It has been 114 years since Duquesne Athletic Club beat the Nittany Lions 65-5. No one has come close to scoring that many points against PSU since — until last night.
Absolutely the most humiliating loss of all time and Urban Meyer is a prick for running up the score and the officials threw it to Ohio State and they cheated. Get it out of your system. Purge it. Take a good crap. You’ll feel better.
But in the end, it was a loss we all expected and Urban Meyer did no more or less than coach his team to kick ass, which is what he’s paid to do.
I hope the young team got a dose of humility, but more importantly, I hope they don’t hang their heads after being outclassed by a better collection of football players. I think that there is a danger of memories not being instantly erased, although O’Brien has been posturing publicly that they will. No, these guys remember, and some of that is due to their meandering leaderlessness.
The leadership vacuum was no more evident to me at any time than it was when Zach Zwinak left the field after carelessly fumbling the ball away to the scarlet clad enemy. He turned his back to a furious fusillade from O’Brien and sat down at the end of the bench, somewhere around Port Matilda, with no teammates coming over to console him. Sean Lee would have been over there in a heartbeat, dressed out or not. This team just doesn’t have that kind of presence. And that’s a morale problem right there in a fancily wrapped box.
But, of course, that’s only one rant. I could kick myself for not seeing this as a blowout, thinking PSU could be competitive for even the first half. After all, OSU let Northwestern and Iowa hang around well into the second halves of those games. I guess they were just fooling around with them, like a cat playing with a mouse. Or are the Nittany Lions really that bad?
It seemed like everything that the Buckeyes threw at them worked well. Of course, if you’re going to play Sandusky/Bradley pass defense, you expect to give up some yards. The deal was “bend but don’t break” (to which the latter day Sandusky lent a whole new meaning). Alas, the defense has to have the capability of not breaking once the bending is done. Last night, Penn State’s slow and inept defense did nothing but bend over. After their cherry was popped on the first series, they just lay down, moaning, “Bring it on, big boy!”
Six hundred eighty six yards. At the end of the day, when all was said and done, in the final analysis, that was the number. Bottom line. Of the 686, 408 were on the ground. Miller got to rest his arm, throwing only 24 times, but completing 18 of those for 252 yards and three touchdowns before his backups came in for mop-up duty. When your running game is averaging eight yards per carry against a porous defense, your worries are few and you see bluebirds and butterflies. Oy vey!
The offense didn’t win an academy award, either. Hackenberg’s throws were off target and he got picked twice. Everything had to click for this game to be competitive, but after early hopes were dashed by Corey Brown’s interception in the end zone on Penn State’s opening drive, they were clunking, not clicking, for the rest of the game.
Sanguinarians unite! Bill Belton had a great game, so there’s something positive for you. The offensive line did half a job, too! Thinking back to St. Joe’s old bromide, “You’re never as bad as you think you are when you lose.” Yeah, and patsy Illinois is coming up! Yeah, we’ll clean their clocks. We can still have a 9-3 season! Hey hey hey!
Wake up. Not with this defense, they won’t, and not without some leaders to scrape these guys’ faces off the locker room floor.
Here’s a bright thought. RD and I actually attended a 63-14 game that went the other way at Beaver Stadium back in 1994. So, they owed us one. I didn’t hear anyone bitching about PSU running up the score back then. Not in State College, anyway.
Yeah, the bitching about Urban Meyer started before the game even concluded. Do I blame him for going balls to the wall against PSU? Hell, no! There’s nothing wrong with humiliating one’s opponent. Who needs pussification and politeness on the field of combat? You play to win and don’t let up. BCS rankings being what they are, higher point totals can mean the difference between being in the SSMNC and being in a lesser bowl. PSU is not in that situation, and I think those of you who are whining are jealous of OSU for being there.
I guess I could give Meyer a little heat for challenging that spot late in the game after PSU’s fate had long been sealed (that happened before halftime), but I won’t. When you play to win, you don’t let up.
So, go ahead and hate the opposing coach. That’s part of the game, too. We have nothing to celebrate, so we might as well bitch about trivialities that wouldn’t have affected the outcome in the slightest. Complain about OSU being treated less harshly about Tattoogate than was PSU about Sanduskygate, but don’t complain about a coach doing his job. If the tables were turned, O’Brien would be piling on the points, too, and you’d be cheering for his ass.
