Lasch Marks, Game 2: Notre Dame
Quarterback:
Anthony Morelli struggled with a very vanilla gameplan (more on that later) and seemed to have regressed. He missed (either with bad throws or, just not seeimg them) open receivers and returned to looking uncomfortable in space. But yet he still had a couple perfectly thrown balls on passes that had to be perfect. Penn State doesn't NEED Morelli to carry the team, but, one can only wonder why PSU can't develop QBs.
Grade: C-
Runningback:
Austin Scott struggled early again, but ran much better in the second half (79 of his 116 came then) once the line finally opened some holes after the shallow Notre Dame DL began to wear down.
Rodney Kinlaw went 9 for 49, but 32 of those yards came on one run.
Matt Hahn recovered from a rough first game to provide something more than blocking vs. Notre Dame.
Grade: B
Wide Receiver:
Not really much to say about the WRs with so little passing in this game. Jordan Norwood had a great catch early on on a deflected ball, and scored a TD later. Chris Bell caught a near perfect pass on a slant from Morelli that went for 51 yds.
Grade: N/A
Tight End:
Say what you want about Mickey Shuler last week, but this team has no tight ends on the roster other than Andrew Quarless that can be of value. Shuler dropped a pass he should have had, and Jordan Lyons had a crucial false start penalty.
Grade: D
Offensive Line:
The line continues to struggle. John Shaw was benched after giving up a sack and the tackles had trouble containing their assignments. They opened virtually zero holes against a poor Irish line.
Grade: C-
Defensive Line:
This group proved that last week was no fluke. They are gelling faster than anyone could have thought. They still need to be wary of overpursuit and wrapping up tackles, but it's amazing how young defensive line can come together so easily, where the offensive line just can't find any answers.
Grade: A
Linebacker:
This group will get an A all season. No need to comment, other than to note Navarro Bowman pretty much split reps at OLB with Tyrell Sales. Also, Sean Lee and Dan Connor rendered TE John Carlson (who torched PSU last year) pretty much useless. That's not something one can often say about an opponent's TE when playing PSU.
Grade: A
Defensive Backs:
With Charlie Weis' gameplan seemingly borrowed right out of JoePa's to protect young Jimmy Clausen, there were only a handful of balls thrown downfield before the game was pretty much out of reach. Lydell Sargeant struggled a bit though, and AJ Wallace can't be far from taking his spot as he broke up what would have been Clausen's first career TD pass.
Grade: B+
Special Teams:
Despite a few block in the back penalties on returns and allowing a long Tommy Z punt return, the special teams were superb all around. Jeremy Boone's punts averaged 43.2 yds and Kevin Kelly averaged 70 yards on kickoffs while hitting his only FG attempt. Derrick Williams' was Sportscenter's #1 play of the day with a 78-yd punt return for Penn State's first TD. AJ Wallace had a 68-yd kickoff return, in which Penn State garnered its only FG of the game.
Grade: A-
Coaching:
What many of us feared would happen in this game, JoePa came up with an ultra-conservative, "this is how we play Michigan" offensive gameplan, once again putting the game in the hands of the defense from the get go. With Terelle Pryor, AJ Alexander and Deion Walker in attendance, one would have thought the gameplan would air it out more. Defensively, while obviously the 'D' shut down anything the Irish tried to do, they couldn't force ND's rookie QB into many mistakes. That could be just a sign of Clausen's skill, which one has to appreciate once you get past all the hype and ego.
Grade: C
Anthony Morelli struggled with a very vanilla gameplan (more on that later) and seemed to have regressed. He missed (either with bad throws or, just not seeimg them) open receivers and returned to looking uncomfortable in space. But yet he still had a couple perfectly thrown balls on passes that had to be perfect. Penn State doesn't NEED Morelli to carry the team, but, one can only wonder why PSU can't develop QBs.
Grade: C-
Runningback:
Austin Scott struggled early again, but ran much better in the second half (79 of his 116 came then) once the line finally opened some holes after the shallow Notre Dame DL began to wear down.
