They completed well for 3 plus quarters against a much better team and even had the lead in the fourth quarter before running out of gas. No realistic person thought this team would contend for a Big Ten Title before the year started. tOSU was just better than us. We can argue Franklins merits all we want but if we can someone get to 10 plus wins this year it is a good season. Well back to the Elk woods
CJF had the team ready play…..
- Thread starter CoastGuard2018
- Start date
Yes, he did. There may have been some things to nitpick, but I thought we had a good game plan and I can't fault the coaches much.
How about winning? Or is there a participation trophy.
Preparation should include recruiting enough good players to win.
A good team would have gotten a defensive stop up 21-16 and then ground out a few first downs on the ground and walk off winners. Used to do that all the time.
But now we lack the preparation to compete at this level. Face it, Penn State is a middling Big10 team.
Last edited:
Cleveland writers were very complimentary FWIW
www.cleveland.com
Ohio State Buckeyes fight to beat a Penn State team built to stop them: Doug Lesmerises
On the Ohio State Buckeyes and Penn State Nittany Lions.
Actually the game plan was fine and Franklin had the team ready to play. Complain all you want but you simply aren’t going to win when your 6th year starting QB turns the ball over 4 times and you lose the turnover battle 4-0. The announcer said at the beginning of the game that Clifford said he had to have the best game of his career to win. Actually what he needed to do was not make critical mistakes at key points of the game. Unfortunately, he failed miserably. I have defended him over the years but his poor performance yesterday was the difference in the game. Plain and simple
Why are expectations so low here? Ohio State is better--yes. Every other game was winnable. 10-2 is fine on paper but if you don't have a quality win who cares?
We have to stop pretending Clifford was the only issue here. The last 2 turnovers had a lot to do with a horrible play by a RT if you remember. And let's not forget Ohio State going 75 yards in 3 plays.
We lost. “Competing” is bs, trying hard and giving effort is bs. We lost, this isn’t pop Warner where if you tried your best, the outcome doesn’t matter. This is a billion dollar enterprise where what matters is stepping up an WINNING. We did not. Our program does not win these games because it is not good enough to win these games. Coach Mirage and his minions are some of several reasons why. There are others - but it is a systemic problem with the program, writ large. Elite programs do not have mistake-prone, inaccurate 6th year starting QBs. Elite programs do not continually melt down in the 4th quarter. They dont complain about referees, they don’t make excuses, and they don’t go 4-14 vs their rivals. We have a very long way to go to be an elite program, and frankly, I question the University’s and Athletic Department’s commitment to getting there. One example: $8.5M for a head coach that has won one conference title in 9 seasons while going 1-8 vs our top rival. An Athletic Department that actually wants to have an elite football program doesn’t make catastrophically inane decisions like that.
Not only that, but it portends very well for the future given the amount of freshman talent we've put on the field and what we have coming back overall.
How much has Michigan paid their head coaches to go 1-16 against Ohio State the last 17 years? Another billion dollar enterprise. Do you own either and does your sun rise solely if Penn State beats Ohio State?
Haven’t forgotten the defense giving up 2 easy scored at all. Did you think the defense was going to stop them the whole game especially when turnovers gave them excellent field position several times. But why don’t you tell me how many points OSU got off the 4 turnovers and the difference in the final score? The last turnover didn’t have a damn thing to do with the right tackle. It was a quick pass and Clifford hit the OSU player right between the 4 and the other 4 for a walk in clinching TD. As I said, I have been one of Clifford’s biggest defenders, but you need your 6th year QB to not make critical mistakes at key points in the game. For the Franklin haters, the team had more rushing and more passing yards than OSU. The difference in the game was PSU 4 turnovers; OSU 0 turnovers. Period.
The RT has to cut his man there--if you don't that happens. I'm still fine with blaming Clifford for not realizing it but that was just as much on the RT
Pretending the only reason we lost was Clifford is a problem and this post is literally saying it's all on Clifford
I couldn’t care less what Michigan does vs Ohio State, or what they pay their head coach. I care about how Penn State, my alma mater, does vs UM and Ohio State. And we are an abject failure against both. We’ve been in this conference for 30 seasons counting this one, and have won it 4 times. If you would have stated in 1992 that as of 2022, Penn State football would only win 4 Big Ten titles in 30 seasons, Nittany Nation would have looked at you as if you were insane, or gotten angry and tarred and feathered you (figuratively).
