I will get into the field goal block in detail, but first a few quick observation. The second half was insane and defies any kind of analysis. One big play after another. Incredible individual performances, huge plays left and right, controversial officiating. It had it all. So most of these observations come from the slightly more normal first half.
- not surprisingly, Penn State sold out to stop the run. They brought pressure from everywhere. Allen almost served as a fourth LB at times. They didn't play much deep safety at all. They basically dared OSU to beat them deep, played plenty of man, and Penn State won that battle. Phenomenal work by pretty much everyone on defense. The kids played great, better than ever could have been hoped for. And they VERY CLEARLY were very well prepared. No false steps, no confusion with motion, nothing to indicate they weren't ready for everything they saw. The bye week had to have been a huge deal for the defense, because they played faster and looked more confident. And it's not like the offense did them a bunch of favors on Saturday night. So considering the opponent, considering previous performance, certainly one of the great defensive performances in recent memory, IMO.
- not surprisingly, OSU did not take the Maryland approach to stopping Penn State. They brought their safeties closer to LOS, brought their slot defenders in closer, and generally played defense the way you expected them too. I thought Penn State actually called a pretty decent game. Obviously we couldn't block them, so they showed some new stuff, played with better tempo, and did some good things early on. Ultimately we couldn't block well enough to be consistent. The one thing I would say is that Barkley needs to get more touches, especially considering they weren't totally shutting him down or anything like that.
- Gap control from both DL and LB is miles ahead of where it was earlier this year. Miles and miles and miles ahead.
- Barrett scrambled well at times, but I thought he played tentatively in the pass game. He settled for check downs on the third down a lot in the first half, even when there wasn't pressure. I thought this was a pretty big deal in terms of its impact on the game.
- Thought McSorley's decision making was outstanding. He was decisive with everything he did, never looked rattled despite having to scramble a lot, and threw some good jump balls (something our last quarterback was not good at). His numbers were awful, but I thought his calmness under pressure was remarkable and played a big part in the win.
- Was surprised OSU didn't go heavy play action earlier and more often. Penn State decided it was going to come the moment there was any indication of run (similar to what Pitt did to us earlier this year).
- Dropped passes hurt both teams.
- Consider this. With 1:30 left in the first half, OSU has the ball, 1st and 10 at the PSU 13. They're up 9-0. Swing pass to Weber right in the bread basket. He drops it. Next play, Barrett has to scramble and as he's getting tackled for what would have been essentially no gain, he throws it right before his knee hits for an incompletion. Next play the TE doesn't get his head around for a hot read and OSU settles for field goal. If Weber catches the swing pass or if Barrett eats the ball for no gain on second down, the clock runs and PSU will never have a chance to score a TD at the end of the half. THEN, Penn State gets the ball, runs two plays, the second of which is a Barkley run which leaves them 3rd and 8 from the 27 yard line. It looks like they're going to take the prudent path and let the clock run. After six or seven seconds a timeout is called. Everyone, including the announcers, assume it's an OSU timeout. But incredibly it's a PSU timeout. I'm not here to pass judgment, but obviously most teams in Penn State's situation there would not call a timeout. But they did. And the rest is history.
Now, it's time to spin a tale. Some of it I know to be true. Some I do not.
This tale starts some years ago (didn't bother to look it up) when college football (and the NFL) decided they didn't want people running up and jumping into or over linemen for field goal blocks. It was done for safety reasons. No one complained much, and teams adapted. They adapted by either removing the player from behind the line, or having that player be the safe guy for fakes, or having that player take a step or two forward and jump straight up in the air safely behind the linemen. Watch any game on Saturday or Sunday and this is what you'll see, almost universally.
Fast forward to sometime in the past couple weeks. A plan is hatched. Perhaps it's because of something they see on film from OSU, or maybe it's just an idea that pops into someone's head. But Penn State decides it's going to try something different in an effort to block a field goal. It's an audacious plan as it involves hopefully well disguised defensive holding and borderline leaping (the official name of the penalty) depending on how it's executed.