Rodney Kinlaw went 9 for 49, but 32 of those yards came on one run.
Matt Hahn recovered from a rough first game to provide something more than blocking vs. Notre Dame.
Grade: B
Wide Receiver:
Not really much to say about the WRs with so little passing in this game. Jordan Norwood had a great catch early on on a deflected ball, and scored a TD later. Chris Bell caught a near perfect pass on a slant from Morelli that went for 51 yds.
Grade: N/A
Tight End:
Say what you want about Mickey Shuler last week, but this team has no tight ends on the roster other than Andrew Quarless that can be of value. Shuler dropped a pass he should have had, and Jordan Lyons had a crucial false start penalty.
Grade: D
Offensive Line:
The line continues to struggle. John Shaw was benched after giving up a sack and the tackles had trouble containing their assignments. They opened virtually zero holes against a poor Irish line.
Grade: C-
Defensive Line:
This group proved that last week was no fluke. They are gelling faster than anyone could have thought. They still need to be wary of overpursuit and wrapping up tackles, but it's amazing how young defensive line can come together so easily, where the offensive line just can't find any answers.
Grade: A
Linebacker:
This group will get an A all season. No need to comment, other than to note Navarro Bowman pretty much split reps at OLB with Tyrell Sales. Also, Sean Lee and Dan Connor rendered TE John Carlson (who torched PSU last year) pretty much useless. That's not something one can often say about an opponent's TE when playing PSU.
Grade: A
Defensive Backs:
With Charlie Weis' gameplan seemingly borrowed right out of JoePa's to protect young Jimmy Clausen, there were only a handful of balls thrown downfield before the game was pretty much out of reach. Lydell Sargeant struggled a bit though, and AJ Wallace can't be far from taking his spot as he broke up what would have been Clausen's first career TD pass.
Grade: B+
Special Teams:
Despite a few block in the back penalties on returns and allowing a long Tommy Z punt return, the special teams were superb all around. Jeremy Boone's punts averaged 43.2 yds and Kevin Kelly averaged 70 yards on kickoffs while hitting his only FG attempt. Derrick Williams' was Sportscenter's #1 play of the day with a 78-yd punt return for Penn State's first TD. AJ Wallace had a 68-yd kickoff return, in which Penn State garnered its only FG of the game.
Grade: A-
Coaching:
What many of us feared would happen in this game, JoePa came up with an ultra-conservative, "this is how we play Michigan" offensive gameplan, once again putting the game in the hands of the defense from the get go. With Terelle Pryor, AJ Alexander and Deion Walker in attendance, one would have thought the gameplan would air it out more. Defensively, while obviously the 'D' shut down anything the Irish tried to do, they couldn't force ND's rookie QB into many mistakes. That could be just a sign of Clausen's skill, which one has to appreciate once you get past all the hype and ego.
Grade: C
c-, b, d, c- - did you realize that the offense produced a 100 yard rusher and 3 offensive touchdowns? pretty harsh assesment after a 21 pt win and a 100 yard rushing performance. you bloggers that can't be happy with a big win are ridiculous
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I think the bloggers look at the potential of these kids and what they could play up to. Our offense did not look as good as our defense. They have the players but all not playing to the same level YET. So I would rather have an honest grade for our offense tehn looking the other way just because we won. The win was great. BUt in realtiy we are not playing up to our Max level yet. Lets hope we continue to grow to the point people fear our offense as much as they do our defense
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PSU averaged 3.6 yards per carry. That's awful. And that number was much lower in the first half when ND's putrid DL was still fresh. In comparison, Ga Tech averaged 6 yards per carry vs. ND.
I sure hope when a PSU RB gets 28 carries, he gets over 100 yards.
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so the o-line had nothing to do with wearing down the d?
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SC I guess you are not a man of your words. I was pretty sure that you were deleting us from your favorites and not coming back. I guess your word is as good as your football opinion
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The biggest factor in wearing down there defense was our defense. Our defense was stopping them and making them punt so quick that there defense had little time to rest. This Oline for psu now is ok but have lots of room to improve.
