Penn State - What Did We Learn?

[Jeremy]

Actually both McCaffrey and Martinez are much better passers than Crouch, Joseph, and Grant, and definitely better passers than young Scott Frost. 

Going by this logic you may want to note that Wan'dale, Mills and (checks roster) Marvin Scott III (?)  are not Mike Rozier, Ahman Green, Dan Alexander, Rex Burkhead, Ameer Abdullah, or even Devine Ozigbo. 

Right now Nebraska is running a 38/28 run/pass split. Everything they do on offense needs to get better. 

Discounting Betts' touchdown, McCaffrey went 12/20 for 107 yards. Frost and Crouch hit that yardage normally with far fewer passes. We will not be even close to elite doing what we're doing now, unable to stretch the field. Press coverage will kill us, evidenced by how PSU shut us down in the second half. McCaffrey was primarily a receiver in high school, and I'm not saying Martinez is any better. Our offensive line is blowing blocking assignments all over the place,  unsure who they are supposed to double on, and when to move up. Do you know what our best running play is so far this season? A counter play to McCaffrey, from under center, against Ohio State. 

    Mills is no Ozigbo, but he's played fullback before, and I liken Wandale to a Keith 'end zone' Jones, shiftier even. Are you prepared to tell me it's better to run him between the tackles inside the 15 on a zone read than with a lead blocker? 

 

[MasterPulverizer]

If there is a signature to this team that is without doubt it's that they are always lame coming out of half.  Regardless of having the lead or not, they always come out flat in the 3rd quarter.  I think teams know this and that's why they're able to turn up the pressure.

That said, with the exception of the long run for a TD and the long pass that set up a TD, the defense played really well and I'm doubtful that the game would have been much closer without those two mistakes.

 

[WyoHusker56]

I learned there is one play which shows why LMC should be the starter.  It was the left hand throw to the RB resulting in a 1st down.  AM takes a loss.  

Frost said something along the lines he liked it because it worked. If we're being honest that was a super risky play that worked that one time and it's likely that the same play in the future is incomplete or worse a fumble/interception. Luke's a gamer and that's fun, but it doesn't always work that way.

 

[Husker03]

Frost said something along the lines he liked it because it worked. If we're being honest that was a super risky play that worked that one time and it's likely that the same play in the future is incomplete or worse a fumble/interception. Luke's a gamer and that's fun, but it doesn't always work that way.

And Adrian once through a pass to himself for a safety.. Young QB's need time to learn. 

 

[roadrat]

Probably mentioned already but the play calling is a bigger problem than who is the QB. Every week we run up and down the field on our scripted plays and then the rest of the game it's like what should we do now.  It surprises me that an offensive mindset of Frost and Lubick basically get shut out in the second half of games.

I see we have tight end who is probably tall enough to catch a pass in the end zone. Maybe do something like that in the red zone instead of having QB run into a wall on 3 straight plays hoping he can break free. 

 

[Undone]

Probably mentioned already but the play calling is a bigger problem than who is the QB. Every week we run up and down the field on our scripted plays and then the rest of the game it's like what should we do now.  It surprises me that an offensive mindset of Frost and Lubick basically get shut out in the second half of games.

I see we have tight end who is probably tall enough to catch a pass in the end zone. Maybe do something like that in the red zone instead of having QB run into a wall on 3 straight plays hoping he can break free. 

I think against less talented defenses our base running game is going to be more successful. Mills & Scott III both have 3.1 yards per carry on the year, which is fairly bad.

So if we get up by a couple touchdowns against Illinois I expect the more conservative game plan to look a little better.

Agree with you on trying to throw to a tight end in the red zone. The kind of ironic thing though is that last year Frost took so much heat from getting cute inside the 10...now he's calling handoffs, but we're just not steamrolling guys out of the way like we probably thought we would.

But again, that may look better against lesser competition.

 

[krc1995]

And Adrian once through a pass to himself for a safety.. Young QB's need time to learn. 

And it will forever be a completion in the stat line. And maybe even a reception. Sounds like a good trivia question.lol

And that’s why you have to watch the game and not just look at stats. 
 

 

[Mavric]

I think Chaz pointed out a similar situation last week and noted that Jerald Foster got called for a personal foul for jumping on someone already on the ground a couple years ago.

 

[macroboy]

I think Chaz pointed out a similar situation last week and noted that Jerald Foster got called for a personal foul for jumping on someone already on the ground a couple years ago.

Does anyone know how bad he is hurt? Did he return in the game and I missed it?

 

[URSS]

Our defense is our best offense. 

I think this stat can be misinterpreted. Teams playing with a lead might go into prevent. 
 

I don’t believe a good defense gives up 501 yards.  The bend but don’t break nonsense is better than losing big.  The offense really did not outscore Penn State- the defense won it.

