Washington State moved the ball at will against Rutgers and Bowling Green torched Maryland. If we put up offensive stinkers to these 2 teams, I don't want to hear about sanctions. You can't tell me with a straight face that Bowling Green and Washington State have better talent than we do.
If we put up stinkers to MD and/or Rutgers...
- Thread starter PSU1983PHAN
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Too bad. The sanctions happened. The 2012 and 2013 classes which are the seniors and juniors were not in the top 50 recruiting classes The 2 stars in those classes without power 5 offers did not turn into 5 stars the day the sanctions ended. PSU lost 20 4 star recruits in those classes. That is reality. You don't replace that talent overnight.
Do you think you can lose a bunch of 4 star B10 recruits and simply replace then with flips from Uconn, Toledo, and ODU? Some of the kids in those classes did not have ANY other offers.
Were our 2012 and 2013 classes ranked ahead of Bowling Green and WSU? That's what I thought. Thanks for playing.
They don't have better talent, they have better SYSTEMS, and better COACHING.
We were probably behind WSU. WSU had 30 recruits in 2013 compared to our 16. You do the math. Thanks for playing.
We were probably ahead of Bowling Green and Ohio U who beat the messia(Bill Obrien).
Those teams have a better OC than Donovan.
Do you want to switch coaching and take their recruiting classes too? You will trade the #4 for #98(Bowling Green) and #58(WSU). While you are crying I will stick with Franklin and let him find a new OC at the end of the year. Let me know when Bowling Green or WSU have a chance at winning something. Thanks for playing.
Is that why Ohio U, Virginia, and Central Florida beat up on Obrien?
I will stick with Franklin and let him find a new OC.
PS> Where is all the talent in the 2012 and 2013 classes? Those classes were ranked behind RU, Pitt, and UMD.
That's the point I've been making in this thread. I'm tired of sanctions being an excuse for Donovan's incompetence.
Not sure what you are saying here?
The Ohio game was lost, basically by a fluke, in that the entire team came out and blew all their energy in the first half, and Ohio converted like 94 percent third and fourth downs.
The Virginia game was blown because of Ficken's nightmare game and O'Brien playing for field goals.
The UCF game was lost because Blake Bortles is a great quarterback.
Virginia was also blown because of OB's decision to start Derek Day, a 5'9 180 LB running back who looked like his 40 time was 5+, while ZZ sat on the bench. To this day I will never understand that decision. (Also, people defended the decision to start Day by blaming sanctions. No joke)
and for whatever reason neither OB or Roof thought it prudent to have a nickel package defense for a spread team.
W
we were not behind WSU or ohio or BG in any years from 2011 straight thru... if you're ok using espn/rivals.
that said, 30 players in a class provides enormous depth, something we did not have... and that matters a lot.
we were not behind WSU or ohio or BG in any years from 2011 straight thru... if you're ok using espn/rivals.
that said, 30 players in a class provides enormous depth, something we did not have... and that matters a lot.
We are DEFINITELY behind WSU in 2013. The Psu 2013 class is down to about 9 recruits and only about half of them are contributing.
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and for whatever reason neither OB or Roof thought it prudent to have a nickel package defense for a spread team.
There was not much they could do about that. They did not have a 5 DBs ready to play. Daquon Davis was playing as a freshman. THey had to convert Williams to CB the next year.
It was a mistake but it was not obvious at the time. Day was probably about #4 RB at the start of the season behind Belton, Zordich and Dukes. Belton, Zordich and Dukes got hurt and they went to Day. Once Day got hurt they eventually got to Zwinak.
Not sure that is accurate. Pretty sure they played it later on in the season. Now it could be that after the "free agency raid" they didn't have time but it sounds like it was discussed just not implemented.
>>
“We just have to play better coverage,” Willis said. “It all works hand in hand. If we're getting a lot of three-step drops, the defensive backs … (and) the linebackers have to play tighter coverage and force the quarterback to hold the ball a split-second more to allow our front four to get to him.”
Willis said the Lions have discussed the nickel defense, but have not so much as practiced it. O'Brien said that's because the coaching staff trusts the coverage abilities of outside linebackers Mike Mauti and Gerald Hodges.<<
http://www.scout.com/college/penn-state/story/1218319-defense-looks-to-rebound-vs-uva
Only Belton got hurt. Zordich and Dukes both had a few carries against Virginia. Day got the most carries that day and was named the starter.
Nah, I'm just tired of seeing people blame the sanctions in order to excuse the incompetence of Donovan...
If teams of lesser talent can put up points against Rutgers and Maryland, then we should be able to put up more than 13 points against them. It's that simple. If we don't its a stunning indictment on Donovan.