Before we go on, let's talk about the Leaping penalty and the all important exceptions to it. The intent of the rule was fairly simple. They didn't want players running and leaping over/on the linemen. That was it. But it's a rule and they have to try and account for everything. So they put exceptions in. One exception they put in was that if you jumped but didn't contact anyone then that was fine. The other important one was that if you made it to the neutral zone before you jumped then you could contact people. This second one is interesting as it was almost certainly put in there for reasons other than what happened on Saturday night.
Fast forward to Saturday night, and to most people's surprise this story picks up well before the now famous blocked kick. It might start with Penn State coaches clarifying some things with the officials/giving them a heads up that they had something specific in store for a field goal. It might start there.
From that hypothetical starting point we move onto OSU's first field goal attempt. Penn State proceeds to execute their plan to perfection. Cothran gets low and pulls his guy to the side and down to the ground, and Marcus Allen jumps through the crease and almost blocks the field goal. Cothran escapes notice and Allen doesn't touch anyone so it's perfectly legal.
OSU notices what happens and makes some adjustments. On OSU's second field goal Allen stays put and it's business as usual. This makes sense as you typically only try and get away with something like this once.
Now we reach the big moment. Penn State is down four points. Penn State decides they're going to try the block again. It's an interesting decision in many respects. First, Penn State needs a TD regardless of the outcome of the kick. Second, the downside is tremendous. If you get caught doing something wrong then it's first down for OSU and there's an excellent chance you just blew the game. So this is the definition of a gutsy call. Ball is snapped, OSU line doesn't go as low so Cothran has to blatantly grab and turn the guy right in front of the official. There are more bodies in front of Allen so he can't get through cleanly. And this is where it gets tricky. First, how much contact constitutes "landing"? It's not defined. In my experience they just call any contact "landing". Second, does Allen make it to the neutral zone before he jumps. I know some media outlets have claimed he definitely did. I can tell you that no one has spent more time trying to answer that question than me, and all I'll say is that it's super duper close. I can also tell you that it's impossible for the official in charge of calling that penalty to tell, which is why the neutral zone exception wasn't really intended for that kind of play.
Now people can digest all this in whichever way they want to. I'll say only this. It was an incredibly gutsy call, and we were fortunate to some degree to avoid a flag. And we won, so suck it Buckeyes.
- not surprisingly, Penn State sold out to stop the run. They brought pressure from everywhere. Allen almost served as a fourth LB at times. They didn't play much deep safety at all. They basically dared OSU to beat them deep, played plenty of man, and Penn State won that battle. Phenomenal work by pretty much everyone on defense. The kids played great, better than ever could have been hoped for. And they VERY CLEARLY were very well prepared. No false steps, no confusion with motion, nothing to indicate they weren't ready for everything they saw. The bye week had to have been a huge deal for the defense, because they played faster and looked more confident. And it's not like the offense did them a bunch of favors on Saturday night. So considering the opponent, considering previous performance, certainly one of the great defensive performances in recent memory, IMO.
- not surprisingly, OSU did not take the Maryland approach to stopping Penn State. They brought their safeties closer to LOS, brought their slot defenders in closer, and generally played defense the way you expected them too. I thought Penn State actually called a pretty decent game. Obviously we couldn't block them, so they showed some new stuff, played with better tempo, and did some good things early on. Ultimately we couldn't block well enough to be consistent. The one thing I would say is that Barkley needs to get more touches, especially considering they weren't totally shutting him down or anything like that.
- Gap control from both DL and LB is miles ahead of where it was earlier this year. Miles and miles and miles ahead.
- Barrett scrambled well at times, but I thought he played tentatively in the pass game. He settled for check downs on the third down a lot in the first half, even when there wasn't pressure. I thought this was a pretty big deal in terms of its impact on the game.
- Thought McSorley's decision making was outstanding. He was decisive with everything he did, never looked rattled despite having to scramble a lot, and threw some good jump balls (something our last quarterback was not good at). His numbers were awful, but I thought his calmness under pressure was remarkable and played a big part in the win.
- Was surprised OSU didn't go heavy play action earlier and more often. Penn State decided it was going to come the moment there was any indication of run (similar to what Pitt did to us earlier this year).
- Dropped passes hurt both teams.
