Re-watched PSU v tOSU last night. Thoughts going into 2017 season...

[Cosmos]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

 

[Rip_E_2_Joe_PA]

Thanks....I needed a good laugh.

 

[GreggK]

uhhhhhh, did you just watch the first half? We man handled their o-line in the second half.

Not sure you can really compare the o-line from that game with the o-line we have this year.
We are finally stocked and we should be doing pretty damn good.

Godwin was great no doubt, but WR is the least of my worries.

The heck is Fairyland?

I think the exuberance is due to the fact that we bring back practically everybody. And the people we lost are in places that we can easily fill. WR for instance. D-line has yet to be determined but the young guys did well when they played last year.

 

[royboy]

You've been so wrong before, Cosmos. I don't think your observations carry much weight around here.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

They sure didn't seem more athletic down the stretch. Our DL whooped their arse in the second half and they only had one big play by Samuel. I don't think you really watched the game at all and I think your FOS. Saying OSU may win at home in the shoe is no huge jump. PSU is recruiting just fine and you are basically saying the other 2 coaches must suck as PSU won the BT title with less talent climbing out of a hole left by the NCAA.

In other words you just gave Franklin the nod as the top HC in the B1G...well done.

 

[bwifan]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

 

[PennSt8er]

My expectations are that we will win the games where we score more points.

 

[Lionguy32]

Yes, we'll miss Godwin. And OSU will miss all of those guys on defense who went to the NFL.

 

[VaNtyLion]

Game was sloppy both ways on special teams and deserved to be close as the score indicated. Easy to forget while the story coming out was PSU got "lucky" how OSU mustered much of its offense in that game. Save for 1 play - Samuel's long TD run - they didn't do a whole heck of a lot...and even that play was greatly aided by Cabinda taking a bad angle at the LOS to allow Samuel to break containment and get into the secondary. OSU's first 3 pts were set up by a fumbled punt in PSU territory. 2 more pts on a bad snap on a punt. Otherwise for the game they managed a whopping 9 pts.


I think most would concede OSU's defense controlled PSU's offense for most of the game. Looking at the talent available there when that game was played, that's hardly a surprise. However, PSU went the length of the field on them in short order for 2 TD drives. That wasn't "luck".

And PSU wasn't "lucky" to hold OSU to one TD for the game. They were just plain better on that side of the ball.

In the end, PSU got the W because they made one more play on special teams. That wasn't luck. They made a play with the game on the line and deserved the W.

 

[KnightSlayer]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

There are few posters whose opinion I value less than yours. Thanks for your meager contribution to the board.

 

[bdgan]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance. I agree with the 30% chance. PSU had a huge advantage at home for a whiteout game. OSU has that advantage this year.

• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go. They certainly shouldn't be worse. The only loss was Gaia who wasn't the strongest player. The young players should be better and Nelson/Mahon are returning. We'll have to wait and see how much they've improved.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see. Godwin was a good player but PSU has a lot of WRs back. I expect Blacknall to be a solid replacement for Godwin. One thing Godwin did well was positioning his body to shield off defenders. That allowed him to catch a lot of balls in traffic. We'll see how Blacknall does in that regard. Even if he's not as good as Godwin we would have more depth. Hamilton, Thompkins, Charles, Johnson, etc.

• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2. There are a lot of tough games. At Iowa and at Northwestern should be tough. At MSU and at Maryland won't be easy either. Michigan is always good. I agree with 10-2 or 9-3 but 11-1 is possible if everything comes together.

• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry. Our recruiting is still well behind OSU. The only advantage we have is that we return more experience than they do this year. PSU's recruiting has been every bit as good as UM's recruiting.

Rivals rankings:
2014: OSU 3rd, PSU 24th, UM 31st
2015: OSU 9th, PSU 15th, UM 50th
2016: OSU 3rd, UM 4th, PSU 21st
2017: OSU 2nd, UM 4th, PSU 12th

UM's recruiting stunk in 2014 & 2015. They had high rated classes in 2016 & 2017 but only because they signed 29 and 30 kids respectively. Their average star rating was a solid but not spectacular 3.6.

 

[MrDibbs]

I must confess that I only watched a piece of the replay last evening - the last 7 minutes or so of the first half.

What I truly enjoyed was listening to Herbie (who I really do like) and the play-by-play guy whose name escapes my memory stumble over each other in heaping praise upon the Buckeyes who had a 9 - 0 lead and extended it to a 12 - 0 lead with a minute to go in the half, only to see it become 12 - 7 after McSorely and company had a quick strike drive in that final minute.

I fell asleep knowing the eventual outcome (or turned to the local news and fell asleep) so I missed the announcer's reactions as the second half proved that the vaunted Buckeyes were not all they thought - as PSU pulled off the upset.

We got to work on that "eye test" thing.

