The Lion's Den
October 20, 2007
On The Road Again
By Todd Sponsler
My wife can’t understand why I was so upset after they won.
A win is indeed a win, and way better than a loss, and an ugly win is always better than a pretty loss if such a beast exists. But when you look at the opportunities and red zone ineptitude, it’s enough to cause a cardiac arrest.
Despite 4 fumbles and one interception, Indiana still was within a touchdown of pulling off the upset. In fact, Boone was perhaps the game’s MVP when he booted the final punt 68 yards to the five yard line, forcing Indiana to drive the length of the field to win. They were unable to, and Indiana has themselves to blame for this loss.
We didn’t win this game so much as Indiana lost it.
Kellen Lewis fumbled and PSU took over on the Hoosier 7 yard line. The result: FG. The drive before that, Kellen Lewis was sacked by Maurice Evans, and fumbled. Evans rumbled to the Hoosier 13 yard line, losing a shoe and running out of gas short of the end zone. The result: another 3 points.
The opening drive of the third quarter stalled and PSU punted. Tracy Porter fumbled the punt and PSU recovered on the Hoosier 12 yard line. Any guess as to how many points we got off that turnover? Yup. Another field goal.
Granted, without those nine points, we lose this game. And with Kelly kicking (he missed the first PAT of the game) you never know for sure whether the points will be on the board or not.
But after taking over on those turnovers, twice Penn State went back to running up the middle for little or no gain. What happened to the creative play-calling we saw last week? We’ve already proven that we can’t win conservatively on the road. Why do we need to show it again?
This is why Penn State loses games on the road. This is why PSU has been unable to beat THEM in 11 years. This team is Jekyll and Hyde—great at home against the likes of Wisconsin, piss poor on the road against teams beginning with I.
To make matters worse, we came out of the game with two more potentially season ending injuries for Odrick and Hahn.
All in all, it was a most unsatisfying win. Last week, it seemed like maybe we had turned a corner. It seemed as though things were coming together, especially the offensive line and the playcalling. This week, despite another good outing by the O-line (192 yards rushing and only 2 sacks given up), we come away feeling lucky to have won, when the score should not have been that close.
Our red zone record—believe it or not—was 7 for 7. But three of those were field goals of 20, 21, and 22 yards.
And for yet another week, our defensive weakness seemed to be King, although some credit may be due to the Hardy boy who is a pretty decent receiver. The secondary as a whole, though, gave up a staggering 318 yards! Indiana was more successful on third down conversions than we were.
BY THE NUMBERS:
Again, I still haven’t figured out how to publish a freaking table here. So the results look bad. Live with it.
Team Totals PSU IND
FIRST DOWNS 25 25
NET YARDS RUSHING 192 68
Rushing Attempts 47 30
Average Per Rush 4.1 2.3
NET YARDS PASSING 195 318
Completions-Attempts-Int 22-32-1 30-48-0
Average Per Attempt 6.1 6.6
Average Per Completion 8.9 10.6
TOTAL OFFENSE YARDS 387 386
Total offense plays 79 78
Average Gain Per Play 4.9 4.9
Possession Time 33:24 26:36
Sacks By: Number-Yards 6-58 2-13
INTANGIBLES:
Penn State won the coin toss and deferred.
The crowd was a whopping 41,251. Why bother?
Penn State is 11-0 versus the Hoosiers.
Joe Paterno notches win # 369 and picks up another win on Bobby Bowden (370).
THE BIG (TEN) PICTURE:
• Penn State outlasted Indiana 36-31.
• Ohio State eked out a 24-17 win over the Spartans.
• Wisconsin beat Northern Illinois 44-3.
• Purdue boiled Iowa 31-6.
• Northwestern beat Eastern Michigan 26-14.
• North Dakota State beat Minnesota 27-21.
SHEDDING TEARS:
1. South Carolina—lost to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt?
2. South Florida—chopped down by Rutgers
3. Cincy—loser to . . . Pittsburgh? (Is this the NFL?)
4. Cal—loses to UCLA (who is the only team to lose to ND!)
5. Minnesota—North Dakota State? Wow.
LOOKING AHEAD:
The Buckeyes come to Beaver Stadium, ranked #1 in all likelihood. The knock on the Bucks—they haven’t played anyone. But I can’t say our schedule is all that much more impressive.
I did not get to see much of the Michigan State game, but the score certainly wasn’t a blow-out.
Given the eight o’clock start and Penn State’s dominance at home, I have to believe that we have a pretty good chance at winning this game. I don’t know what it is, but our offense and defense just play differently at home—more confidence. Winning attitude. Even the coaching staff seemed to come alive last week.
A win is a win and we’ll take it, BUT where the heck was the secondary? I think King needs to seriously stay another year, hes far from going PRO Hardy took him to the wood shed. Will someone up there PLEASE tell Williams to run when he gets the ball!! A man that has 4.3 speed should hit the hole and be gone, he shakes and bakes more than Martha Stewart. Put it behind us here comes the # 1 team in the country the OHIO STATE usless nuts. We’will win this one and look back and realize how much the Illinois game hurt. WE ARE PENN STATE!!!!
Posted on October 21, 2007Your Comments
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