Official PSU - Maryland Game Thread
- Thread starter Tom McAndrew
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I didn’t realize there was such tension between Franklin and Locksley. They showed the pregame handshake that lasted maybe 3 seconds and that was it. Both walked away from each other instead of the typical small chat. Is it over negative recruiting? Or that Franklin hired Morehead instead of Locks for OC a few years ago?
The short and intermediate throws seemed like his forté.
Interesting enough, we still have not went to Dotson a lot yet nor Shorter (hope he's ok, odd hit he took; really like how he used his body to make that catch). Bowers got some good looks as well.
The backs stepped up on pass blocking as well as bringing Friermuth in to help on the edge.
Distribution was great tonight. 13 people caught passes. CSB stepped up in place of the hopefully-not-too-injured Shorter. RB Roulette looked fine, even if the stat sheet doesn't display anybody dominating so to speak.
Levis is a very good, very physical runner. I can see flashes of why they might have wanted him to run the offense. Disregard his passing stats, Maryland decided to bring the house on 2-3 of his passes when we clearly were just in cruise control. Very nice adjustment after, as he led two scoring drives.
Defense is fast. The freshman are ball hawks. Luketa was zero drop off from Parsons. Johnson's INT set the tone. Brooks is an excellent #2, looks really good on that read/delayed blitz. We showed some wrinkles tonight. First three weeks were truly base defense. Confused UMD. Jackson made a handful of perfect throws early, but he never got out of the funk after his temporary benching.
Preserved the shutout!
Yeah, you’re right...the coaches suddenly learned how to coach in the bye week....makes much more sense.
We only looked good last night because the players ignored Rahne. They realize that Rahne has no idea what he’s doing.
Is that true? I find it odd that EVERY potential recruit would refuse a scholarship to play on this team if they were not given a chance to wear that necklace. Penn State always seemed to recruit rather well without it in the past.
Sorry. Just like players need to step up, and do, so it is with coaches. One would think you did not even watch this game. There were a lot of plays, short passes in particular, that we did not see in previous games. I will have to rewatch the game, but not only were those plays successful, they probably loosened Maryland's defense. Those plays could have been a difference maker against Pitt, a game that did not need to be that close.
Many on this board saw these gaps and expressed their opinions. The coaches obviously saw the same things.
The problem for you now is that we cannot even compliment the coaches. If we do that it implies that they were a factor, or that they underperformed in preparing and calling previous games. That thought is intolerable to you.
I will give credit to the coaches when credit is due. This was one of those games. They had a bye week. They obviously used that time wisely. Franklin has in the past noted when they had particularly good practice weeks. This time there was evidence.
I will speculate on the reasons for your perspective. My guess is that the young kids you coached did not respond to you, despite your best efforts. You then overlay that experience onto Penn State Football.
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Go to 6 minute mark and it shows Joey Porter in the stands in a Penn State jersey talking to his son and slapping hands with Seider.
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"You people" who continually blame the coaching staff....how well do you think an offense who starts 8 of 11 players who are sophomore or freshman are capable of executing a game plan early in the season? That a young quarterback with just a few starts under his belt is going to take a little time to get used to the speed of the game?
No, the more likely explanation is that the coaches aren't as smart at understanding football as our keyboard warriors.
I notice the idiot who is hung up on you and Clifford is quiet as a mouse today....go figure.
Are you telling us that short passes, you know, those plays that get the ball out of a QB's hand quicker and shorten the duration of blocks, are more difficult for young players?
MD State motto:
Maryland, it’s the France of the United States, “Quick to surrender.”
This was one of the most dominant end-to-end PSU performances in recent memory. I sure as hell did not see this coming. I expected this to come down to the very end.
The only negative of last night is Maryland not scoring at the end to beat Temple. The perception of last night’s game would be way different.
The only negative of last night is Maryland not scoring at the end to beat Temple. The perception of last night’s game would be way different.
