If we lose to USC (which we have done every time we've played them in CA), we end up at best, 10-2. If we can't beat USC, we ain't beating TTOW (that team out west of us). The problem is there will likely be lots of 10-2 teams at year end and our SOS is not great. Best win? Illinois, if they can hold up.

Early point spreads anywhere from PSU -3 to -4.5 vs USC.

I have a pretty good idea of what happened (or the allegations were), but it's been 2 months now since they were kicked off the team. Is there a path for them to return if no charges are filed or they are cleared? I wouldn't think Franklin would kick them off without solid proof, but it just seems strange for nothing to have come out by now.

• This looked just like the Illinois game...heavy run, the opponent ran a ball control offense....while not covering the spread, a comfortable win
• As I stated before, the grass looked really bad and not from football. Weird.
• I thought Quinton Martin looked really good. PSU went to him early on a flat pass, which surprised me, and Martin ran over a defender while showing good quicks.
• Allar seemed nervous to start but the staff got him to settle down. I think he missed 2 of his first 4 throws and was also sacked do we were 2 of 5 pass player.
• Once that settled down, Allar was 17 of 24 for 237 yards, 10 yards per completion, a TD and zero INTs. Martin had 3 receptions for 18 yards and Clifford surpassed 100 yards passing with 107 on three receptions.
• Rushing, Allen had 21 carriers. The rest of the team had 5 not counting Allar who, I don't think, had a single running play that wasn't supposed to be a passing play.
• I thought UCLA's QB looked really good. He is a soph making his first start and I thought he did well. Overall they had 260 total yards to our 322 and won the TOP with almost 33 minutes (to our 27).
• we had 8 drives. Punt, Punt, TD, TD...half....FG, TD, Punt, FG (OK, we had a :15 drive to end the game so we technically had nine drives) Summation is that of the 8 drives, we scored on five.
• Great to make Field Goals...kid looked confident and they all were no-doubters.

• I saw us use tempo more. That seemed to be a new wrinkle. Several times we ran no-huddle but that isn't new. What seemed to be new was us running out the skill players from the huddle. Then sprinting the OL to the LOS and snapping the ball before the D was ready. It didn't seem like it was really effective but I don't recall seeing it
• We also ran a QB sneak/tushpush with almost 3 yards to go. We made it but it was weird to run that play with that far to go.
• we aren't getting turnovers. Zero turnovers against ILL and UCLA. The good news is we didn't turn if over either.
• I feel like the Allen defense is less aggressive. Perhaps that is why we are not getting the Turnovers. Maybe USC will be different.

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There was a debate on another thread (I don't remember which) about who was favored going into the 2011 NCAA tournament. Because I had some extra time today and it's an offseason type of discussion, I thought I'd dig into the #s a bit. Below you'll see three sets of numbers (seeds, expected scoring and actual scoring).

In 2011, wrestlers were only seeded to 12. Using the seeding shown in the first set of numbers (US: unseeded, X: no qualifier), I put together expected points (placement and advancement only) in the second set of numbers. Keep in mind, in 2011, the tournament was scored as a 64 wrestler bracket so wrestlers back then received an additional (or 1/2) advancement point compared to current scoring. For wrestlers seeded 9-12, they're expected to make the Round of 12 so they all get the same expected points (3 advancement points). For unseeded wrestlers, they could be expected to finish anywhere from 0-2 to 2-2 in the Round of 16 so I split the difference and gave them an expected 1 point for going 1-2 (with the win in the first round of consis).

As you can see, there was only a 4.5 point spread between the top 4 teams with Penn State being at the top by 2 points. Of course, as has been discussed before, Quentin Wright was the difference maker for Penn State with winning the championship from the 9 seed. Ok State ended up in a distant 4th because two of their wrestlers who were expected to AA had early exits.

Anyway, I suppose you can say Penn State was a slight favorite, especially factoring in bonus potential from the regular season. There hasn't been a closer spread in expected points between the top 4 teams since 2011.

Seeds/Expected Scoring/Actual Scoring
Yes, I know Iowa's #s don't add up. I rechecked the individual wrestler #s and can't find any errors. I think they had two team penalty points that year. (If anyone has a source that lists NCAA tournament team penalty points, I'd love to get the info.)

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For those traveling and wondering what the scene will be like at USC this weekend, two years ago the Obligatory PSU Pregame Show sent a correspondent to LA to do a bit on Californians excitement over joining the Big Ten. It's a fun watch. Also, I think the actor in the bootcamp scene is the same guy in the Matt Leinart Discover Card ad that runs 57 times a game during Penn State/Big Ten games.

