for half the summer, Peyton Manning manninghandled the Steelers’ defense in the fourth quarter, winning it 31-19. At least the Lions came through for me in my NFL survivor pool (take THAT, Kubany! ????? ???? ???? ????? ), albeit in sloppy fashion. For the first full weekend of fall football entertainment, it sure as hell could be more entertaining.
On the good side, the AHA Heart Walk campaign proceeds apace, and big surprise, I scored a $500 donation this morning. So, at least on that front, things are looking up.
I really don’t have much to say about the Penn State game. As you all know, it was easily a winnable game, even without the services of our number one tailback, Bill Belton. ??? ???? ??? ???? Gaining 121 yards on the ground while holding the Cavaliers to 32, converting three of four fourth downs, and getting 19 first downs to Virginia’s 14 should have been enough for the Nittany Lions. And throw in four turnovers for the Hoos to none for the Nits for good measure. However, our boys were awful on third down, converting only ten of 23, and, shhhhhhhhh, don’t want to spook the boy who’s already snake bit, but four missed field goals is a sure recipe for blowing a game.
Penn State looked good early — again — scoring on its first drive, a 17 play, 75 yard affair that consumed 6:27. But then, the Nittany Lions wouldn’t score again until the fourth period. Amazing! They sure as hell squandered the many opportunities they were given. Ficken missed from 40, 38, 20, and 42, but worst of all, he had an extra point blocked that would have sent the game to overtime, maybe, perhaps. He did make one from 32 after Mauti recovered a Cav fumble, and those were the only points realized from a turnover during the whole damn game.
I’ll give credit where credit is due. Mauti played a helluva game. I won’t pin the loss on Sam Ficken, either. The offense was just plain bad, and the third-down stats tell that tale quite well without much embellishment from me, thankyouverymuch.
One entertaining highlight was Glenn Carson running a faked punt 19 yards for one of those three fourth down conversions I mentioned. Got to give it to Ron Vanderlinden — he doesn’t mind his linebackers’ penchant for moonlighting!
So, it’s the Midshipmen next (whom I used to call the “midshipments” as a kid), who might be beatable if some of the many kinks can be worked out. But hear me talking, there are no sure things anymore this season. Not Temple, Not Northwestern, Not Indiana, Not Purdue. Iowa, maybe. They really suck this year. LOL. I’ll be back later this week with a savage tale of the midshipments who not only have a little girl in every port, but a little port in every girl.
******
Being in a rather masochistic mood last night due to what I described above, I went looking for a picture of
The Woman Who Took On Joe Paterno and Lost!
And here she is. No reason you should sleep tonight if I didn’t.
Then, I went looking for someone who could play her role in the forthcoming biopic about Joe Paterno, starring Al Pacino as Joe.
One image stuck in my head, which was probably due to her haircut and her suit. I think it works on more than one level, but I’m just not certain.
But I thought, “Get real, dude!” He was much too tall to play Vicky. He would not be believable, other than the facial resemblance.
So, that is when my mind wandered over to Charlize Theron. No, wait! I’m not talking about the South African beauty in her usual skin using the best Emeraldspa skin care products; I mean the way the makeup geniuses and Charlize’s acting talent were able to somehow transform her to fit the role of scuzzball Aileen Wuornos in “Monster.”
Well, what do you think? I like the idea, myself, although it led to nightmares when I finally was able to get to sleep last night. Also, I rolled it by the Twitter folks, one of whom required emergency therapy upon seeing the first of the pictures above. Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure that we got a consensus in favor of Charlize, but only if the same makeup crew is still available. ??? ???? ?? ?????
Update 9/11/12: I also wanted you to be able to see the early Vicky, so I’ve posted some high school yearbook pix.
I’ll be nice to you, though, since you guys are always nice to me. I’ll sign off with a picture of Charlize as she usually looks so you won’t have nightmares.
Feel better now?
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Don says
Wow, the resemblance between Triponey and Herman Munster is uncanny!
The Nittany Turkey says
The more rocks we turn over, the more things we’ll find whose resemblance to her is nothing short of striking.
—TNT
Lizzie says
Your only hope now Turk is the Pens if the season ever gets off the ground. As for me, our city has only one professional team who may be sitting out the season so I don’t feel sorry for you. At least you can watch your teams win or lose.
The Nittany Turkey says
The Pens scored an A+ in the draft. Everybody is healthy. It just figures that they might not be playing.
—TNT
BigAl says
Virginia wasn’t “who we thought they were” and that was a game State should have won. However, when you don’t have an Div I level kicker, or running back (D Day should be playing in the PSAC)), or safeties, you’re not going win a lot of those close, winnable games.
One warning sign for the future: UVA averaged almost a yard more per play than State and the result would have been worse without those 4 turnovers deep in UVA territory.
The picture of Triponey is enough to wilt any man’s erection. That’s a face made for marketing birth control products.
Think the best choice to play her would be Glenn Close (as Cruella De Ville). BTW Triponey is a very rare surname – the only Triponey’s I could find were Clearfield County coal miners.
And Joe Pesci would be a better Paterno than Pacino- he definitely sounds and looks more like Joe. And if not Pesci, then Robert DeNiro.
The Nittany Turkey says
Yeah, I considered Glenn Close — I mentally typecast her in roles where she eventually either kills someone or drives them nuts.
It’s going to be hard for anybody to play Paterno because we all remember him vividly. A method acting guy like Pacino has as good a chance as any, although I’ve accused him of grossly overacting at times.
I found Vicky’s high school yearbook. She was her class’ salutatorian at Curwensville Area High in 1975. She looked about the same at 16.