- Consider this. With 1:30 left in the first half, OSU has the ball, 1st and 10 at the PSU 13. They're up 9-0. Swing pass to Weber right in the bread basket. He drops it. Next play, Barrett has to scramble and as he's getting tackled for what would have been essentially no gain, he throws it right before his knee hits for an incompletion. Next play the TE doesn't get his head around for a hot read and OSU settles for field goal. If Weber catches the swing pass or if Barrett eats the ball for no gain on second down, the clock runs and PSU will never have a chance to score a TD at the end of the half. THEN, Penn State gets the ball, runs two plays, the second of which is a Barkley run which leaves them 3rd and 8 from the 27 yard line. It looks like they're going to take the prudent path and let the clock run. After six or seven seconds a timeout is called. Everyone, including the announcers, assume it's an OSU timeout. But incredibly it's a PSU timeout. I'm not here to pass judgment, but obviously most teams in Penn State's situation there would not call a timeout. But they did. And the rest is history.
Now, it's time to spin a tale. Some of it I know to be true. Some I do not.
This tale starts some years ago (didn't bother to look it up) when college football (and the NFL) decided they didn't want people running up and jumping into or over linemen for field goal blocks. It was done for safety reasons. No one complained much, and teams adapted. They adapted by either removing the player from behind the line, or having that player be the safe guy for fakes, or having that player take a step or two forward and jump straight up in the air safely behind the linemen. Watch any game on Saturday or Sunday and this is what you'll see, almost universally.
Fast forward to sometime in the past couple weeks. A plan is hatched. Perhaps it's because of something they see on film from OSU, or maybe it's just an idea that pops into someone's head. But Penn State decides it's going to try something different in an effort to block a field goal. It's an audacious plan as it involves hopefully well disguised defensive holding and borderline leaping (the official name of the penalty) depending on how it's executed.
Before we go on, let's talk about the Leaping penalty and the all important exceptions to it. The intent of the rule was fairly simple. They didn't want players running and leaping over/on the linemen. That was it. But it's a rule and they have to try and account for everything. So they put exceptions in. One exception they put in was that if you jumped but didn't contact anyone then that was fine. The other important one was that if you made it to the neutral zone before you jumped then you could contact people. This second one is interesting as it was almost certainly put in there for reasons other than what happened on Saturday night.
Fast forward to Saturday night, and to most people's surprise this story picks up well before the now famous blocked kick. It might start with Penn State coaches clarifying some things with the officials/giving them a heads up that they had something specific in store for a field goal. It might start there.
From that hypothetical starting point we move onto OSU's first field goal attempt. Penn State proceeds to execute their plan to perfection. Cothran gets low and pulls his guy to the side and down to the ground, and Marcus Allen jumps through the crease and almost blocks the field goal. Cothran escapes notice and Allen doesn't touch anyone so it's perfectly legal.
OSU notices what happens and makes some adjustments. On OSU's second field goal Allen stays put and it's business as usual. This makes sense as you typically only try and get away with something like this once.
Now we reach the big moment. Penn State is down four points. Penn State decides they're going to try the block again. It's an interesting decision in many respects. First, Penn State needs a TD regardless of the outcome of the kick. Second, the downside is tremendous. If you get caught doing something wrong then it's first down for OSU and there's an excellent chance you just blew the game. So this is the definition of a gutsy call. Ball is snapped, OSU line doesn't go as low so Cothran has to blatantly grab and turn the guy right in front of the official. There are more bodies in front of Allen so he can't get through cleanly. And this is where it gets tricky. First, how much contact constitutes "landing"? It's not defined. In my experience they just call any contact "landing". Second, does Allen make it to the neutral zone before he jumps. I know some media outlets have claimed he definitely did. I can tell you that no one has spent more time trying to answer that question than me, and all I'll say is that it's super duper close. I can also tell you that it's impossible for the official in charge of calling that penalty to tell, which is why the neutral zone exception wasn't really intended for that kind of play.
Now people can digest all this in whichever way they want to. I'll say only this. It was an incredibly gutsy call, and we were fortunate to some degree to avoid a flag. And we won, so suck it Buckeyes.