That’s shows you the decline of the program to 2nd tier status right there. No one thought we’d perform this dismally when we joined this conference.
Cleveland is used to losing. Big time.Cleveland writers were very complimentary FWIW
Ohio State Buckeyes fight to beat a Penn State team built to stop them: Doug Lesmerises
On the Ohio State Buckeyes and Penn State Nittany Lions.
If you watch the replay of the Buckeyes going about 75 yards in three plays, I think you will see that our defense was simply not ready on each play. That 50 yard or so run for a TD, there was no DT on the left side of the Buckeyes line when the play was run. I don't know what type of defense they were in, but the two Buckeye OL only had to block one LB which I believe was Jacobs. For some reason, we were totally lost on defense for that very short series!
Precisely. But more to the point, PSU has far outplayed Preseason expectations to-date (including yesterday's game) and given the amount of freshman talent that is seeing the field (and performing) as well as what is coming back overall, PSU's future appears very bright regardless of how the trolls want to keep recasting expectations (these same childish idiots were telling us how PSU would be lucky to win 7 games before the season started, had lots of ???s on both sides of the line and was unranked in the Preseason) - but let's forget about where these very same people said we would be at this point of the season, which was not on-track to finish in top 10 and go to a NY6 Bowl.
Very patronizing. Ho hum, another win.Cleveland writers were very complimentary FWIW
Ohio State Buckeyes fight to beat a Penn State team built to stop them: Doug Lesmerises
On the Ohio State Buckeyes and Penn State Nittany Lions.
Note Day’s words, they expect to win. He recruits the necessary players, he prepares them to win, and they execute.
Ho him indeed.
The best we can do is “play our tail off”…no expectation to win, and certainly not the talent level, and coaching to do so.
Who in charge of that? 19 years of participation trophies? Pathetic at a school like Penn State!
I think Ryan Day's comments are pretty telling. They expect to win. Franklin has built a roster that can hang with Ohio State for the most part. The difference is we don't really expect to win. We hope to win, but expect to lose. I think from the coaches to the players to the fan base. There's always a feeling that the roof is going to cave in against them at some point.
The talent level was not the difference in this game. It wouldn't have been 21-16 in the 4th quarter in our favor if it was.
They actually competed. And if PSU had won they/PSU would be the better "team". Not the better talent. But sometimes a team can beat better talent. But not usually when the teams QB gives the game away with 4 turnovers. So as Clifford as QB is a big part of the team, and Clifford was not ready to play from the get go, Franklin did not really have the whole team ready to play well for 3 plus quarters.
That’s clearly false on its face: “ but now we lack the preparation to complete at this level”. If that were the case, how could we possibly be leading at the 51 minute mark of a 60 minute game??? Did that mean Ohio state was unprepared up until this point? —-This is simple….. you can’t beat good teams ( this is a very good team) by turning over the ball 4 times.…period. 44 became an All American yesterday, and probably a national defensive award winner Because of his ridiculously great play.
—Unlike at Michigan, this team was well prepared, and smacked the better fighter hard, in the mouth …… and staggered them. In spite of giving them multiple turnovers.
—The team we played is at least 2 ( probably 3) deep in 4 and 5 star players ( ready to play). We are getting progressively better, but are only really 1 deep ( 2 at some positions) . Their talent pool is currently….and obviously better. But regardless of this, it was 4 turnovers by PSU that was the difference ( and #44 in scarlet and grey)
Last edited:
So in other words we should start every year with a 0 and 2 record losing to both the big boys let see that means no appearance in college playoffs why have a football team than?
Not only do I expect to win…I consider the season over after our first loss. Why put in all the work if you don’t expect to win? No sense even playing if you don’t expect to win.
PSU is better than a middle-of-the-pack B1G team. Ohio State is built to compete nationally. Ann Arbor is a tough place to play. Ohio State found that out last year. The sheer noise level was a reason they lost (not the only 1). They must have had 10 false starts. I always worry about the PSU game, especially if it is being played in State College. OSU goes to NW next week. No worries.
