I woke up this morning here in Fishtown, and lo and behold, the sun did indeed rise.
So with that in mind, let's have an open, honest conversation about what happened yesterday. Opinions may vary, and it's not going to bother me if you guys disagree with me. It's fine, I get that you're all on some spectrum from irate to disappointed to inconsolable. And frankly, I don't blame any of you. For any proud Penn State fan, yesterday sucked. Point blank, period.
So let's do this:
I'm going to start with a few news and notes items, just to get them out of the way. Jordan Lucas had his left knee heavily wrapped in ice coming off the field yesterday, and was hobbling his way to the locker room. Forgive me for off the top of my head not remembering exactly when it happened, but late in the game he clearly got dinged. I wasn't able to see everything that happened from there, but he is a guy that Penn State absolutely can not afford to lose for any significant amount of time. And it doesn't look like that type of a situation, but certainly something to note.
Nyeem Wartman-White done for the season is a complete disaster. Just an utter stomach punch to this entire program. His play in the middle - though it was still evolving into a higher level - isn't going to be replaced easily. I will be basically stunned if they don't move Cabinda over to that spot. He knows all the calls and they tried it in the spring, and he said he would make the move to help the team. The top-line talent of the linebackers was something the staff was happy about, but there were clear concerns about depth there. They'll come along, but anyone they plug in there is not going to be nearly as prepared to know what's going on as was Wartman. It's an unmitigated disaster. Now it's making the best of a bad situation for the on-field stuff, and hoping for the best. Brandon Bell getting dinged again doesn't help, and I think it's safe to say that him getting dinged is something that just he's prone to. Hopefully it works out for these guys, but I can't stress enough the disaster that losing Wartman is. Disaster.
Anyway. Moving on.
For whatever it's worth - I'm not providing any insight here because I literally don't know the details of Breneman's deal, but in shorts and a t-shirt, he ran off the field in front of me yesterday. Maybe a glimmer of hope. Certainly for him, better than being on crutches. Everything I've gathered about the situation is just that that knee flares up once he starts actually playing in contact. It just might be untenable. I don't know.
OK, back to the disasters.
I take no pleasure in this - OK, actually, maybe a little because you guys gave me so much crap for it, specifically you @Howie'81 - but I absolutely told you what was up with this offensive line. I have a lot of what I believe are fair criticisms of James Franklin for what happened yesterday, but one area that I won't begrudge him is saying that the talent itself of the offensive line simply is what it is. Those ARE the five best offensive linemen they have. They're not good. They just aren't. Not as a unit anyway. On their own, there are some serviceable and maybe an above-average piece in Nelson - when he's actually healthy, which he is now not - but the point is that the talent itself is just not there. Paris Palmer was a shot in the dark, and guess what, it didn't work out. He wasn't ready for the show, and probably shouldn't have been expected to be. Maybe he will get better in the future and develop into something serviceable, but yesterday was opening night when he needs another year of dress rehearsals. And take it or leave it, but you absolutely cannot evaluate how they got to the point that they needed to start a transfer juco at left tackle in the first game of the season without providing the context of the sanctions. The offensive line is going to take time to build, and there simply are no ready reserves. The redshirt freshmen are worse than Palmer. Period. And after watching Palmer yesterday, that's all you need to know. So does that mean the OL coaching is not good? Frankly, it might mean that. I don't have enough information this very minute to be able to make that big-picture perspective judgement. But I certainly if I was looking at all the information compiled to this point and I was on the jury deliberating, I would be hedging towards a guilty verdict.
And this is where things really get depressing. I think the world of Christian Hackenberg. I think he's got all of the tools to be great. I think he is paralyzed. He just is. Is the situation abysmal? Absolutely. But he's been rocked so much by this, it's like Stockholm Syndrome. He is so shell shocked and the situation gets out of control so quickly that by the third quarter of the first game of the season, I saw a kid who had the same face he had as a 19-year old in the ninth game of the 2014 season. Get me out of here. No doubt, he has been affected severely by this whole thing, and it is no longer fair to just say that it's all the offensive line's fault. Maybe last year conditioned him into this, but unless there are some serious strides made in learning to handle this, it is going to be a long, hard year for him.
