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McSorley only completing 53% of passes?

Mostly due to drops. His accuracy has not been the issue at all.

I agree it's largely the result of drops but disagree somewhat on Trace's accuracy. He hasn't always been as sharp this year as he's been in the past IMHO. There have been a lot of low passes that are difficult to catch, and he's also thrown a bunch of "semi-catchable" passes that were just out of the receivers' reach. An example of the latter would be last game's wheel route to Sanders that would have gone for big yards. That said, the number of easy drops by the receiving corps has been staggering. When they manage to put it all together (hopefully against Michigan), look out!
 
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I agree it's largely the result of drops but disagree somewhat on Trace's accuracy. He hasn't always been as sharp this year as he's been in the past IMHO. There have been a lot of low passes that are difficult to catch, and he's also thrown a bunch of "semi-catchable" passes that were just out of the receivers' reach. An example would be last game's wheel route to Sanders that would have gone for big yards. That said, the number of easy drops by the receiving corps has been staggering. When they manage to put it all together (hopefully against Michigan), look out!
Excellent observation and one which I agree with 100%.
 
In addition to all the drops:


McSorley has had 4 pass completions nullified due to offensive penalties.

I don't have the numbers for all teams - but that is probably, more or less, a fairly typical number (maybe a bit on the high side for 5 games).

What is definitely NOT typical, is that:

Those four nullified completions were:
64 yard TD..... 56 yard TD.... 24 yard TD.... 66 yard TD.

Every DAMN ONE of those nullified completions were long TD throws.
That is uncanny. Every penalty called back a long TD.


Forgetting about the plethora of drops - just those four call backs would have raised McS's passer rating from 137.7 to 156.3
Mostly true but in a couple of cases penalties allowed the plays to unfold the way they did. I'm thinking of a couple of picks that were called that resulted in TDs or long gains.
 
Trace has been a bit erratic at times, throwing behind recievers on crossing patterns, etc. but overall the big drops on catchable balls and the call backs on penalties have killed his numbers.

Lewerke is a very good QB, his supporting cast is not what it was in prior seasons. Some day he will pop up and destroy a team out of the blue while many shake their collective heads and I'll wonder why? Yet injuries are part of the game, how many medical retirements did PSU have this summer before camp started? A half dozen seemingly and while other than Bucholtz sp?, Aseidu, Allen (recently) and others who don't come to mind plus slow healing injuries not allowing practice time and playing time have harmed our ability to put the full team on the field. Thus we have witnessed even more freshmen, redshirt freshmen playing extended periods of time. It happens to every time, some more than others. OSU has a stocked shelf so the harm is less to them than any team in the conference.

I expect PSU to win the game Saturday, the score, no idea. There is incentive to do so from last season, seasons prior. There is desire on this team to make amends for the OSU game. They are improving in general as the weeks go by. This team is doing better than I expected it to do given the number of new starters/significant playing time young men and the chemistry required to pull it all together. This is a reload, not a rebuild that I expected and that is a pleasant surprise, an unexpected bonus. Happy Days.
 
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The receiver/TE position for PSU is solid but obviously not at the level it's been the last two seasons. We were counting on one of the true freshmen contributing but that hasn't happened yet.

Godwin, Gesicki, Ham and Barkley were basically men among boys. And then add Blacknall, a 6-3 receiver who ran a 4.4 and could outrun most of the corners in the B10.

This year's PSU receivers group is solid, better than average in the B10 but with the exception of Hamler, lacking the freakish athletic abilities of the PSU receivers who have graduated.

Thompkins is polished and runs great routes, but often doesn't get separation and doesn't have the leaping ability and length to consistently get the 50-50 balls. Trace could throw to Blacknall and Godwin even if they were covered and complete passes; he can't risk that with Thompkins.

Polk has great speed, surprisingly good blocker for his size, but doesn't run great routes. JJ has great size and (when he's on) great hands but has trouble getting open and doesn't have great ball skills.

PSU's wideout positions need the same kind of competition from the true frosh that we've see take place at TE.

The emergence of Friermuth is a really big positive for this offense and now it sounds like the light bulb is starting to go on for other TEs as well.
 
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