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Penn State's consistent problem has been its OL. The observation about the performance of our DL over the OL it noteworthy. Look at our DL performance over the last several seasons compared to Ol performance. It has nothing to due with talent, its coaching.
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Part of the problem was that ND came out running a 4-3 defense after running almost exclusively a 3-4 last week. I am sure that had a lot to do with the struggles at the beginning of the game.
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3 yards and a cloud of dust might win the ND game but it has been a recipe for disaster against UM and others. It also reinforces the image that PSU won't open the playbook - ever. Joe garnered a few recruits by promising that things would be different. Tis was during our dark days. He got a few of those kids and things aren't much different. It is especially baffling when you see the success some teams have spreading the field. It was a crucial win as are they all, but the things left undone may be more damaging in the long run. I say, "Let the kids play football"
BTW, when Morelli threw the pick on his second pass, I pretty well knew vanilla would be the only flavor remaining. It just seems to happen way too often. The triple reverse was a near disaster also. Happy we won? Delighted. Sad that we reinforced our image as offensively offensive? Absolutely.
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what exactly did morrelli not do that he was asked to - sure he threw a bad interception but after that, he was efficient and made a couple big throws when needed - the td over the middle to norwood and the strike to bell - get off of morrelli - everybody loves the backup - if clark went 12 for 22 with a td you would be rallying behind him - same with scott - he played a great game and he only gets a b? what more do you want from your starting running back? 118 yards and 2 tds is not enough especially when he is running behind what you call a bad o-line.
that leads me to the next question. for such a bad o-line, why have they put up a ton of yards on the ground? this website is officially deleted from my bookmark after this shoddy analysis
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Morrelli has a good not great game. Our o line was not that impressive. They still have a ways to go. Most of our yards have come in the second half.
Sc you seem to think only opinion matters on this board. Everyone opinion matters. that is why it is a blog. If you disagree tell us why you disagree. Which you did and let others make up there own mind. UNLIKE OTHER Psu site we do not want everyone on here to think the same as the moderators all the time.
Finally Carol err I mean SC we are sorry to see you go but if you can not realize that the analysis is fair and accurate in that posters opinion maybe you should go back to the site where they all think and act alike. Tell phil we said hi.
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I think sometimes people forget that we are all just fans and its only opinions so they get to worked up.
The analysis was pretty good. I agree with some of comments and disagree with others.
PSU must have played better than Bandit expected since he only had PSU winning by 14 points.
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Take away the punt return, and I got the score right.
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take away ND's TD on an interception return and you had it wrong. what a goofy response; you had the score wrong
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Sorry Jaypa, they are just calling how it is. Tell Sue we said hi!
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With Terelle Pryor, AJ Alexander and Deion Walker in attendance one would have thought we would air it out more.
Yeah, cater to the recruits instead of playing to win.
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there's a big difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. like we do in big games, offensively, we play not to lose. against a better defense (see: michigan last year) that offensive gameplan doesn't do anything.
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You play to put your team in the best position to win by exploiting the best matchups.
Playing to win last night would have been grinding out against a sub-par defensive line and not being unpredictable and trying to throw the ball, especially wasting downs with passes on 1st down way too many times.
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dumbest thought ever - cater to recruits instead of winning the game
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I'd give the coaches a B.
Most importantly they settled down a young PSU team after their SR leaders were handing out presents and ground out a comfortable win in the 2nd half.
Considering the personnel of both teams, PSU should have had a more conservative offensive game plan. They seemed to realize their mistake in the 2nd half and ground down the Notre Dame defense.
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Big Game = Joe Paterno conservative.
Rest assured though, we'll open it up next week against Buffalo.
Paterno single handedly will make sure this is a 2 or 3 loss team.
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We play like this offensively against Michigan, we will lose again. Michigan's D is built to stop the run but is completely useless against the spread and playmakers. That's why App. State and Oregon humiliated them. If we go ultra conservative, we won't just lose Pryor, Walker, AJ Alexander, we will also lose a couple of big games that we should win this year. The talent is there, let them play, and bring Quarless back so Morelli can have a threat in the middle of the field.
