The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Morelli to Coach Close to Home

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Former Nittany Lions quarterback has accepted a job at Plum Senior High School, near his home town of Penn Hills, where he says he’ll stay only until the next NFL offer comes along. This Turkey believes that Morelli will be a high school assistant coach for a long time, as that offer will likely never arrive.

Nate Mink, of The Daily Collegian, writes:

“…it’s the perfect locale for Morelli, the former Penn State quarterback and ex-NFLer more maligned for his shortcomings instead of praised for leading the Nittany Lions to 18 wins and two bowl victories as a two-year starter.”

First, let me say that I hope Mink’s grammar and usage improve during his Penn State career. Here’s another gem:

“Everywhere you turn, the horizon is lined with treetops. This is a place no one can bother you, no one can rag you.”

I wrote some hackneyed crap like that on a freshman comp paper and was nailed to a cross for it. I didn’t even omit a “where” or incorrectly use the colloquial “you” instead of a third person noun or pronoun more appropriate in formal prose. However, I pedantically digress.

Beyond that, the article is skewed in defense of Morelli. I suppose that’s fine, even though it seems to take precedence over reporting the simple story of Morelli finding work.

This Turkey wishes Anthony a fine career as the quarterbacks coach for Plum’s head coach Frank Sacco.

The Season Approacheth, Part One

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Twelve days and counting. Usually, by this time, The Nittany Turkey has issued his season predictions for the forthcoming Penn State football year. Not so this year. This year is special. This Turkey has been far too lazy far too long. So, without further ado, let me rectumfy this sorry situation.

As usual, I’m going to be a bag of wind, so those with short attention spans can just conclude that I’m full of horse squeeze and stop reading right here. You won’t be far from wrong. In fact, I’m going to break this up into two installments, just so even those with adult attention spans don’t get completely repelled by my frequent digressions.

I look at the season ahead with mixed feelings. Everybody and his brother are predicting an undefeated, walkover year. Given the easy schedule, that could well happen. This possibility is reflected in pre-season polls, in many of which the Nittany Lions are regarded as a top ten team. Meanwhile, many sportswriters and blogwonks have microanalyzed the team and the schedule to submission, backing into whatever conclusions they could have pulled out of their ass and written in a sentence or two in the first place. But you read this crap so you can agree or disagree with it, use it for fodder for bar conversations, wipe your butt with it, or whatever, so they (and I) are compelled to write some pseudo-erudite pontifications or at least some sort of inflammatory prose. That is our raison d’être.

Some weenies feel that the Lions should play for the Still Somewhat Mythical National Championship (SSMNC) every year. They continue to lament trivia like the two seconds Lloyd Carr was awarded in 2005. Yeah, right, like they would have been competitive in the SSMNC that year. Even after being taken apart by USC in this year’s Rose Bowl, they continue to rue the Iowa game – as if they would have had a chance in the SSMNC. These same weenies remain in denial that the Big Ten is in a down cycle, as if the bowl record was an accident. Not this Turkey. So, my first prediction for this season is that there will be no SSMNC, even if the Lions make it to the mythical matchup, which is highly unlikely. (Fans of perhaps 15 or 20 programs are predicting that their boys will make it there, and only two actually make it.)

How can people overlook the massively re-tooled offensive line and the untried defensive secondary? Do they think that wide receivers with few game reps will just come in and replace the legendary trio of Deon Butler, Jordan Norwood, and Derrick Williams? Is it going to be easy to replace three topnotch defensive ends and a pretty good defensive tackle? Kevin Kelly might not have been the best kicker Penn State ever put on the field, but who is going to replace him? Let’s temper the rosy forecasts with a typical dose of sourpuss Turkeyesque realism.