 

[JayWye]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

Where to begin. On the OL PSU started two frosh at OG, Paris Palmer at LT and, in Gaia, an, at best, journeyman C who could be counted on to airmail at least one snap per game. The OSU OL did dominate the LOS thru the first half, but then our DL began to assert itself thanks in large part to two RS frosh DT's...Windsor and Givens...who were all over the field from halftime on. Getting Sickels back also helped, obviously.

 

[artsandletters]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

I don't want a blessed day.

 

[LukeIamYourFather]

When I rewatched the game I came away thinking that Ohio St was the luckier of the two teams. In potential turnover situations, the ball bounced their way more than ours. Our team dominated them after half.

For what it's worth, we were unlucky against Wisky too. In my rewatch I saw 5 balls on the ground that all went to Wisky. What are the odds that the ball is put on the ground that many times and only one team recovers them all?

 

[pandaczar12]

My expectations are that we will win the games where we score more points.

I hope so. PSU scored more points than OSU did in 2014 and still lost, thanks to the points gifted to OSU by the refs to send it to OT.

 

[83wuzme]

Limegrover has done a good job and only a fool would talk about replacing him.

 

[psugisher]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

Limegrower fella? You seriously typed that? Go re-watch the Iowa game and see how that inexperienced injury depleted o-line played. That is what you'll see this year.. "Limegrower" is probably the guy that makes this offense go from good to great. You watch and get back to us, ok?

 

[VaNtyLion]

Limegrover has done a good job and only a fool would talk about replacing him.

Considering the obstacles facing Limegrover, he did an amazing job, but also think the offensive system and mobile QB helps mask some OL deficiencies. I'm not sure the OL was as good as the offensive output may suggest but there were several issues they had to deal with, on top of learning a new system.

Injuries to Nelson and Mahon put 10 different OL combos into starting lineups in 13 games last year.

Reliance on true Freshman McGovern and RS freshmen Bates and Gonzalez was going to come with some additional layers of inconsistency.

If you simply look at the improvement of the individuals (especially the young guys) over the course of the season, Limegrover proved to be highly competent.

 

[Columbus_Lion]

I agree about Godwin. He was a very good run blocker (critical for long runs) and some clutch catches. Not worried about the WRs catching ability, however the run blocking will be very important.

 

[BisbeeMike]

When I rewatched the game I came away thinking that Ohio St was the luckier of the two teams. In potential turnover situations, the ball bounced their way more than ours. Our team dominated them after half.

For what it's worth, we were unlucky against Wisky too. In my rewatch I saw 5 balls on the ground that all went to Wisky. What are the odds that the ball is put on the ground that many times and only one team recovers them all?

Yep, I noticed that also. It was freakish that they recovered every one of them. On the Bell strip sack, Sickels had a clear line to the ball and just tripped, on another one, the ball bounced the other way, away from our players. Talk about "fluke". We can also add that there were two Sam Darnold deflections that could have been intercepted that were not in the Rose Bowl also. We really overcame a lot of bad breaks in those two games, although we came up short at SC.

 

[BBrown]

Yep, I noticed that also. It was freakish that they recovered every one of them. On the Bell strip sack, Sickels had a clear line to the ball and just tripped, on another one, the ball bounced the other way, away from our players. Talk about "fluke". We can also add that there were two Sam Darnold deflections that could have been intercepted that were not in the Rose Bowl also. We really overcame a lot of bad breaks in those two games, although we came up short at SC.

Yea there was a play by Darnold late in the 4th quarter that was a HUGE play because, IIRC, it was 3rd and at least 8 and they were on their side of the 50. They would have had to punt back to us and we were still on a roll offensively.
Instead Darnold does everything wrong, Holds on to the ball, runs to his right throws across his body, late, in the center of the field, pass is deflected and...bounces into the arms of a USC WR for a first down. SMH.

 

[Howie'81]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

@LaJolla Lion need another translation. My translation is "bullsh*t," but you speak Cosmos and I don't.

 

[Howie'81]

They sure didn't seem more athletic down the stretch. Our DL whooped their arse in the second half and they only had one big play by Samuel. I don't think you really watched the game at all and I think your FOS. Saying OSU may win at home in the shoe is no huge jump. PSU is recruiting just fine and you are basically saying the other 2 coaches must suck as PSU won the BT title with less talent climbing out of a hole left by the NCAA.

In other words you just gave Franklin the nod as the top HC in the B1G...well done.

Ah I hadn't seen this. You can ignore my translation request.

 

[Howie'81]

Yes, we'll miss Godwin. And OSU will miss all of those guys on defense who went to the NFL.

C'mon, in some people's world, Penn State is the only college football program that loses players each year. I always roll my eyes at these insipid comments.

 

[LaJolla Lion]

Ah I hadn't seen this. You can ignore my translation request.