—TNT
Joe says
Won’t provide any more comment on the game with the “Hoos” other than we’re a lot more inexperienced than I thought we were, we are awfully young, the quality of the previous administration’s recruiting (or lack thereof) is really shining through and depth scares the “bejeebers out of me”.
Now coming from a guy who (ahem) predicted 12-0, I can look at a couple of things in a “glass half full kind of light”.
The offense-I like! Going for it on 4th down, fake punts out of nowhere and some fresh play calling. I’m convinced at some point it will all come together (hopefully sooner rather than later). I also keep reminding myself that these kids were not recruited to play this offense and game situations are different than practices. It will come together as the young guys get real game experience.
The defense-I also like. Yeah, our secondary is what everyone thought it was and it seems there is also confusion on coverage responsibilities when a blitz package is called, but again there is a measure of complexity to this new scheme. It’s not just drop back 10 yards and keep the play in front of you. I think they played with more passion this week. Again it will come together.
I do not blame Sam Ficken! And Fera is hurt, he wouldn’t have been kicking right now anyway. (I’d invite the Bahr brothers to come out to SC for a few days and spend some quality time with Ficken.)
Some other random thoughts:
-As evidenced by this weekends results, the B1G is and is going to be AWFUL this year. Watched some of the Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska games and they pretty much stunk. Even mighty Meechigan was lucky to beat the fly-fly boys. This was part of my logic for my dumb-ass prediction.
-“Bench off da bench!” (At least I got something right!) Actually the kid looked pretty confident when he came in. Can’t expect much more from a true frosh, but I think there is something there and he’s also a BoB recruit.
-Shows you what the star system meant for Bolden and Jones.
-Don’t put all your $$ on Temple just yet-Maryland (who is lousy again this year) made them look like the team that got booted from the Big East.
-Nobody and I mean nobody is going to beat Alabama. Never saw a team that could throttle down an offense because Saban wanted to prove a point to the media.
-I was winded just watching the Broncos run their hurry up offense 5000+ feet above sea level and I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to be on the field sucking air and trying to find some amount of oxygen.
-If you have to play in Denver during the first three or four weeks, the NFL should allow the visiting team to play with respirators. Since most of the first team guys hardly play during the pre-season, and need the first few weeks to play themselves in to game shape, I think Mark Emmert should impose sanctions on the NFL for allowing anyone to play in Denver during the first month of the season.
Regarding Ms. Vick(e)y; I thought I would never see a face that could freeze fire! Someone should get her a gift certificate for Glamour Shots or some other mall studio that can turn your average person in to Playboy centerfold material with some make-up and lights. That picture is bald-dog ugly!
Too bad Margaret Hamilton has passed away, she would have been great to play VT (obviously with her hair dyed blonde). And she would have to have a pet Flying Monkey (hollywood has been known to take some liberties right?) Yeah, that could be the way she communicated her Penn State secrets to Emmert! Through the magic of CG, the studio could recreate Nikko (the one with the hat) as the King of the Monkeys flying in to the dark tower in Nap Town to deliver more dirt on PS and Paterno from VT to send this program back to the Stone Age.
I still think Brooklyn Decker needs to have a part. Maybe one of Joe’s daughters swimming in the PS pool instead of Sue (more Hollywood storyline liberties!!!!) Yowzaa!
The Nittany Turkey says
I’ll adopt a very patient “we’ll wait and see” attitude with respect to your sunshiny optimism. BigAl and you are the poster children for darkness and light, respectively, with reference to the Nittany Lions of 2012. I’m somewhere in between — probably closer to Al’s side.
That picture of Vicky was published in conjunction with the famous article entitled, “The Woman Who Fought Joe Paterno and Won.” It’s pretty hard for me to consider getting one’s ass fired “winning”, but maybe she’s had a conversation or two with Charlie Sheen.
Hell, just for you Vicky fans, I think I’ll do a photo album of the pix I dug up from her high school yearbook.
There’s a guy on Twitter (@1stupidmunkey) who claims that the current Batman movie, “The Dark Knight”, is an allegory that very closely parallels the Penn State drama. It was released on July 20, 2012, just days before the Paterno statue was removed. It’s still in theaters, upon which I have long given up because of the myriad petty annoyances of people with inadequate upbringings to have learned common courtesies, so I’ll have to wait until it exists in a form I can watch at home, either Blu-Ray or VOD.
I watched the Steelers run out of gas in the fourth quarter. The pick-six spelled the beginning of the end. Otherwise, I’m not unhappy with them. With Harrison back and Clark in there, they’ll be their good old defensive selves.
And I don’t think 63-yarders should count in Denver. Dempsey did his at sea level.
There definitely needs to be a hot chick in the Paterno movie to counterbalance Vicky, Sue, and all the other Coal Miners’ Daughters. Someone who can score high on the Peter Meter. It’s Hollywood fantasy license. To steal the late Bob Ross’ signature line, “It’s your world and you can make it do whatever you want it to do.
—TNT
Joe says
I still think The new offense does not suit Big Ben. His success has been making things happen, not handing off to running backs or taking three step drops. I don’t share your optimism that all is well with the return of Harrison and Clark, I think the issue is an offense that maybe just doesn’t fit the talent of the QB and also an inability to keep O linemen healthy.
The Nittany Turkey says
Well, there’s that, and Dwyer and Redman ain’t Rashard Mendenhall, either. I dunno, though. I think Big Ben is unhappy about the Rooneys dumping Bruce Arians, which fits peripherally into what you’re saying.
The new guy was brought in specifically because he’s a tough guy who can lean on Roethlisberger. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for good team chemistry. With Ben’s wife expecting their first child, and Haley getting on his nerves, this could be the winter of Ben’s discontent, and the sun of York is nowhere in sight.
I was talking about the D-fence. I’m as yet unsettled about the offense.
—TNT