...in their last 20 games (with the loses coming to other top-ranked teams) & PSU is still very much in the thick of things and just needs to focus on its own business, so it is tough to be extremely critical or overly disappointed imho. These types of loses are inevitable - look at Alabama as a good example, easily the best team in the nation but have only gone undefeated 1 time over the past 5 years and have taken a regular season losses in 3 of those years (Clemson the last 2 years also another good example).
But the one play call that I really did not understand was the 3rd-&-2 play call on our final series of the 3rd Quarter when we were up 35-20 at the time (we had moved the ball from our own 6 yard line out to the 29 yard line). Effectively we ran a delayed RPO "draw play" to Barkley on 3rd-&-2 when you knew for sure OSU would be "run/pass blitzing" at the LOS - sure enough OSU flooded the LOS on the 3rd-&-2 and tackled Barkley as soon as TM gave him the ball for a 4 yard loss. The play call made zero sense IMHO and was way to conservative - essentially, PSU had to know that OSU would be flooding the LOS with 7 attackers and looking for Barkley to get the ball....and if he didn't, get to TM as quickly as possible. The call signaled that PSU was perfectly happy to punt the ball, play field position and put the game on the defense - why CJF was willing to gamble on having the defense make the win stand up is a bit baffling given that Barrett finished the game 33 of 39 for 328 yards, 4 Passing TDs and 0 INTs (and OSU ended up with 529 yards of Total Offense). I also didn't get the Barkley run on 3rd-&17 from the OSU 49 yard-line which went for 6 yards on our next series after recovering the OSU fumble....but this one was less egregious imho as a delayed run (i.e., an effective "draw play") has a better shot of working since the OSU defense would have been looking for a downfield pass and pass rushers would have been rushing straight up the field to get to the QB, which is what a draw is looking to exploit.
But the one play call that I really did not understand was the 3rd-&-2 play call on our final series of the 3rd Quarter when we were up 35-20 at the time (we had moved the ball from our own 6 yard line out to the 29 yard line). Effectively we ran a delayed RPO "draw play" to Barkley on 3rd-&-2 when you knew for sure OSU would be "run/pass blitzing" at the LOS - sure enough OSU flooded the LOS on the 3rd-&-2 and tackled Barkley as soon as TM gave him the ball for a 4 yard loss. The play call made zero sense IMHO and was way to conservative - essentially, PSU had to know that OSU would be flooding the LOS with 7 attackers and looking for Barkley to get the ball....and if he didn't, get to TM as quickly as possible. The call signaled that PSU was perfectly happy to punt the ball, play field position and put the game on the defense - why CJF was willing to gamble on having the defense make the win stand up is a bit baffling given that Barrett finished the game 33 of 39 for 328 yards, 4 Passing TDs and 0 INTs (and OSU ended up with 529 yards of Total Offense). I also didn't get the Barkley run on 3rd-&17 from the OSU 49 yard-line which went for 6 yards on our next series after recovering the OSU fumble....but this one was less egregious imho as a delayed run (i.e., an effective "draw play") has a better shot of working since the OSU defense would have been looking for a downfield pass and pass rushers would have been rushing straight up the field to get to the QB, which is what a draw is looking to exploit.