Don't think overall talent level was the difference, but "elite talent" probably was - we had no answer for #44 on Defense and #84 on Offense. The difference at QB was rather glaring as well imho - simply no excuse for Cliff to have that many balls batted, and one outright picked-off for a walk-in Pick6, by duhO$U D-Lineman.
The only way this happens that many times imo is if the DL know exactly where he is going with the ball well in advance of his throw and are just waiting for him to start his delivery (watch the replay on the Pick6 - that was not the RT's fault, it was 100% on Cliff. #44 knew exactly where Cliff was going with the ball well before he threw it and was just waiting for him to begin his delivery before making his break on the ball - not only did #44 know exactly where Cliff was going, but he also knew Cliff would throw it on a "flat trajectory" interestingly.).
Cliff is horrendous making those "long handoff" outlet and screen type throws - the number of times DL/Rushers get their hands on these types of throws from Cliff is just astonishing (and it isn't just yesterday's game either). The only way this happens over and over on a regular basis on throws like this is a combination of several things:
1) Cliff locks onto the intended short target and stares them down for a long period of time prior to release
2) He consistently throws way too flat a throw even when he has defenders in-between himself and the target.
3) He has an extremely long delivery and slow release.
Last edited:
Exactly. Participation trophy.
Did not have enough good players, were not prepared to play smart football (4 turnovers), and did not make the needed adjustments down the stretch. Unprepared to win the game (starts with recruiting enough of the right players).
Bottom line - played hard but yet another another loss in 9 years of mediocrity.
Being compared to Northwestern. Priceless.
Who is Penn State better than in Big10? We’ll find out over next 4 weeks. For God sakes, Illinois is ranked over Penn State and last year they could barely make a 1st down…until they came to Happy Valley. They blew past us in a whole one year.
Penn State has top 10-15 talent…enough to compete on home ice and win more than one upset in 9 years.
Ohio State owns Michigan. And Ann Arbor is not nearly as tough of an environment to play in as Happy Valley. O$U lost one game to Michigan in two decades.
Penn State can do better with the right ingredients - starting what the top.
Not close to being an apt analogy. Penn State recruits at a Top Ten level, and Franklin has built the team with Ohio State in mind. They might recruit at a Top 5 level, but the difference isn't night and day for the most part when it comes to the 11-on-11 on the field. We just had a Top 5 class. We go head-to-head with them on recruits. They probably win more often than not, but we win our share. They have a few freaks, but for the most part, our talent matches up well with theirs - probably better than it does with Michigan's, which focuses on the trenches. Unfortunately, Ohio State does have a few guys that are freaks. The big difference in that game was #44 (or maybe it was #14 on our side and maybe the backup RT, if you want to blame him). They have some great receivers and running backs, but outside of Marvin Harrison Jr. we mostly held them in check.
I would add some game-changing plays by the defense...by my count we had ZERO for an otherwise effective defensive strategy, and a play or two short by some players that are higher in the depth chart than I'd like.
Penn State is better than every team in the B1G except for 2 of them. That is not really that bad. OSU and UM are a pretty even matchup this year. I am glad it is in Columbus.
I would have adjusted all the blitzing after it was clear that 1. we weren't getting to the QB sufficiently, and 2. OSU figured out the center of the field was wide open and decided to throw the ball there.
You're so right. We should have quit after Alabama beat us 42-21 mid-way through our 1982 national championship season. Why did we even bother????
First off, they're wrong for saying the season is over after 1 loss. Generally speaking, it's the second loss that effectively ends your season from being meaningful
Second, why are you talking about 40 years ago? I'm nearing 50 and I'm barely old enough to remember any of that season. Deal with present day football. Use Bama if you want as an comparison.
Latest posts
-
-
FB Recruiting 2025 F Shane Pendergrass recaps weekend trip to Penn State- Latest: Richard Schnyderite
-
FB Recruiting Predicting Penn State to close out 2023 with a big recruiting win
- Latest: Richard Schnyderite
-
Hockey Four takeaways in Penn State Hockey's road series against Michigan
- Latest: Richard Schnyderite