I think I remember Devaney saying a defense should not give up more than 200 yards- yah, I know the spread proponents don’t believe they can be stopped for less than 200.

We need to have offensive lineman like the old days when we were known as Lineman University.  I saw a stat on Saturday listing the top 5 teams that had about 20 O linemen in the NFL.  We are not near that level of excellence.

We need a defense that gets stops quickly so our offense can consistently eat up 7-8 minutes and score at least a FG.

I think the defense showed some improvement as well as the defense Saturday.  But there are some real rough areas that should be seen at this stage of the season- high snaps, missed assignments, taking too long to get players in the field, poor clock management at times, backfield players running into each other, suspect play calling, etc.  

I hate to see Robinson running inside without fullback blocking ahead.  

 

[Blackshirt316]

I don’t believe a good defense gives up 501 yards.  The bend but don’t break nonsense is better than losing big.  The offense really did not outscore Penn State- the defense won it.

I think I remember Devaney saying a defense should not give up more than 200 yards- yah, I know the spread proponents don’t believe they can be stopped for less than 200.

We need to have offensive lineman like the old days when we were known as Lineman University.  I saw a stat on Saturday listing the top 5 teams that had about 20 O linemen in the NFL.  We are not near that level of excellence.

We need a defense that gets stops quickly so our offense can consistently eat up 7-8 minutes and score at least a FG.

I think the defense showed some improvement as well as the defense Saturday.  But there are some real rough areas that should be seen at this stage of the season- high snaps, missed assignments, taking too long to get players in the field, poor clock management at times, backfield players running into each other, suspect play calling, etc.  

I hate to see Robinson running inside without fullback blocking ahead.  

There isn't a single team in the country that is giving up less than 200 yards per game.

There are only 2 that are even giving up less than 250 this season.

Wisconsin - who has played 2 games against Illinois and Michigan.

San Diego State who has played Utah State and UNLV. Two teams that currently rank 124 and 119 in total offense this season good for 3rd and 8th worst in the country.) 

Both will rise as they actually play more games against literally anyone.

Last year Ohio State was the best defense in the nation in terms of yards given up. They gave up 260 yards a game. Which is the lowest number any team has given up in 5 years. Even they were only able to hold 5 teams under 250. Heck Nebraska put up 231 and we were barely even functional.

We gave up 501 yards to Penn State over 91 plays. That's 5.5 yards per play - extrapolate that over a season and that's a top 50 defense in yards given up per play compared to teams over the last 5 years. Not great still, but better than it's been in a while.  We should absolutely expect to end this season around that mark. If we can get to 5.4 yards per play we'd tie our best mark since 2014.

Improving to 5.0 yards per play would be a top 25 defense, they are not making that big of a jump this year but they are definitely trending towards that. Considering the year before Frost got here we gave up 6.4 yards per play that's a pretty massive jump.

 

[melscott62]

Discounting Betts' touchdown, McCaffrey went 12/20 for 107 yards. Frost and Crouch hit that yardage normally with far fewer passes. We will not be even close to elite doing what we're doing now, unable to stretch the field. Press coverage will kill us, evidenced by how PSU shut us down in the second half. McCaffrey was primarily a receiver in high school, and I'm not saying Martinez is any better. Our offensive line is blowing blocking assignments all over the place,  unsure who they are supposed to double on, and when to move up. Do you know what our best running play is so far this season? A counter play to McCaffrey, from under center, against Ohio State. 

    Mills is no Ozigbo, but he's played fullback before, and I liken Wandale to a Keith 'end zone' Jones, shiftier even. Are you prepared to tell me it's better to run him between the tackles inside the 15 on a zone read than with a lead blocker? 

Frost and crouch also had one of the best running attacks in the country that the other team was solely focused on.

 

[B.B. Hemingway]

If the struggles continue with pushing the ball down the field for the rest of the season, I'd be curious to see how Frost approaches the QB position heading into next season. If the right grad transfer was available, I wonder if Frost would look into it.... I don't necessarily think it happens, but may be something to watch if those issues continue for Luke/Adrian.

 

[BIGREDIOWAN]

I think Chaz pointed out a similar situation last week and noted that Jerald Foster got called for a personal foul for jumping on someone already on the ground a couple years ago.

#69 was a **** the entire game and probably deserved some field level correction from the Blackshirts to even things up, but we'd get caught since the refs are usually all over us.  :steam

 

[runningblind]

Looking forward to next week. We've played 3 excellent defenses, and in 2 weeks we get another one with Iowa. We need to be better against good defenses, but I'm looking forward to seeing the offense against a really bad defense against Illinois. 

You and me both.  Part of me also worries we are way too one dimensional and now teams have a week of film on Luke.  Interested to see if Illinois just crowds the line and rushes, not giving any time to throw.  I bet you Iowa does the same.