In fact, there was nothing but gloating when PSU beat Illinois 63-10 back in 2005 (remember Arrington pancaking the punter?), completely humiliating their opponent. How about the 81-0 shellacking of Cincinnati? Success with honor — or not? I guess if St. Joe felt like doing it, it was OK.
So we’re embarrassed and humiliated. But in our hearts, we knew we didn’t have a competitive team this year. Yeah, the sanctions hurt and the breadth and depth of talent is not there. What’s more, the leadership isn’t there. We knew these would be problems at the beginning of the season. The defense has been showing its ineptitude the whole year. So, yeah, be embarrassed, but don’t be surprised. The Nittany Lions played a top-ten team and lost. Get over it.
Or did the Buckeyes cheat?
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Walt says
I detest Urban Meyer but resent Bill O’Brien’s curt handshake at the end. He is – needlessly – a sore loser, has developed a coach’s mentality despite a Brown education, and is on a short tether with the silly NFL as soon as Belichick or someone goes. Is that a satisfaction to yearn for? He needs his head examined. You want Jay Glazer extolling you? Sal Pal?
Despite O’Brien’s success in distracting us from Sandusky, we won’t regain our heyday past unless we do it with a younger coach and a younger athletic director. Something most Penn Staters don’t comprehend. Are you watching Jeremy Foley’s football empire crumble at Florida? His time’s expired, and he’s outlived his one-and-done entitlement: Urban Meyer.
Poor Schiano is fucked-out, Bill Muschamp has been undressed, Steve Spurrier’s son is taken, and Al Golden has already found his mecca. Where do we go?
You know Bobby Bowden is now roundly acclaimed as the winningest coach of all-time? Tragic. He couldn’t wipe Joe’s butt at WVU in 1970. Or could he? Maybe we missed something? When Joe Paterno could have been Bo Schembechler, something was amiss back then that we would only learn later. It seemed everyone loved Glenn F Bo; Paterno loved whom he wanted.
Our vision has really been blurred. Remember when we were anointing Glen Mason and Kirk Ferentz as our next coaches? Be truthful, Barry of Burgettstown was also in our mix. Oh wait! He promised to only “ADVISE” us. Have you seen where his coaching protégés have landed: Bielema at Arkansas, Chryst at Pitt, and Pellini at Nebraska? ALL dead-men-walking. Didn’t Brad Nessler call him “Pelloni” on Saturday? “Parodi” makes more sense. Donna Shalala, ex of Madison WI, even listened to him at Miami until someone wised her up!
If we are going to ascribe to this drudgery of winning and losing, we at least have to surrender to it being run by coaches and ADs decades younger than us and – rightfully – more progressive. That’s why I think we need to evaluate our futures and what’s going to turn us on. And then we die.
Even Barry Alvarez woke up and hired a guy (Gary Anderson) from Utah State. Have you seen what Utah State is doing? Wisconsin?
No such vision in Happy Valley.
The Nittany Turkey says
No honorarium for that rambling diatribe, but your viewpoint is always welcome here at the Turkey. We strive for diversity.
I don’t think O’Brien is necessarily a sore loser. If he was, he wouldn’t be taking the blame off the team’s shoulders for each loss, selflessly posturing that he’s the culprit. Of course that’s phony and we all know that the sparse talent is to blame.
It’s never one man’s fault, not even the coach. There ain’t no “I” in “team” (but there are three “U”s in “shut the fuck up”).
How we got onto Barry Alvarez here, I have no idea.
As reflected by my earlier prose back around the time of St. Joe’s passage, I felt that the successor probably wouldn’t be a long-term guy. Although I like O’Brien (sometimes), I haven’t bought into the institutionalized hero worship I’ve seen in other quarters. But no, I don’t believe O’Brien is the Second Coming of St. Joe by any means, with respect to his projected longevity in the position, particularly.
—TNT
BigAl says
“But in our hearts, we knew we didn’t have a competitive team this year.’
In your heart and my heart, maybe, but in the hearts of the average BSD blogger and poster.
They’re still spouting their customary ‘if only’ crap.
– If only the refs had called the dozens of obvious holding and pass interference penalties that tOSU committed.
– If only Hack hadn’t thrown an interception on State’s first offensive series.
– If only we still had a competent defensive coordinator.
Then we could have won this game (or least been competitive).
They just can’t handle the truth. State is a mediocre team with average talent. They’re basically a 2nd division B1G team that will have trouble reaching .500 in the B1G until the 2016 season.