PSU is an above average team. We’re not elite. And that will make beating OSU and the top SEC teams very difficult. Don’t want to hear about us starting slow or needing to clean things up. We don’t have a stud receiver and our back 7 has some issues along with a very average pass rush. USC game will tell us some things about our secondary but they (USC) are not elite either. Perhaps we catch lightening in a bottle vs OSU but today’s performance shows we are what we are. Don’t need a team meeting or to ‘try harder’. After a team plays a few games you get a pretty clear picture of what they can do.

The field looked bad on TV. There were a lot of brown spots and very thin in areas where you wouldn't expect. By that I mean that fields get messed up from play between the 25 and 45 yard lines. I noticed brown areas in the end zones and around the ten.

I've come to expect PSU's field to be vibrant green and the best in the nation. The field seemed to be good from a player's perspective but was not as green as my yard!

Using the model data I previously posted about expected points and the probability of becoming an AA by seed, and combining that with the Intermat pre-season rankings I came up with scoring projections and AA projections for all teams.

Notes:

• There are no freshmen included in the pre-season rankings, meaning Lillendahl gets a goose egg until further notice.
• With 130 returning points, 120 seems like a light projection for PSU. Yeah, it probably is given what I have said previously about PSU performance vs. The Field. But, maybe this is the year PSU comes back to earth? Or maybe I should read the room better.
• When it says 6.6 AAs for PSU you can interpret that (approximately) as a 60% chance of 7 AAs and and 40% chance of 6 AAs.
• I only showed the top 20, though I have it for all teams with a ranked wrestler.
• The AAs are sorted in the team score order.
• I will update the projections and keep track of podium positions as the year goes on.

Points


AAs

Anyone else watching the twitter video?

can’t beat Virginia. I think this is where the kids say LOL.

Good Lord what am I watching tonight? They literally can't complete a down field pass in the first half. Cowboys should be ahead 20-3 right now if not for horrible play by Prescott.

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Happy Valley Insider takes a first look at Penn State’s matchup with USC on Saturday.

About 4 minutes in, I thought, wow UCLA doesn't look like 1-3, they have some players plus they have played 3 very athletic teams so PSU doesn't faze them. I saw a 6-4 QB who can run, who makes good decisions and throws darts, and good receivers with size, and a defense with some athletes, and I thought, wow the Nits have their hands full this week.

But then by halftime they had the game under control. The D clamped down really early. Both O and D played a really clean game I thought, maybe 2 penalties and very few breakdowns. Allar played poorly early but got his legs, kept smiling and steadily gained confidence. Clifford had the big game but 8 people caught passes. (Dinkins maybe had the best catch of the day btw on a short little shoetop catch on a sidearm from Allar.) Anyway lots of contributions on O -- the diversity of the O is really impressive.

So I thought - quality win against a team that was a lot better than I expected them to be. That's two quality wins in a row and this team looks ready to go to LA and give USC their best.

Then I got back on here and the tone seemed so negative. People all upset basically because PSU didn't exceed some betting line.

But I like this team. They have a lot of players who play with a lot of joy -- starting with Allen and Allar but all over the defense too. Olaivavega Ioane is just a total treat to watch -- he plays with such incredible abandon and I was glad to see the broadcast crew feature him a little bit. They are going to make the playoff almost surely, I doubt they make the semifinals but they're a really good team and let's enjoy them.

#1 Alabama, #4 Tennessee and #9 Missouri all lose to UNRANKED opponents now somebody please explain to me how the SEC isn't absurdly over-ranked with 4 of the top 5, and half of the top 10, teams in the rankings coming into this weekend?

Sorry if this was already posted but what happened with the PSU punt at the beginning of the fourth quarter?

It sounded like (double thump) that is got blocked, but the replay didn't seem to show the UCLA player touching it.

It traveled 38 yards (from LOS, so at least 48 yards from kick spot) -- so it's possible the defender got a finger on it, but they didn't say it was blocked on the TV broadcast. It is in the ESPN box score as a block.

If it wasn't blocked, it was a clear roughing the punter.

Did the referee explain anything? Usually in that case, you'll get a "there was no flag for roughing the punter because the ball was tipped by the return team" (or something similar. Did TV miss it or did the ref just not explain?

Thanks