Which leads me to how this thing goes here at Penn State. Last year was a different context and circumstance, but the one thing that has been consistent - and yes, it is still very, very early in this season and there is all the time in the world to spin things in a better direction - but when things go south in a game, the response is terrifyingly bad. Bad body language, bad adjustment, no adjustment, and in fact essentially a hand-delivered script to opponents on how to beat Penn State. Reddick made that first sack yesterday in the second quarter and literally, that was it. Done. Pack it in, play it tight, and hope for the best. Which is exactly what they did last year, which is exactly what Temple and every other person on the face of the planet knows is coming, which means that every other person on the face of the planet knows how to exploit that tendency.
The blueprint is out there. Put a patent on it, because there is nothing Penn State can do about that now. The problem is that to really grade this staff fairly, you have to be willing to acknowledge that there are no easy, obvious answers on how to stop the flood. It's just reversion to the mean, and this year it happened in the first game of the year instead of the third like last year when Rutgers absolutely blew them up on the OL and they got away with a win anyway. Whoever has the actual answers, you're smarter than me, because I don't have them for how to fix this offensively. Penn State's offense cannot handle anything even remotely complicated or confusing defensively. Yes, defenses will need to have some skill, but from the OL to the QB to the RB pass-protection to the wideouts, smoke and mirrors will be enough to put this Penn State offense on its backside.
Kicking was better, punting was better, returns were better. Lynch looked fine. Reid got picked on, but that was probably to be expected. Not having Haley hurt considerably. The DL played OK, but I don't think it would be out of line to say there were higher expectations for that group. The DEs need to contain the edge better.
But when push comes to shove, you're seeing a program that has a decision to make today and over the next two weeks. Are they going to buy in to a plan that - let's be honest - has not worked very well so far, and see how it rides? Or are they going to bag it and go the way of the alumni players that were tweeting yesterday about how happy they were to be out of here?
They will beat Buffalo next weekend. In two weekends, we'll see what happens when Rutgers comes to town. And Rutgers is not good at playing football. Penn State has to find a way to win that game. It just has to, because getting everyone back on board and believing is going to be a herculean task at that point.
So there it is. That's it.
So with that in mind, let's have an open, honest conversation about what happened yesterday. Opinions may vary, and it's not going to bother me if you guys disagree with me. It's fine, I get that you're all on some spectrum from irate to disappointed to inconsolable. And frankly, I don't blame any of you. For any proud Penn State fan, yesterday sucked. Point blank, period.
So let's do this:
I'm going to start with a few news and notes items, just to get them out of the way. Jordan Lucas had his left knee heavily wrapped in ice coming off the field yesterday, and was hobbling his way to the locker room. Forgive me for off the top of my head not remembering exactly when it happened, but late in the game he clearly got dinged. I wasn't able to see everything that happened from there, but he is a guy that Penn State absolutely can not afford to lose for any significant amount of time. And it doesn't look like that type of a situation, but certainly something to note.
Nyeem Wartman-White done for the season is a complete disaster. Just an utter stomach punch to this entire program. His play in the middle - though it was still evolving into a higher level - isn't going to be replaced easily. I will be basically stunned if they don't move Cabinda over to that spot. He knows all the calls and they tried it in the spring, and he said he would make the move to help the team. The top-line talent of the linebackers was something the staff was happy about, but there were clear concerns about depth there. They'll come along, but anyone they plug in there is not going to be nearly as prepared to know what's going on as was Wartman. It's an unmitigated disaster. Now it's making the best of a bad situation for the on-field stuff, and hoping for the best. Brandon Bell getting dinged again doesn't help, and I think it's safe to say that him getting dinged is something that just he's prone to. Hopefully it works out for these guys, but I can't stress enough the disaster that losing Wartman is. Disaster.
Anyway. Moving on.
For whatever it's worth - I'm not providing any insight here because I literally don't know the details of Breneman's deal, but in shorts and a t-shirt, he ran off the field in front of me yesterday. Maybe a glimmer of hope. Certainly for him, better than being on crutches. Everything I've gathered about the situation is just that that knee flares up once he starts actually playing in contact. It just might be untenable. I don't know.
OK, back to the disasters.
