PSUgirl of 2theLions kicks off the second half of the season with this week's Blue-White Roundtable.
Other participants include JoePa's Dog House, Linebacker U, Nittany White Out, and William World News.
Minnesota fired Brewster (sorry Punky) and many interesting names are being mentioned as the Big Ten sports writers circle the blood in the water. Minne made a lot of mistakes (a lot) against Purdue, and "but for" that Tim might have been on the sideline this weekend. Will this be a distraction, to an already error prone team, or motivation for the Gophers?
No living Penn State fans have experienced a coach firing (much less a mid-season coach firing!), so any PSU fan who claims they can predict how Minnesota will react is just guessing.
Our expectation: a listless effort by both teams.One of the top stories this weekend on AOL's front page was a plea to Coach Paterno to retire - what, if anything, can we Penn Staters learn from Minnesota’s current situation?
Nothing. There is nothing remotely similar between the situations at Penn State and Minnesota.Despite Minne's sad record, on paper the gophers have outperformed PSU in nearly every category; Minne's top four receivers are averaging over 13 yards a catch and they catch a lot of passes - how will PSU's depleted secondary manage? Who needs to (can) step up?
We expected to retort with "The statistics must be weighed against the quality of the competition." To our surprise, according to Jeff Sagarin, our schedule isn't that much tougher than Minnesota's. Our schedule is rated 2nd-toughest in the Big Ten behind Illinois, while Minnesota is 4th-toughest behind Michigan.Assuming that Penn State isn’t going to abandon their storied offensive playbook, what needs to happen on offense for the team to win some games? Is it time for Newsome or are you staying with Rob Bolden?
All this being said, we are deeply worried about the depleted secondary. A weak secondary is death when the weak/injured D-line isn't putting any pressure on the quarterback.
Second question first: We agree with David Jones' recent column that anyone who wants to dump Bolden for Newsome is nuts. Bolden is the future and the future is now.I watched some of the michigan/iowa game on Saturday. Michigan was doing this crazy (weird) thing on defense - tackling. What are your theories on what is wrong with the PSU defense - what long or short term changes can (must) be done to fix this?
Back to the first question, the needs are three-fold...
- Better play from the O-line
- Receivers making some plays
- Red Zone touchdowns instead of Field Goals
Get healthier. JoePa said Gerald Hodges is coming back this week, but the Penn State injury list is still pretty longNotwithstanding any or all of the foregoing, in my opinion, the biggest concern for Penn State this season has been the injuries (btw, impressively epic jinx, Galen). Coach Paterno, himself, has said that this is the most injury riddled season he can remember. Why do you think there have been so many and what can PSU do to patch up the gaps?
There have been many injuries because college football is a meat grinder. Sometimes teams get lucky with injuries, sometimes they don't.
We're actually glad this is happening in a down year as opposed to a year when we had a shot at the Big Ten Championship.Quick fire...
- Kickoff is at 12:01pm (EST - 11:01am local time) - will Penn State show up before the 2nd half?
No.
- Where will you watch/listen to the game?
We can't make it to TCF Bank Stadium this year, so it will be the boob tube in the living room.
- Bigger concern: offensive line or defensive line?
Yes.
- Still bitter about 1999?
1999? No. 1994? Yes.
- Minnesota’s best cultural contribution: Prince; Coen Brothers; Garrison Keiller; Andrews Sisters; Bob Dylan; Judy Garland; lutefisk; and/or other?
The Coen Brothers and it's not even close.
That being said, we love Bob Dylan's gospel songs...
0 comments:
Post a Comment