It looks like the starting offensive line will be (from left to right) Dennis Landolt, Matt Stankiewich, Stefen Wisniewski, Lou Eliades, and DeOn’tae Pannell. (With all that capitalization and the obligatory apostrophe, Pannell joins the All-Star Moniker team. I counted only two apostrophes, two hyphens, and two gratuitous capitalizations among the names on the 2009 roster. Penn State is sadly lagging behind the curve in the area of name embellishments. But I digress.) Some familiar names, yes, but Wisniewski and Landolt are playing unfamiliar positions. Offensive lines need a lot of practice reps and, furthermore, a lot of game reps to congeal. Look for some raggedness and missed assignments early in the season.

The secondary loses A. J. Wallace for at least a game to the Paterno doghouse. Looks like it will be Knowledge Timmons and D’Anton Lynn at the corners, and Nick Sukay and Drew Astorino at safety. Not exactly an All-Star group, is it? On the bright side, however, Derrick Thomas and Stephon Morris are rookies with some great promise.

Things are still not settled at wide receiver. Brett Bracket and Derek Moye are guaranteed to get lots of playing time until someone else emerges. This remains a big question mark in this Turkey’s mind, but I like what I’ve seen from Justin Brown. And at tight end, this is the year for Quarless to put up or shut up. This underachieving screw-up has vowed to turn over a new leaf for this season. If he doesn’t, we’re going to see a lot of Shuler and Szczerba.

Daryll Clark looks solid, as expected, at quarterback, as does the running game, led by Evan Royster, who was the only Big Ten back to rush for over 1000 yards and gain more than 5.5 yards per carry last year. However, Clark will have to get some protection from the aforementioned retooled offensive line in order to have sufficient time to get the ball out there to his receivers, such as they are.

My other big question is how we’re going to get some playing time for all the excellent quarterback recruits Penn State scored during the off-season. You all know that this has been a problem in the past, with Joe Paterno’s stubbornness being the key deterrent. However, he has at least admitted that he made a mistake insisting that Morelli play while Clark sat on the bench. We’ll have to see how this plays out, but it is a good sign that Kevin Newsome is being practiced very hard. Nevertheless, he is not ready as a backup. Not yet. So, this untried offensive line must, first and foremost, protect Clark.

At Linebacker U., the outside positions are solidly played by Sean Lee and Navorro Bowman, assuming that Lee’s rehab is complete and Bowman doesn’t violate probation again. However, the middle is somewhat questionable due to the season ending torn ACL injury to Mike Mauti. We’ll probably see lots of the much maligned Josh Hull playing MLB again this year.

In the next installment, we’ll comment on the defensive line, the special teams, and the cushy schedule before laying out the season ahead, and finally, getting right down with the Completely Official Infallible Nittany Turkey’s Reliable Early AUgury (COINTREAU).

By the Bootstraps

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Are you done whining about the Iowa loss yet? Your Turkey is. I feel strangely at peace with the notion that the Nittany Lions will not be going to the so-called national championship game. Do you?

First of all, as you all well know, I do not regard the BCS fantasy finale, better known here as the Still Somewhat Mythical National Championship (SSMNC) game, as a true determinant of a national champion. It is merely an extra game added as a thinly veiled revenue generation ploy, whose participants are chosen by an ever changing set of criteria that provide too much room for subjective doubt.

Second, who the hell says that if Penn State doesn’t go to the SSMNC game, the season is ruined? This crap about going all the way being the only acceptable alternative doesn’t resonate in Turkeyville, either. I makes me nauseous to hear people dissing Olympic athletes who dare to return home with bronze or silver medals. Competing at the highest level is good enough for this Turkey. Someone has to win and someone has to lose, ferchrissakes.

Finally, I’m certain that I’ll get a lot of flack for saying that Penn State didn’t belong in the damn SSMNC. I think you know that in your heart of hearts. You’re seriously delusional if you think that this year’s Penn State team would stand a chance against the likes of Texas Tech, Florida, or USC with all the marbles on the table. We watched our conference be humiliated in the past two instances of the SSMNC. With a deficient defense, which was fully on display last Saturday, why would Penn State fare any better than Ohio State?

Because of our pride, of course. Because of our denial.

