A Little Distraction

#4 Penn State 44, Maryland 7

Maryland drew first blood due to a cold hands fumble by Nick Singleton on the first play from scrimmage followed by a pinpoint 25-yard touchdown toss from M.J. Morris to Kaden Prather. That was the last time the Terrapins would get close to scoring for the remaining fifty-nine minutes of play.

How about another slow damn start?

Talk about slow starts, the Nittany Lions came out flat, as usual, but with more justification for the dullard look this time (if there is any such thing as dullard justification). They were undoubtedly watching their former foes in maize and blue give tOSU boosters just cause for sending Ryan Day on a slow boat to China. If you were sleeping all day, the Wolverines beat the heavily favored Buckeyes 13-10 in the Horseshoe. That’s four straight losses to Michigan by Day, whose day might have come.

More significantly for Penn State, the two-loss Bucks are out of the Big Ten Championship picture, while the one-loss Nittany Lions are in. PSU will face top-ranked Oregon in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis next Saturday, December 7, at 8 PM. So, the boys were no doubt intently watching a very emotional game that ended moments before they had to take the field. Then, they needed to do a mental context switch. I watched them exiting the tunnel lugubriously as the twenty-seven degree air hit them in the face.

But they would not exit their pre-game stupor for a while. Head coach James Franklin, whose contract was recently renegotiated and extended to accommodate the playoffs (which Penn State backed into by losing to the only decent team they played all year) was seen on the sidelines shaking his head after at least two bone-headed errors. Franklin was unprepared as well, because at least for the first seven or eight minutes, he was not wearing anything to protect his bald pate from the bitter cold and wind. Finally, a sock hat appeared on his head. And finally, the Nittany Lions got their act together and won this one going away.

Such a rivalry, already!

A trophy should exist for this pseudo-rivalry. (It was one-third of a contrived tripartite rivalry invented by retired Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany. At least the original contrived rivalry with fellow Land Grant institution Moo U has a trophy, arguably the ugliest trophy in the whole wide world of sports. However, the Penn State vs. Rutgers and Penn State vs. Maryland rivalry games are untrophified, begging for some trophy design creativity. The latter could be called the Mason-Dixon Trophy, and the former, the Fuggedaboudit Trophy. But who are we kidding? The real PSU rivalry is with Ohio State.

Retrospective Non-Analysis

Stats are for losers, so I won’t dwell on them. Yeah, Penn State held the Terps to seventy-two yards rushing, but nobody expected them not to. Also, the Maryland passing game, which produced all of 122 yards, was hampered by the injury-related absence of starting quarterback Billy Edwards, Jr. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions were piling up 412 yards on their way to the 44-7 rout.

Well, that’s about all I can say for the Senior Day game, which is supposed to be the last time these fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-year seniors play at Beaver Stadium. That would be the case if Penn State did not make the playoffs, but it seems likely that they will do so and will get a home game in the first round. “Wait!” say the Sanguinarians, “If ‘we’ beat Oregon in the Big Ten Championship game, ‘we’ get a first-round bye.” Yeah, like they have a chance of beating Oregon! I say that tongue-in-cheek. Anything can happen. We saw what happened in Ohio Stadium today.

Another Week, Another Game.

(Let’s concentrate on going 1-0 this week, shall we?)

With my head squarely up my ass, I imagine the oddmakers will install Oregon as the favorite to win by a touchdown or so. Fair enough. They beat Ohio State. PSU didn’t. Undefeated Oregon is currently leading Washington 49-21 late in the fourth quarter as I write this. I do not believe that the Huskies can surmount that big a deficit with less than two minutes on the clock. Can Penn State hold their own against that juggernautical Oregon offense? The Ducks will provide a decent test for the Nittany Lions on both sides of the ball, so to speak. (Another stupid sportswriter cliche).

No matter how it shakes out, Penn State will play a couple more games this year. For us fans, that is a good thing. It’s a lonnnnnnnng off-season.

Now that this Turkey has survived Thanksgiving, I will be back mid-week for a preview and prediction of the unexpected Big Ten Championship game between the #4 (maybe #3) Nittany Lions and the #1 Ducks. Please give me your thoughts before the Big Showdown at Lucas Oil Stadium.