I take no pleasure in this - OK, actually, maybe a little because you guys gave me so much crap for it, specifically you @Howie'81 - but I absolutely told you what was up with this offensive line. I have a lot of what I believe are fair criticisms of James Franklin for what happened yesterday, but one area that I won't begrudge him is saying that the talent itself of the offensive line simply is what it is. Those ARE the five best offensive linemen they have. They're not good. They just aren't. Not as a unit anyway. On their own, there are some serviceable and maybe an above-average piece in Nelson - when he's actually healthy, which he is now not - but the point is that the talent itself is just not there. Paris Palmer was a shot in the dark, and guess what, it didn't work out. He wasn't ready for the show, and probably shouldn't have been expected to be. Maybe he will get better in the future and develop into something serviceable, but yesterday was opening night when he needs another year of dress rehearsals. And take it or leave it, but you absolutely cannot evaluate how they got to the point that they needed to start a transfer juco at left tackle in the first game of the season without providing the context of the sanctions. The offensive line is going to take time to build, and there simply are no ready reserves. The redshirt freshmen are worse than Palmer. Period. And after watching Palmer yesterday, that's all you need to know. So does that mean the OL coaching is not good? Frankly, it might mean that. I don't have enough information this very minute to be able to make that big-picture perspective judgement. But I certainly if I was looking at all the information compiled to this point and I was on the jury deliberating, I would be hedging towards a guilty verdict.
And this is where things really get depressing. I think the world of Christian Hackenberg. I think he's got all of the tools to be great. I think he is paralyzed. He just is. Is the situation abysmal? Absolutely. But he's been rocked so much by this, it's like Stockholm Syndrome. He is so shell shocked and the situation gets out of control so quickly that by the third quarter of the first game of the season, I saw a kid who had the same face he had as a 19-year old in the ninth game of the 2014 season. Get me out of here. No doubt, he has been affected severely by this whole thing, and it is no longer fair to just say that it's all the offensive line's fault. Maybe last year conditioned him into this, but unless there are some serious strides made in learning to handle this, it is going to be a long, hard year for him.
Which leads me to how this thing goes here at Penn State. Last year was a different context and circumstance, but the one thing that has been consistent - and yes, it is still very, very early in this season and there is all the time in the world to spin things in a better direction - but when things go south in a game, the response is terrifyingly bad. Bad body language, bad adjustment, no adjustment, and in fact essentially a hand-delivered script to opponents on how to beat Penn State. Reddick made that first sack yesterday in the second quarter and literally, that was it. Done. Pack it in, play it tight, and hope for the best. Which is exactly what they did last year, which is exactly what Temple and every other person on the face of the planet knows is coming, which means that every other person on the face of the planet knows how to exploit that tendency.
The blueprint is out there. Put a patent on it, because there is nothing Penn State can do about that now. The problem is that to really grade this staff fairly, you have to be willing to acknowledge that there are no easy, obvious answers on how to stop the flood. It's just reversion to the mean, and this year it happened in the first game of the year instead of the third like last year when Rutgers absolutely blew them up on the OL and they got away with a win anyway. Whoever has the actual answers, you're smarter than me, because I don't have them for how to fix this offensively. Penn State's offense cannot handle anything even remotely complicated or confusing defensively. Yes, defenses will need to have some skill, but from the OL to the QB to the RB pass-protection to the wideouts, smoke and mirrors will be enough to put this Penn State offense on its backside.
Kicking was better, punting was better, returns were better. Lynch looked fine. Reid got picked on, but that was probably to be expected. Not having Haley hurt considerably. The DL played OK, but I don't think it would be out of line to say there were higher expectations for that group. The DEs need to contain the edge better.
But when push comes to shove, you're seeing a program that has a decision to make today and over the next two weeks. Are they going to buy in to a plan that - let's be honest - has not worked very well so far, and see how it rides? Or are they going to bag it and go the way of the alumni players that were tweeting yesterday about how happy they were to be out of here?
They will beat Buffalo next weekend. In two weekends, we'll see what happens when Rutgers comes to town. And Rutgers is not good at playing football. Penn State has to find a way to win that game. It just has to, because getting everyone back on board and believing is going to be a herculean task at that point.
So there it is. That's it.