It is fairly accurate. They really did not have the DBs that year. They had Amos, Stephon Morris, SOA and Malcolm Willis as the starters. THe next man up was who knows who. Probably Daquon DAvis who was a true freshman or Ryan Keiser who was a walk on. That was about it. THey had to convert Trevor Williams to CB that off season. I think Lucas also moved from safety to CB that off season. They moved golden to S from WR.
I think Donovan is in over his head and should be replaced!! Sanctions or not he isn't good enough
Except RU and MD had higher recruiting classes during the sanctions which means they had more talent.
Oh, I thought you meant to say their injuries were the reason Day was starting. Yeah, why ZZ was buried so deep in the depth chart behind the likes of Day is beyond me.
We had 17 commits (after the mess) of which we still have 12 on the roster. a couple had issues, others were barely 2 stars players and unlikely to contribute... but to that point, they were recruited because of the sanctions that caused great talent to split. of the 12, maybe half are true contributors... so yes, i would agree that the sanctions left us dry. but those left were e highly regarded.
as for wsu.. they had ONE 4 star recruit and a boatload of 2-3 star types (iow, the kind we got). that one guy, Bruggman, split to l'ville. so their entire class (and all the others as well) was less than stellar.
any success they are having is due to the coaching and the system employed.
Do not forget that one way teams get better is repetition. We could not give our players as many reps as we wanted *due* to sanctions and the lack of depth. The team had to practice "light" for fear of catastrophic injuries--often with no "next man up". That's not going to hurt the development of skill positions as much as things like the line. Which it clearly did.
Absolutely agree. My primary point over the last 2 weeks is that we lost one major player from last year's offense.. yet we still play like it's our first rodeo. as for Hack, he looks like a guy who expects to get hit on every play, so he's zeroing in on receivers almost from the moment before the snap.. and he stays there. He does not believe he has time to look anyone off. Really not sure how you fix that.
Bottom line is both WSU & BG did not have sanctions , they did not have a dozen defections 3
Redd, Fera, & Brown were critical that cost us the Ohio & VA games.Our recruiting was horrible
before Franklin and our back ups have been primarily walk ons.
When you don't have sanctions you have a continuum in recruiting, it is what it is right now.
If our 2016 & 2017 classes are top 10 we will be not only good , but great. You should have seen some of JVP teams struggle against Temple,Maryland,Cincinnati,be Patient.
Really does not explain the fall-off between BC game and Temple.. and even Buffalo. we lost smith -- no doubt a huge loss (in more ways than one).. but there had been concerns all last year that he wasn't playing his best. If anything, this team should have looked considerably better. imo, of course.
I'm thinking they didn't think the Left tackle situation out as their only mistake,but your can't put a kid like Sterling Jenkins in the lineup now,maybe in a month they might have to. We need depth that we either don't have or got to recruit for it.
A bad line and the two most experienced guys went to the NFL. Makes sense to me. It does not make sense that fans picked this team to go 10-2 when the sanction classes are juniors and seniors.
one guy went. Miles barely played in BC game. makes no sense to me. that said, i never predicted 10-2... but 8-4 was very doable based on what we had coming back... and assuming we stayed reasonably healthy (not).
agree... but they had a lot of time to figure it out and come up with plan B... we got none of that. and now with nelson out... we're into plan C which i'm quite sure we don't have.
People forget we're still playing defensive players on the O Line. O Line takes time to develop as it is, and then we have players that weren't even used to playing on that side of the ball contributing. They may not be natural players at those positions and hebe a ceiling... regardless of coaching.
u r correct... there are players still learning. the same players that were there last year. iow, i didn't forget anything. i want an explanation from someone how the loss of ONE player from the BC turned this OL into pushmush. Was Smith all of it? Was he the only glue that held it all together? If you want to argue that, it's ok. He's a very very good player who had a very strong bowl game. But there are 4 other guys who played on the OL that day and they were all back at the start of this year.
WTF happened? [and you don't get to count miles.. he played one qtr in a game where we did most of our scoring after he was gone.] I thought i heard how they hit the weight room and had gelled and come together. Have not seen it... so what happened?
Could be that Donovan held it together and was the leader and communicator and no one has stepped up. He is in the NFL for a reason. Could be that BC didn't blitz us on just about every down like Temple, could be they didn't have a good gameplan to attack our weakness. Could be we matched up skill, strength and size wise better with BC than our first two opponents. Could be lots of things.
I'm not saying it's not the coaching, but Hand does have a decent track record. I also don't think you can blame it all on the coaching when we're not in practice every day. We don't see how they're coached, we don't see their potential, we don't see how the backups play. We don't see how they respond to coaching, who is a leader or not, who can handle a position change and who can't. We see a couple hours of game a week, not the hours that go into preparation and evaluation. Just because we don't like the end result doesn't mean it's not the best anyone can do given the players we have at this given moment.
The guy coaching the unit spent more time getting in Twitter wars than... You know... Coaching the unit....