Even then I’m not convinced they’ll be able to compete with tOSU and mooU unless BoB recruits some decent offensive linemen – which he still has to prove that he can do. This isn’t the pro game where you can pick up some halfway serviceable offensive linemen off waivers and win games with star quarterbacks and receivers.
As for the rest of this year – who knows. You’d like to think State can bounce back enough to beat Illinois. But, I watched the Illinois-MSU game, and Illinois’ OL “holds” as much as tOSU’s did. Only thing is, their ‘holding” didn’t slow down the MSU DL very much. You have to be within arm’s length of your opponent to “hold”‘ or “interfere” successfully.
PS I think tOSU’s 686 yards sets a new record for yards allowed defensively (the old one was set by BC during the Flutie years). I’m surprised Urbz didn’t leave Guiton in long enough to break the 700 yard barrier.
The Nittany Turkey says
Those people over at BSD are nuts. Buncha whining homeys who think they know a helluva lot more than is evident by some of the stuff that comes out of there. Beneath the surface, they’re still whining about the interception John Sacca threw in the Miami game in 1783, and thinking that the Articles of Incorporation might have included a special provision for Penn State after the Revolutionary War. Or something.
So, we’re back to calling OSU cheaters and externalizing blame for merely having a mediocre team with a talent gap that is irreparable over the next couple of years? How unusual.
Good point about the O-line. Seems like we’re always going after linebackers, tight ends, running backs, and defensive linemen. Maybe McWhorter is getting too old to travel. But someone better sure as hell look after the offensive line, and somebody better sure as hell develop a serviceable secondary, or PSU will be the old, kick-around Indiana of the B1G.
I know what the Sanguinarians are thinking — it’s back to the St. Joe treatise about never being as bad as you think you are when you lose. But his teams didn’t lose so completely and embarrassingly, so what the hell did He know? They’ll still be thinking 9-3, even after this debacle.
I really don’t know what to think about the remainder of the season, so I’m sticking with my 6-6. Why not? I said it before the season, and I don’t want to be viewed as blowing in the wind. Minnesota looks better than we thought, Nebraska looks worse, and so does Wisconsin. Nevertheless, I think they all can beat the Nittany Lions, particularly if no one steps into the leadership void to give them a positive kick in the ass. They should be able to dispatch Illinois and Purdue, but who knows? Absent a PSU defense, those so-called weak sisters have a chance to win.
It is time that homeys start assessing this team and its chances honestly. Even before the sanctions, it hadn’t been much better than a middle of the pack team in a pretty crappy conference for many years. We can point to a couple of years and enjoy them, but there hasn’t been a “dynasty” at Penn State since the mid-1990s. Why the Sanguinarians think of PSU as a consistently great team that is always a few bad breaks away from a perfect season — well, that’s why they’re the Sanguinarians.
I do remember that close to 500 yard passing game by Flutie. Back in that earlier time, we all marveled at its unthinkability. Now, we wonder if Indiana will embarrass PSU with a 400+ yard passing game. Given this defense, short on talent and short on depth, we need to temper our expectations.
I should start a 12-step program for Sanguinarians.
—TNT
jd says
“Beneath the surface, they’re still whining about the interception John Sacca threw in the Miami game in 1783”
that line is so perfect in encapsulating the mindset. also, it made the coffee come out of my nose.
The Nittany Turkey says
Occasionally, my mind takes a detour down the road less traveled.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery from your caffeinated nasal lavage.
—TNT
Joe says
There should be no surprises in the result and score other than OSU is a hell of a lot better than I thought they were and maybe as a result of playing like shit in their last two games, finally are playing to their potential.
The holes on this team are real and have been known by most of us before the season started.
Leadership-we knew that was a void with this group.
OL-overrated even though they had a lot of playing time coming in to the season and no one has apparently taught them how to hold and not get caught. While Urschel is a great guy, he’s too friggin’ nice to be a “hog”.
Defense-we knew going in to the season that there was nothing here and there was nothing propping up what was there.
QB-no better time than this season to earn his big boy pants, but did we really expect this kid to come in and become a Heisman candidate in his true freshman season? Even if he did redshirt this year, we would be going through the growing pains like we’re seeing this season down the road.
DC-Butler is in over his head and Midget obviously does not have a vast amount of knowledge to help with the game planning.
