why? It appears to be an Illinois football classic game, but is beating a Penn State team ranked 19 really one of the highlights of the Illinois football program?
2007 Penn State at Illinois on BTN now...
- Thread starter Ranger Dan
- Start date
One of the most painful PSU games of all time. Classic in a bad way for PSU. Illinois had Aurrelious Benn, I think
2007 was a painful year. That team should have been 11-1. Never should have lost to Michigan, MSU. or Illinois.
Was just watching for a minute and I was amazed at how bad Morelli actually was. Had Joe made the switch to Clark we beat Michigan and Illinois that year.
Same year we played ND in Southbend or was that 2006? I remember Morelli attempting to run the option at the start of the second half and fumbling it. Was it returned for a TD or did ND just recover it? I remember wanting to strangle Joe.
Morelli single-handily lost us those Michigan and Illinois games.
He gave away 11 points against Michigan (fumble inside our own 10 that U-M turned into 7, inability to hit a wide-open receiver inside the Michigan 10 when we had to settle for a FG). We lost that game by 5. For good-measure, we also had an Austin Scott fumble and critical holding penalty inside the U-M 10 in that game, and also committed a 3rd-and-goal pass-interference that kept Michigan's other TD drive alive. JoePa also punted (WTF?) from the Michigan 29 in that game.
Good grief, we shot ourselves in the foot 10 separate times that day.
Then the Illinois game where we somehow had 5 drives start inside Illinois territory --- they ALL moved inside the Illinois 30 --- and we scored a combined 3 points! Morelli was a turnover machine.
Then the defense blew the MSU game. We led 24-7 midway thru the 3rd and lost 35-31! The defense also damn near blew a game at Indiana in mid-season. IU had several dumb-shit turnovers, without those we lose by 2 scores because IU moved the ball at-will.
2007 was a frustrating season.
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That 4th quarter vs Illinois summed up Morelli's career. He showed off his huge arm on several throws. Then on 4th and long he tucks and runs and gets the first down but fumbles it backwards so even though PSU recovers it's short of the 4th down. Incredible that even when he made a play it turned out bad. Decent player but just not clutch at all.
