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October 19, 2007
Offensive Report Card
By Apparao Prattipati
The Penn State season has been a strange concoction of confidence, dominance, futility, and inconsistency. While the Lions started out of the gates strong, they stumbled at the first sign of adversity. Namely, the Michigan Wolverines. What can you say? You have a senior QB being outplayed by a true freshman (Ryan Mallet), a team that had been beaten by a DII school out coaching Joe Paterno, all adding up to possibly the most embarrassing loss to Michigan in Penn State history.
The Lions followed that up with a beat-your-head-against-a-wall-till-the-pain-goes-away loss to Illinois - a game where Morelli and the offense received the ball five times in Illinois territory only to get three points out of it in a 27 - 20 loss. And oh yea, Morelli finished the game by turning the ball over on the final four possessions. After stumbling back out of the midwest like a drunk coming home off a bender, the Lions opened a two game home stand by blasting hapless Iowa, a team that managed the impressive feat of having an offense in even more disarray than Penn State’s. While fans resolved that the losing streak was over, many did not give much credence to the win, or the improvement shown by the running game and Morelli because of how poor Iowa had been all year.
The one bright spot that came out of the game was the introduction of Evan Royster, who gained a spot in the two-deep after Austin Scott was dumped off the team for a violation of team rules. While the Lion faithful dismissed the Iowa win, many of those faithful were delighted by a homecoming shelling of the once mighty Wisconsin Badgers. In a 38 - 7 beat down, the Lions were dominant offensively, stout defensively, and a joy to behold for the happy Beaver stadium crowd. That puts us just past the midway point in the season, so now it’s time for the dreaded midterms. We’ll run down the offense first, and tackle the defense next week.
The Quarterbacks
Statistically, Morelli is the middle of the pack in the Big Ten in yards, touchdowns, and quarterback rating. He’s also one of the worst quarterbacks in America when it comes to turning the ball over. While he started the season strong connecting with his receivers for multiple touchdowns and hardly throwing any interceptions, his Big Ten play is where he started to turn the ball over….and over….and over some more. If he wasn’t throwing Interceptions, he was fumbling, if he wasn’t fumbling, he was missing open receivers. For a while the senior just couldn’t catch a break. Eventually Morelli played himself out of the slump with a positive performance against Illinois and an excellent game against the Badgers. As it stands - he can really make this season great for himself by playing a good game against the Buckeyes on October 27th. No other quarterback played any significant snaps for the Lions.
Midterm Grade: C
The Runningbacks
While the Lions had good rushing numbers during the first quarter of the year, Penn State was anything but dominant on the ground. Generally the run game would start slow and finish strong (though against Michigan the ground game started slow and finished even slower). How much of the blame falls on Austin Scott’s legs is something that many will eventually discuss after the season ends, but it’s interesting to note that the running only ever reached vintage Penn State strength when he was off the team - against Iowa. In that game Rodney Kinlaw and Evan Royster combined for over 200 yards rushing. They never really slowed down as they ran over Wisconsin the week after. Kinlaw is 5th in the Big Ten in rushing with 662 yards and has a good shot of breaking 1000 yards for the season. Royster has shown flashes of big time talent, and might be the best pure runner on the squad. Combine those two and you have what looks like one of the better rushing tandems in the Big Ten moving into the second half of the season.
Midterm Grade: B-
The Receivers
Coming into the season, the Lions plethora of receivers were billed as the best in the Big Ten. For the most part, they have lived up to that billing. Three Lions are in the op 25 for the Big Ten in receiving yards behind pass happy Purdue. Four Lions have caught multiple touchdowns, and three Lions are in the top 25 for receptions. Penn State has done an excellent job of spreading the ball to Deon Butler, Jordan Norwood, Derrick Williams, Terrell Golden, and Andrew Quarless. From the opening game all of them have been able to get open, make catches, and yardage. The negatives have been slight cases of the dropsies, the disappointing season of sophomore Chris Bell, and the inconsistency of Quarless. But make no mistake, the triumvirate of Norwood, Butler and Williams is among the best in America, and Quarless and Golden make the receiving corps even more dangerous.
Midterm Grade: A-
The Offensive Line
They don’t get into limelight very much, so we’ll name the big guys here. At left tackle, Gerald Cadogen. The left guard is Rich Ohgrenberger with A.Q Shipley in the center. The right guard is Mike Lucian (when healthy), and the right tackle is Dennis Landolt. Together, this is probably the best offensive line that Penn State has had since Larry Johnson was running wild for the Blue & White. Protecting Morelli is something of a priority for the line since he goes straight into a panic when he’s under pressure. That’s been true right from the beginning of the year. The running game, however, took a little time to get hammered out. The line struggled to get on the same sheet as their backs at the beginning of the year. Once they finally started to gain an understanding of the what the backs wanted, they started to clear a highway for Kinlaw and Royster. Together this line has done a pretty good job with the exception of the Michigan debacle.
Midterm Grade: B
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