Greetings, I am The Count! They call me The Count because I love to count things!
I will be at the Kent State/Penn State football game on Saturday! I am so excited!
Of course, it is a long trip (and many airplane connections) to journey from Transylvania, Romania to State College, Pennsylvania. But as I wait here at the airport for my regional jet flight to Budapest, let me list The Count's TWENTY-SIX reasons for being hopeful about PSU football in 2016!
1. PSU improved notably in S&P+ in 2014 and 2015. The Bill O’Brien era provided decent PSU football: but the advanced metrics indicate that we were better in 2014 and 2015 vs. 2013.
2. Per S&P+, we already ranked as the 4th best team in the B1G in 2015. Including better than ANY team in the B1G West (that includes Iowa & Northwestern!).
3. The “he can recruit, but he cannot coach them up” narrative on Coach Franklin is really not true. Our average 2011-15 recruiting class was 30th; we ranked 30th in S&P+ in 2015. He definitely over-achieved in terms of S&P+ vs recruiting rankings while at Vanderbilt!
4. We’re overall more experienced vs. either 2014 or 2015.
5. More overall depth vs. either 2014 or 2015.
6. 3rd consecutive Top-25 recruiting class for Penn State. There IS talent.
7. Miles Sanders, #1 RB recruit in the nation, is wearing Blue and White.
8. Our OL coach is no longer a man who moonlights as a celebrity chef.
9. Besides, the OL DID improve over the course of last year. It was subtle, but it occurred. And our OL will be better than most anticipate in 2016! Expect good things here!
10. God Bless Christian Hackenberg, but will we really miss him in 2016? Lousy attitude, a dozen baffling misthrows a game (although he would have 2-4 NFL-level missile strikes/game), and absolutely no mobility. We could be the rare case of a team that improves at QB despite losing a 2nd-round NFL draft pick at the position.
11. McSorley, there will be growing pains. But the 2nd half of the Gator Bowl was a positive debut. There is potential here.
12. The biggest strength of our new OC, Joe Moorhead: he likely won’t run 15 bubble screens/game like his predecessor. At least he better not!
13. Another place Moorhead will help: one of our biggest reasons for struggles in 2015: a 27.5% (!!!) 3rd down conversion. Bottom 5 in all of FBS. Just from simple “regression to the mean”, that should improve.
14. For all the grief about dropped passes, Mike Gesicki HAS the talent to be a beast at TE. A good chance 2016 is the year he puts it all together.
15. Temple beat PSU in 1941 - it took them another 74 wins to get another win vs. the Blue and White. Last year was nice for Temple fans, but it's time for another 74-year drought for the Cherry and the White!
16. The schedule make-up. Michigan is a tough road game, but the other conference road games? Purdue, Indiana and Rutgers. That’s a recipe for going 3-1 in conference road games, which gets us a long way to a possible 6-3 or 7-2 conference record (and 9-10 wins overall).
17. 17 is 5 plus 12. And numbers 5 and 12 are some legitimate weapons at WR. They have legitimate all-B1G potential.
18. Special teams WILL be better. No more 31-yard punts and such. Punting’s an underrated part of the game in terms of flipping field position, and this will improve notably.
19. Nyeem Wartman-White is back. So are Jason Cabinda and Brandon Bell, a duo that was never injured in the first place. We still have reasons to call ourselves “Linebacker U.”
20. About those linebackers. Bob Shoop is gone, but Brent Pry got the DC gig for a reason. He will prove himself to be good at the job.
21. Yes, lots of talent lost along the defensive line. But who, except the real die-hard PSU fans, had heard of Carl Nassib prior to 2015? Or heard of Austin Johnson prior to 2014? Only the real die-hard PSU fans today know Garrett Sickles, but that will change. He’ll be a Top 3 round draft choice in the April 2018 NFL draft. And we’ll begin to see why starting on Saturday: he’s PSU’s breakout defensive star in 2016.
22. The 2015 defense ranked 1st in the country in terms of preventing big yardage plays. Much of that is due to an excellent secondary, and many of them return.
23. As good as the secondary was in 2015, PSU still only had 6 interceptions, which is well below the national average. This is another place to hope for “regression to the mean.” Actually, if simply Grant Haley doesn’t drop that one interception last year, we’d be up to 7 and an 8-5 record instead of 7-6 (and none of this “Franklin has no signature wins” clap-trap)!
24. Ohio State under the lights in October, Michigan State in Happy Valley to end the year. Both games perfectly set up schedule-wise to be the "signature win" of the Franklin era.
25. Sunspots go in 11-year cycles. How about other things? In 1994, PSU was generally picked to finish 3rd in the B1G, behind U-M and Wisconsin. We know what happened. In 2005, PSU was on nobody’s radar, coming off of 2 lackluster seasons where the offense struggled (sound familiar at all?) --- but we know what happened there. Why not surprise the world with a B1G title in 2016? Shoot, the exact days of the calendar that fall on Saturday in 2016 mirror those from 1994 and 2005!
26. The man who wears number 26. No more need be said.
TWENTY-SIX!!!!!! Twenty-six reasons that Penn State football will have a great 2016 season!!!!!! AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH!!!!!!!!!!!!
(thunder and lightning)
See you Saturday! Enjoy the 2016 season everyone!