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Quarless will be back this week. Not sure if he's starting, but he's going to play.
I think Joe's seen enough of Shuler's blocking.
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Good to hear that Quarless will be back. Get him some playing time so he will ready the Michigan game. If we take care of business in Ann Arbor (both the players and the coaches), we could go a long way. A big if though, regardless of how the Wolverines are playing right now.
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Michigan plays like they did against Oregon, PSU wins by 3 TDs easy.
Built to stop the run? Have you watched any Michigan games this year?
You do realize that Michigan is 112th in college football stopping the run, surrendering 245 yards a game (at a healthy 5.2 clip).
You think a team that is that bad stopping the run against one formation is going to magically start doing it against another formation?
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Slight difference between Oregon's offensive design and PSU's offensive design.
Michigan gets killed on the read option play. PSU doesn't have that kind of a QB.
Also, Michigan's defense will perform much much better against a pro-style offense. Michigan's weakness is the middle of the field, something PSU historically over the last 10 years has ignored. I am worried about this game mainly because I'm afraid of the gameplan PSU will use, and I think PSU's offense is tailor made for Michigan's defense.
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I have watched parts of Michigan's game against App. State and Oregon. Yes, Michigan's D is struggling big time, but a big part is because they have no idea how to play against a Armanti Edwards/Dennis Dixon type of QB. The dual threat QB's always kill Michigan, just look at Troy Smith or even MRob. However, that doesn't mean Michigan won't do a lot better against a traditional Big Ten offense like us. Continually running it between the tackles and not coming with something more creative plays won't allow us to exploit their weaknesses.
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Anyone else think the o-line stinks?
I am still not sold on Austin Scott or Kinlaw, but Scott seems to be getting in a groove. He seems to run five yards and get tripped up easy but I was also VERY drunk so i could be mistaken.
Overall, the team looks decent, still doubt we beat UM or UW...until our O-line sacks up and blows people off the ball I am concerned.
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Not sure if Shaw was benched just for the sack...he seemed to miss several blocks in the first half. I also thought Ohrnberger missed a few blocks. The interior line had trouble (or maybe Laws is just that good). Also, is it me or does the OL have trouble pulling and also getting to the second level?
I thought one reason for the second half improvement in running the ball(beyond wearing down ND's DL) was that Penn St. started running stretch plays to the boundary.
Also, I thought the pass protection was mostly good, although we haven't seen much complicated blitzing from either FIU or ND.
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so when you tune into a game, you watch the o-line player by player? - amazing
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Nope, when I replayed the game, I wanted to see how the OL performed. Sorry if that offends you.
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The offensive line is definitely not owning other teams defensive lines...BY ANY stretch of the imagination. And Austin Scott is perfectly fine, he will get things going more - provided that the offensive line can do something other than get pushed back and/or miss assignments. I really thought the interior of the Penn State line was going to be a strength and that we would be able to get Scott to the second level quickly, which would show off his best assets - his vision/cutback ability, simply has not been the case though. We should certainly look to run more often to the outside, and even consider an off balance offensive line with 6'5 Nerraw McCormick in there.
Scott could have had 25 or so carries for over 150 if that 50 yard run didn't get called back because of a late flag thrown for 'holding' by Cadogan, my guess is that if that doesn't get called back and we strike with a TD we would have had more Kinlaw and actually would have had the opportunity to see Royster destroy NDs D.
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That is just a stupid ass assumption, we took the early shot to Derrick Williams - what do you think happens if that is complete instead of being a pick 6? That put us down 7-0, obviously we weren't going to go out after that and try to be Hawaii. And if Morelli doesn't fumble right before the half you would think we probably would have thrown the ball around more in the 3rd/4th quarters but he did and we didn't. Understandable, the coaches at that point probably figured an air attack wasn't needed - and that Morelli was having a bad night protecting the football.