This Turkey has been queasy about the defense all season. I have a problem with all fourteen of them: the front seven and the back seven.

Seriously, though, folks, could you see the same secondary that allowed the Hawkeyes’ rookie quarterback to pass his way down the field in a crucial, fourth-quarter situation shutting down a real passing attack? Do you think the Sandusky BBDB could ever hope to work in 2008? I’ve been bitching for 15 years that the soft zone is too easy to pick apart, and it gets easier as the years pass. Receivers get faster, quarterbacks get more accurate, and huge offensive lines provide plenty of time to throw. You can’t trust a mediocre secondary enough to blitz and if you do, you’re vulnerable to screens and dump-offs. The Sandusky soft zone is an anachronism that needs to go the way of the 5-3. It’s a different game now.

And what of the front seven? We knew that the defensive line and the linebacking corps would have holes that were impossible to fill. Late in the season, it is glaringly clear that PSU is operating with a thin defensive line and one competent linebacker. Even with Sean Lee in there, there would still be only two linebackers worth a damn.

The Nittany Lions do have an offense, or we thought they did. However, it doesn’t get started until the second quarter. ????? ?????? ????? ?????? Three quarters of football would not win a SSMNC game, unless somehow West Virginia or USF were to sneak in there. Of late, the offense has not been banging on all cylinders even when they decide it is time to play. That might work against Temple or Purdue, but as we have seen, it doesn’t work too well at all against Ohio State or Iowa. Yeah, Iowa. And you want to see how it goes against Oklahoma?

Forget it now. Ain’t going to happen. We’re spared the humiliation.

I know. You’re saying I’m offering my usual negativistic, unspirited diatribe, I have no team spirit, and I’m generally full of shit. I’ll admit to the last of those, but since when does being a pragmatist mean I’m a poor fan? I give credit where I think it is due, but I am not blind to faults that are there for all to see. Tough love, man.

I will be extremely happy to see the Nittany Lions play in the Rose Bowl once again. I do not regard it as a consolation prize.

Let us assume for the moment that PSU gets by Indiana on Saturday and Moo U. on the 22nd, a mighty big assumption not meant to minimize either of those two opponents. They’ll still have an opportunity to prove something mighty big in the Rose Bowl. If they come out looking like they don’t want to be there, as they did on Kinnick Field, they’ll wind up humiliating the Big Ten just like Illinois did last year. However, if they play their asses off four four quarters, they’ll stand a good chance of beating whoever they wind up facing there. That’s all I am asking for: playing with passion, playing to win, and playing an entire game.

Penn State is in the thick of the BCS this year, and that’s fun in itself. Read a great article about the BCS national championship and the Rose Bowl possibilities here in the Wall Street Journal. The article contains a link to an explanation of the convoluted Big Ten tiebreaker algorithm, for good measure.

Regardless of the outcome of the hypothetical Rose Bowl I allude to above, this Turkey will be happy if the Nittany Lions deliver a complete performance. Win or lose, they’ll have distinguished themselves in my bird brain as one of the great teams in Penn State history. That’s good enough for me, even if some of you consider that a loss. It certainly does not constitute failure. ???? ???

I glossed over the need to beat Penn State’s final two regular season opponents. ??? ????? ????? Anything can happen there, particularly if the Lions come out flat and deliver half-assed performances. It is hard to think that they could falter enough to lose to Indiana, the perennial Big Ten whipping boy. However, if they hang their heads and remain in a funk, they sure as hell could. Moo U. is another story, as it will take some good defense to shut down the #2 ranked rusher in the nation. The Michigan State of this year is not the Moo U. of yore.

It is time to suck it up. This team has some great senior leadership, give or take a Scirrotto. It is a rough time of the year, sore from a season of pounding, coming off a tough loss, hard on the heels of an emotional let-down. True leaders are motivators. If this bunch of seniors is as good as we all think they are, they will be able to pull this team up by its collective bootstraps and lead a successful conclusion to this campaign.