I will be at the Kent State/Penn State football game on Saturday! I am so excited!
Of course, it is a long trip (and many airplane connections) to journey from Transylvania, Romania to State College, Pennsylvania. But as I wait here at the airport for my regional jet flight to Budapest, let me list The Count's TWENTY-SIX reasons for being hopeful about PSU football in 2016!
1. PSU improved notably in S&P+ in 2014 and 2015. The Bill O’Brien era provided decent PSU football: but the advanced metrics indicate that we were better in 2014 and 2015 vs. 2013.
2. Per S&P+, we already ranked as the 4th best team in the B1G in 2015. Including better than ANY team in the B1G West (that includes Iowa & Northwestern!).
3. The “he can recruit, but he cannot coach them up” narrative on Coach Franklin is really not true. Our average 2011-15 recruiting class was 30th; we ranked 30th in S&P+ in 2015. He definitely over-achieved in terms of S&P+ vs recruiting rankings while at Vanderbilt!
4. We’re overall more experienced vs. either 2014 or 2015.
5. More overall depth vs. either 2014 or 2015.
6. 3rd consecutive Top-25 recruiting class for Penn State. There IS talent.
7. Miles Sanders, #1 RB recruit in the nation, is wearing Blue and White.
8. Our OL coach is no longer a man who moonlights as a celebrity chef.
9. Besides, the OL DID improve over the course of last year. It was subtle, but it occurred. And our OL will be better than most anticipate in 2016! Expect good things here!
10. God Bless Christian Hackenberg, but will we really miss him in 2016? Lousy attitude, a dozen baffling misthrows a game (although he would have 2-4 NFL-level missile strikes/game), and absolutely no mobility. We could be the rare case of a team that improves at QB despite losing a 2nd-round NFL draft pick at the position.
11. McSorley, there will be growing pains. But the 2nd half of the Gator Bowl was a positive debut. There is potential here.
12. The biggest strength of our new OC, Joe Moorhead: he likely won’t run 15 bubble screens/game like his predecessor. At least he better not!
13. Another place Moorhead will help: one of our biggest reasons for struggles in 2015: a 27.5% (!!!) 3rd down conversion. Bottom 5 in all of FBS. Just from simple “regression to the mean”, that should improve.
14. For all the grief about dropped passes, Mike Gesicki HAS the talent to be a beast at TE. A good chance 2016 is the year he puts it all together.
15. Temple beat PSU in 1941 - it took them another 74 wins to get another win vs. the Blue and White. Last year was nice for Temple fans, but it's time for another 74-year drought for the Cherry and the White!
16. The schedule make-up. Michigan is a tough road game, but the other conference road games? Purdue, Indiana and Rutgers. That’s a recipe for going 3-1 in conference road games, which gets us a long way to a possible 6-3 or 7-2 conference record (and 9-10 wins overall).
17. 17 is 5 plus 12. And numbers 5 and 12 are some legitimate weapons at WR. They have legitimate all-B1G potential.
18. Special teams WILL be better. No more 31-yard punts and such. Punting’s an underrated part of the game in terms of flipping field position, and this will improve notably.
19. Nyeem Wartman-White is back. So are Jason Cabinda and Brandon Bell, a duo that was never injured in the first place. We still have reasons to call ourselves “Linebacker U.”
20. About those linebackers. Bob Shoop is gone, but Brent Pry got the DC gig for a reason. He will prove himself to be good at the job.
21. Yes, lots of talent lost along the defensive line. But who, except the real die-hard PSU fans, had heard of Carl Nassib prior to 2015? Or heard of Austin Johnson prior to 2014? Only the real die-hard PSU fans today know Garrett Sickles, but that will change. He’ll be a Top 3 round draft choice in the April 2018 NFL draft. And we’ll begin to see why starting on Saturday: he’s PSU’s breakout defensive star in 2016.
22. The 2015 defense ranked 1st in the country in terms of preventing big yardage plays. Much of that is due to an excellent secondary, and many of them return.
23. As good as the secondary was in 2015, PSU still only had 6 interceptions, which is well below the national average. This is another place to hope for “regression to the mean.” Actually, if simply Grant Haley doesn’t drop that one interception last year, we’d be up to 7 and an 8-5 record instead of 7-6 (and none of this “Franklin has no signature wins” clap-trap)!
24. Ohio State under the lights in October, Michigan State in Happy Valley to end the year. Both games perfectly set up schedule-wise to be the "signature win" of the Franklin era.
25. Sunspots go in 11-year cycles. How about other things? In 1994, PSU was generally picked to finish 3rd in the B1G, behind U-M and Wisconsin. We know what happened. In 2005, PSU was on nobody’s radar, coming off of 2 lackluster seasons where the offense struggled (sound familiar at all?) --- but we know what happened there. Why not surprise the world with a B1G title in 2016? Shoot, the exact days of the calendar that fall on Saturday in 2016 mirror those from 1994 and 2005!
26. The man who wears number 26. No more need be said.
TWENTY-SIX!!!!!! Twenty-six reasons that Penn State football will have a great 2016 season!!!!!! AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH!!!!!!!!!!!!
(thunder and lightning)
See you Saturday! Enjoy the 2016 season everyone!