I still find all of the bitching and moaning hilarious, because throughout that game...how many formations did you see? 4...5...6? So your saying that between the FIU and ND games we have seen our entire offense? Not a chance.
However if we want to go into the Michigan game and throw the ball around a lot, we better hope that Morelli protects the football for the 2 quarters or so he sees against Buffalo, other wise the staff truly might go in with a conservative game plan. We didn't go into the ND game with a conservative plan, but once the game began it obviously DICTATED that we needed to - let our D play lights out and pound the ball with Austin Scott.
Although don't get him killed, run more plays outside, and for the love of god Joe please stop mentioning every 5 seconds about how he needs to stay healthy. Could you jinx the kid anymore!
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The entire offensive staff needs overhauled. There aren't any excuses left for these bums. Quarless needs on the field ASAP too. This suspension is getting absurd. Bell needs more action, we are wasting his talents. Scott is a better runner on the edges, absolutely no idea why we don't run any pitches. Can we get Royster some carries? Who called a triple reverse? Who screwed up the end of the first half, no TO, let the punt drop, then Morelli runs it??? UGH. We are clearly a top 10 team, based mostly on the D, to challenge LSU or OU, or USC, the offensive staff better wake UP!
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You certainly must have missed the USC-Idaho game. USC offense looked pathetic against arguably the worst team in 1A. They have a ways to go in putting a quality offense on the field. Playcalling was an embarassment for the Trojans.
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Idaho is a doormat, but there are several teams worse in 1A, in any event, USC had 420 yards, 24-36 218 passing, 202 5.1ypc on the ground.
First possession:
ID 0 USC 7, Plays: 10 Yards: 70 Possession: 03:41.
second poss:
ID 0 USC 14, Plays: 8 Yards: 80 Possession: 03:13.
Third poss:
ID 0 USC 21, Plays: 6 Yards: 46 Possession: 01:59.
Fourth poss: pick
fifth, sixth 3 n out
This is a team with TB injuries, and lost 2 WR's to the NFL. I wouldn't worry about USC's offense
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Can't say that this evaluation is that far off.
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"What many of us feared would happen in this game, JoePa came up with an ultra-conservative, "this is how we play Michigan" offensive gameplan, once again putting the game in the hands of the defense from the get go."
Why is this a knock on the coaches? The only chance ND stood of scoring was to take turnovers to the house. Why give them this opportunity?
I am all for avoiding over-cautious football, but opening up the offense is a means, not an end.
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expect to see the same kind of playcalling at Michigan.
I personally think we have to score 30+ to win, and I think a good many people are already chalking up a win at Ann Arbor, which is a grave mistake IMO.
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Until we actually beat Michigan, I assume that game goes into our loss column. Regardless of how down they are, they still have our number every time we play them.
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While I agree that the only way for ND to score was on TOs from our offense, it just worries me that in the last season, we seem to stumble when we need the offense to step up and win the game for us. That situation has come up in 2005 (NW, Mich, FSU) where we had M-Rob and the offense do their thing. We also faced the situation in 2006 (ND,Michigan, Wisc, OSU) but we COULDNT get it done. I hope that it's not the case this year too.
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Sure, but keep in mind that 2005 @NW, the only reason the offense had to go out and win the game was that the offense gave away a 20 pt lead in the first half through TOs.
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Offensive Line...
"The line continues to struggle. John Shaw was benched after giving up a sack and the tackles had trouble containing their assignments. They opened virtually zero holes against a poor Irish line."
1) Maybe the OL gets a C as a unit, but Shaw was the culprit most of the night. He routinely either couldn't hold a block on runs behind RO/LC or he flat out missed his assignment. His assignment was typically the first guy to the ball carrier. His pass blocking was poor , too. When Lucian came in, the improvement was obvious. Mike simply cut his assignment and took him right out of the play.
2) The tackles did a much better job than you think. They often pushed the DEs right out of the play. AM caused 2 sacks by "happy fetting it" out-of-pocket backwards and into the pressure!
3) Also, imo, Kinlaw needs to sit. He missed 2 HUGE cutbacks in the first half that could have been monster gains.
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