Talent-we have nowhere near the star power (primarily speed) that the top 5 teams have and until we can get back to the full level of scholies and see if BOB can out-recruit Meyer & Hoke and get outside the mid-atlantic area for talent, not much is going to change within the B1G and it’s going to take a quantum leap beyond that to be a “playa” on the national level.
BSD & the Sanguinarians-they are a good “rose-colored glasses” counterpoint to the sometimes curmudgeonly outlook (including myself) that’s posted from time to time here. Remember, opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one. That’s why I read both BSD and the NT.
Coaches-Just a point of clarification for Walt; Gary Anderson is 49; O’Brien is 44. O’Brien has brought a “new offense” to Penn State, which is more pro-style and I like it. He just needs the talent to run it if that’s even possible. I also think you may see some changes to the staff after this season, just a hunch. O’Brien’s not a dummy, but he needs to be successful to get that offer for an NFL gig, and that’s not going to happen if he consistently hovers around 500.
Urban-just think, if tattoo-gate had not occurred and the Sandusky shit had not surfaced (both two big ifs), he would most likely be coaching the Lions, and we would be overjoyed if he put up 63 on the bucknuts. Yes Urban is a douche, but he’s sold his sole to rock ‘n roll and knows what it takes to win and you will get no compassion from him during a game like Saban gave to Paterno.
Team morale-Listening to a couple of post game interviews (Lucas and Belton) and O’Briens post game presser, this game definitely had an impact on their psyche. I’m concerned (especially with a noon Kickoff) how motivated this team will be against the Fighting Illini on Saturday, but it will be what it will be.
Take consolation in the fact that our just released GSR, APR and Federal Graduation Rates are all way above average and the sun did come up this morning in Southeastern PA.
Besides I never want to get to the point where I act like those two OSU codgers they kept showing during the broadcast with the red face paint, wigs and buckeye necklaces screaming their lungs out and living and dying by what a college football team does.
The Nittany Turkey says
So what’s the bottom line, in the final analysis, when all is said and done at the end of the day? You’ll take things as they come? It is what it is? Yeah, I can buy into that philosophy, because I sure as hell don’t have the wherewithal or the desire to manage the team from here, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know what the hell I was doing. Those who invest too much of themselves in things they cannot control are throwing their capital away. Ride with the tide. Have a laugh once in a while at the expense of the team you support. It’s only football.
BSD was a cool place when it was all Mike plus a couple others. I used to visit there regularly back then. Now, Mike is gone and it’s part of SB Nation, and there’s lots of information and misinformation there. The authors there sometimes amaze me with their acumen, but equally frequently astound me with their naivete and dilletantishness. In any case, they don’t write like a crazy person as I do. I never purported to be a valid source of information here; instead, I claim to offer high grade bullshit, with which you can agree or disagree and I could give half a fuck which, just as long as you say something so I can either argue with you or empathize with you. (Mostly, the former).
You gave us the short form of the old bromide about opinions. For the uninitiated, I’ll supply the rest:
Opinions are like assholes: everybody’s got one and they all stink.
—TNT
Joe says
Thought this was an interesting analysis of the condition of the defense and the “Butler Must Go” chants.
http://victorybellrings.com/2013/10/28/penn-state-football-ohio-state-loss-john-butler-back-fire/
The Nittany Turkey says
Good commentary by VBR. As he says, and as we know:
Fans are going to be impatient, and they’re going to call for heads to roll if their vicarious lives are threatened by their favored team’s subpar performance. The easy way out is to blame the coach(es).
The silliest-ass thing I’ve heard is the Bring Back Bradley movement. Thank God fans have no voice in coaching personnel decisions. Aside from the fact that it would never happen, WHY? So we could watch cornerbacks laying 10 yards off receivers again? Bradley lucked out during his DC time because there was lots of talent on the defense (secondary notwithstanding). But even when he had some halfway decent corners (Phillips, King, Zemaitis), they didn’t cover fast receivers very well, and PSU always seemed to be beaten by quick slants and passes underneath the secondary in the seam. (They had decent linebackers, but as good as they were, they still seemed to struggle with pass defense.) Is that what we want?
Aw, hell, our corners are laying 10 yards off receivers now, so what’s the difference? I’ll tell you what’s the difference. The assistant coaches work for the head coach, not the fans. The only scenario under which Bradley could return (if he actually wanted to) would be if O’Brien suddenly bolted and the administration wanted to save some money on a replacement.
It’s late, I’m incoherent, and I gotta go to bed.
—TNT