He basically gave Franklin a shout out as the best HC in the B1G on accident. He's too dumb to pull off the insult I guess?

 

[AWS1022]

I agree about Godwin. He was a very good run blocker (critical for long runs) and some clutch catches. Not worried about the WRs catching ability, however the run blocking will be very important.

Much of that is coaching, so if they were coaching Godwin, they will also be coaching the others.

 

[pandaczar12]

Yea there was a play by Darnold late in the 4th quarter that was a HUGE play because, IIRC, it was 3rd and at least 8 and they were on their side of the 50. They would have had to punt back to us and we were still on a roll offensively.
Instead Darnold does everything wrong, Holds on to the ball, runs to his right throws across his body, late, in the center of the field, pass is deflected and...bounces into the arms of a USC WR for a first down. SMH.

That was the luckiest play I've ever watched. I told my wife at that moment that PSU just lost.

 

[psugisher]

That was the luckiest play I've ever watched. I told my wife at that moment that PSU just lost.

We didn't lose on that play but it was one of maybe 5 or 6 plays where we had a chance to virtually seal the game in that 4th quarter. We were up 14 at the time. At worst they would've punted. It could've easily been a pick and then we go up 3 scores or run more clock at the very least. Obviously we stumbled offensively in the 4th having several chances to ice the game or convert a 3rd down and run out the clock. Our defense did a lot of good things but they eventually ran out of gas. I'm looking forward to seeing how much this year's group learned from that loss and hopefully it turns into a positive for them.

 

[tboyer]

• We were outmatched athletically. No one can argue that. We were 20 point dogs. I expect the much of the same in C'bus. I give us a 30% chance.
• As for the 'new and improved' offensive line, seeing is believing! If it doesn't improve then that Limegrower fella must go.
• We're going to miss Godwin big time. You'll see.
• NW and Fairyland are trap games. Meat won't be easy by any means. We'll beat Iowa if we get them out of the phone booth. I predict 9-3 or 10-2.
• Too much irrational exuberance on this board. Our recruiting is still catching up to tOSU and to Meatchicken. As Joe said people need to lower their expectations. That said I like this team's chemistry.

I thank you and have a blessed day.

Someone needs to pour some cold water around here, so good for you. A lot of this I don't disagree with. PSU recruiting IS still catching up to tOSU and UM.

But despite that, PSU's best players are among the best in the conference this year. Some of the former 2-stars and 3-stars - McSorley, Cabinda, Marcus Allen, Cothran and Givens -- are really good players.

PSU actually will have an experience in edge against almost every team they play. And this team really truly does have depth and balance. Barring a cluster of injuries, they are OK at every position.

There's also good team leadership and excellent coaching.

NW at Evanston isn't a trap game. It's a tough game. Same with Iowa at Kinnick. PSU is going to go to both places with better players, with favorable matchups. But in the Big Ten, where and when the game is played outweighs almost everything. If NW or Iowa gets hot and they're playing at home, it's tough for anybody to beat them. Which of course is what happened to Ohio State at the Beav.

Yes I think the team is going to miss Godwin a lot. But in rewatching games from last year, I was reminded that a lot of other people came up with huge catches in pressure situations -- Gesicki of course, Hamilton, Blacknall, Charles, Thompkins.

Offensive line -- seeing is believing? You did see them play the last half of the year, still not persuaded? The OL is for real. Not much to worry about there. If you want to worry, worry about the DL.

 

[tboyer]

When I rewatched the game I came away thinking that Ohio St was the luckier of the two teams. In potential turnover situations, the ball bounced their way more than ours. Our team dominated them after half.

For what it's worth, we were unlucky against Wisky too. In my rewatch I saw 5 balls on the ground that all went to Wisky. What are the odds that the ball is put on the ground that many times and only one team recovers them all?

Really that is another potential plus factor for PSU. Whether it was luck or a lack of concentration, they didn't come up with the kind of takeaways a good defense gets. Those things kind of run in cycles so they will at very least revert to the mean this year.

 

[RandyL]

I think our DTs are going to be very solid against the run...very, very solid. With strong MLB play, we should be strong up the middle, and few teams should be able to run inside on us. Being strong up the middle is the beginning of a much improved defense.
My only concern is whether we can maintain a consistant pass rush.
I wont be surprised is we beat OSU on both sides of the line.

 

[lionroar88]

Gesicki went out after catching 2 balls on the first series. That was huge as we really missed his blocking, stretching the field, and pass catching threat. Sickles was benched the entire first half due to skipping class during the off week. When Sickles came in the second half the defense was totally different. Those two play the entire game - same result just a wider margin of victory.

This year the young DEs are going to have to make huge strides during the early games. They have to shed blocks and stuff runs and get to the QB to disrupt passing routes.

Blacknall will be a solid replacement for Godwin, and we get Charles and Johnson.