Well my friends, we played better, if not great. Flashes of greatness were peppered in there with a lot of pretty good play. Make no mistake though, we didn't beat Penn State so much as they lost to us. Not capitalizing on quite a few opportunities on their part allowed the game to get away from them. On the flip side of that is the fact that we took advantage of that situation and put the game away, really in the first half/first series of the second half. Weis made a comment about how we played pretty well in all phases of the game: offense, defense, and special teams. That's true to a certain degree. I think we played good, albeit not great, in all three phases of the game. It was also great to get so many subs in the game. As we see this year, that experience is invaluable. I never really felt that we were going to lose this game. We seemed to always have it in control and our players really do have a much improved attitude (over the previous coaching staff(s)) that has continued from what we saw last year. I really don't have a tremendous amount to say regarding this game so this will be shorter than most summaries. As a general comment, both last week and this week we looked fresh the whole game. I think that is a tribute to Mendoza and his training program but also to Weis' commitment to play multiple players deep at many positions.
On a slightly tangential note...did anyone else love the Vonage commercials played during the game? I thought Berkte was going to choke himself laughing.
Offense
First of all, I would like to say that I love going no huddle 4 wide on the opening play and using it to set the tempo of the game. This was a great move by Weis because it tired and frustrated their defense, forced them into making mistakes (on both sides of the ball) that they normally wouldn't have due to making them feel an urgency in their play, and allowed our offense (and Brady) to get some confidence. The fake pass to Samardzija/handoff to Darius on 4th down of our second scoring drive was simply a brilliant play call by Weis. Still, I don't know why he insisted on trying to run the ball when we couldn't do it. I think he should have just kept throwing the ball until it looked like that would open up the run. While we cut down on penalties the hold on the first drive and false start on the second in the red zone helped kill those two drives and settle for field goals rather than touchdowns. We can't do that against good football teams, we will miss the opportunities to put the game away. I do like the fact that we had the ball for almost 2/3 of the first half.
We don't turn the ball over. It's hard to lose when you don't do that. Combine that with good red zone efficiency and you have a winning recipe.
Our offensive line looked a little better but not good. Morton was owned all day long (as he was last week as well...bring in Mattes) and we couldn't block Alford to save our lives. While Brady did have some time, we still don't seem to be a very dominant offensive line. It helped that they didn't blitz much through the first part of the game either. We still can't run the ball up the middle. Darius isn't really an outside runner due to his speed. We need to be able to dominate the line of scrimmage and Penn State controlled it most of the game. They aren't even close to being the best defensive line we will face this year. Young got worked on a few plays but he is still playing well for a freshman. We don't need him to be great, we just need him to not hurt us. Thank Latina for jumping all over the O-line at a critical point in the game. From that point on we started scoring touchdowns instead of field goals.
Quinn looked brilliant at times and reverted back to his first two years at others. It didn't help that Chase et. al. made him look bad at times by dropping catchable balls. But he forced some balls, should have been picked off twice, and missed a few blatantly open receivers. Having said that, he did what he wasn't able to do against Georgia Tech. He read the blitzes when they came and found the open receiver to get the ball to them. I don't know of Georgia Tech was better/faster but they seemed to cover the open spaces they were blitzing from more quickly then Penn State was able to. Quinn made them pay. All in all, he looked better. Not flawless, but better. Two of those passes to Carlson were about as difficult and perfect of throws as you can ask a QB to make. The bottom line is that Quinn commanded this game much better than last week. And even though his throws were errant at times (I wanted to shoot him for missing Rhema on the second scoring drive when we faked the arrow route to Samardzija. That was one of those plays Weis was waiting to dial up and it was open if Brady keeps the ball out of the camera man's hands.), he still has yet to fumble or throw a pick. Lastly, he is difficult to take down when the pass rush gets to him.
Samardzija had a better game than last week. He sat down in the open areas of the zone a couple of times. His touchdown reception was an unreal catch. Really, his only poor play was the one drop (the second drop that would have been another touchdown was a pretty tough catch to make). It looks like people are paying him a lot of attention but as the season goes on and Carlson becomes much more of a threat, things should open up. Very few defenses will be able to cover him, Rhema, Darius, and Carlson.
Carlson looked great. He really stretches the field and that is something we need given the fact that Samardzija and Rhema can't seem to get very open down the outside of the field. Freeman needs some work. It was his holding penalty that killed the first drive and his lack of effort getting the first down on our first touchdown scoring drive almost put us in a fourth down situation. He looks too relaxed and without enough determination in his play.
Darius continues to be a great all-around back for us. Having a back that is so good on screens and catching balls out of the backfield really does a great deal for our offense in terms of opening things up. Prince will add a completely different aspect to that in the future since he has the potential to take it to the house every time he touches the ball. It is also noteworthy that Darius just doesn't fumble.
It looks like Yeatman is getting the early nod over Reuland on three tight end sets. Perhaps that is because he is a better blocker since we tend to run more out of those formations.
No one notices him, but Chase really blocks well down field. Walker should thank him for the screen TD. He held his block for a good amount of time to allow him to spring it open and score. He is also a standout special teams player. These types of players making these types of plays are what makes a good team great.
Defense
Our front four still didn't get a lot of pressure on Morelli. We had Duke coming off the corner a lot yesterday and playing up near the line of scrimmage even more. I will give the D-line credit for running down a lot of screens from behind. We just need them to be more dominating in a four man pass rush.
We played a lot of Nickel yesterday. Last year we played almost no 5+ defensive back packages because we didn't have the defensive backs. This year we may play a lot of Nickel because we don't have the linebackers. I know Weis said he wanted to focus on shutting down their wide receivers but we are giving up a lot of running yards on a per carry basis. I understand you give some of that up if you really want to shut down their receivers but when Michigan comes to town this week we better get ready for some iso plays. I'm very concerned about it and I'm not sold on our defense being that good. Their offensive coordinator is really an idiot. We didn't stop the run all game. Why not continue to do it and keep our offense off the field?
We held them to somewhere around 30% on third down conversions. You'll win a lot of games doing that.
I'm surprised Zibi hasn't killed someone yet. He hits so freakin' hard.
Thomas is fast and an excellent tackler. Add that to his special teams play and his absolutely crushing touchdown run and he really had a good game. The point of moving him over to defense was to get more speed on the field and I'm here to tell you that our defense is much faster than they were last year. That isn't just because of Thomas. It looks like Mendoza had a big focus on that in the off-season.
Crum had a pretty good game. He was all over the field.
Duke was hit or miss yesterday. He played well coming off the edge and containing the deep routes but missed a few open field tackles at times.
Lambert played well in his Nickel back role after he settled in. He did get two P.I. penalties but one (the second one) was questionable. Richardson played pretty well too. He tackled well and was good in coverage when he was asked to be.
Special Teams
The play Lambert made on the 60 yard punt by Price to go one-on-one with Williams and take him down in the open field was an excellent play. Zibi's muffed punt and diving catch made me nervous. The fake punt was executed to perfection (and would have scored a touchdown if Thomas had blockers faster than he is) and looked like something Weis did because he knew he ahead of time it was something guaranteed. If they are rushing the punter in such a way that they leave a lane open Weis is going to make them pay. This served as a warning for the future to other teams. I think Laws may have even blocked that first field goal that they muffed the snap on. All in all, we played pretty well on special teams. It wasn't without mistakes and our kickoff return game wasn't as good as it was last week, but we are far ahead of where we were during Davie or Willingham. I do think we need to work on our punting when it comes to pinning them deep in their own territory.
For the second straight week the officiating was terrible.
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