The last sellout for Maryland was against Michigan, and they got shut out 28-0. Word to the wise Maryland fans: don’t sellout!
I was with you. I thought it would be a close game given the struggles with Pitt, 3rd down conversions, and the tendency to give away the first 2 quarters of games until halftime adjustments.
That was a great performance last night. The team came out fired up and focused from opening kickoff. The players and coaching staff did a great job of fixing the slow start issue and the 3rd down issues on both sides of the ball.
Clifford made good decisions quickly and they used screens, quick throws and getting the ball in space to counteract the blitzing and Maryland D stacking the line.
The coaches have taken some fair criticism earlier but they should be given full credit for addressing those issues in the game last night.
We couldn’t have asked for a better start. Clifford’s first road start in front of a HOSTILE. CROWD.
, and Jan Johnson and a maryland penalty set him up with great field position for his first possession. Then Clifford scoring the first touchdown obviously helped his confidence.
If you could see no difference in our passing play calls between these two games well then I can't help you. No point in a debate.
They had a bye week. There is obviously an evolution of play calling as the staff sees how teams are going to attack them. But they weren't dumb prior weeks and miraculously figured out how to call a game this week. They are the same people.
Also, Clifford made a big jump in how he sees the field. He wasn't going through his reads very well against Pitt and rarely shifted his vision from one side of the field to the other. He was much better with that. In addition, the protection was much better against Maryland. The backs did a much better job picking up blitzers. Cain in particular had some great blocks. Young players gaining experience and playing better.
Biggest adjustment I saw was Clifford actively moving our TE and RB into position to pick up pass rushers and he was very sharp at finding the open man.
Pitt was an excellent learning experience. If that game being 17-10 pushed us into being better earlier, I'll take that every time vs learning later in a loss.
Pitt was an excellent learning experience. If that game being 17-10 pushed us into being better earlier, I'll take that every time vs learning later in a loss.
Quite the opposite, the kids I coached did respond to me and I made them better. But there were games when they didn’t play well so I know that wasn’t on me when I know they were getting better and learning.
The point is if a team plays well posters on here talk up the coaches, but if they play poorly it all gets blamed on the coaches...it’s the same coaches. They don’t learn and forget how to coach week to week. The players execute or don’t execute week to week, but the coaches don’t forget how to coach. If PSU comes out and plays poorly against Purdue, many on here will again blame the coaches so obviously they forgot how to coach in a week.
We’re still feeling the maryland hangover. I figure we’ll be back to hating the coaches by Tuesday. By next Saturday, we’ll be in full hate mode, foaming at the mouth.
And in the second half the best example of a sustained drive came when Cain was in the game. In that series there was a very good balance of plays and no wasted bombs. But that was one series in an entire game. In this game we got some early breaks from the defense and some nice after-pass breakaway runs -- after shorter throws. In the second half, in particular, we tried to sustain drives by mixing in more short, quick passes, and it worked. You can burn clock that way and rest your defense without establishing the run when the defense is stacking the line. Both Pitt and Maryland stacked the line of scrimmage. There was often no one where we would normally see linebackers.
In the Pitt game we thought we could loosen up the coverage by completing those bombs, but the coverage was there and the passes would have had to be perfect, an unreasonable expectation to make for a young quarterback that was getting pounded every play. (Just listen to the Blackledge comments.) We needed to take the heat off by establishing the short passes first. Maybe Clifford would have been more accurate on those bombs and made better decisions without getting his bell rung.
"We beat ourselves in the first half." . I guess it's the most team complimentary way for MD to say we totally got our ass kicked.
https://dbknews.com/2019/09/28/maryland-football-penn-state-penalties-miscues-loss-mike-locksley/
. I guess it's the most team complimentary way for MD to say we totally got our ass kicked. https://dbknews.com/2019/09/28/maryland-football-penn-state-penalties-miscues-loss-mike-locksley/
So, this is the first time I can remember that PSU has had off on two consecutive Saturdays during football season, with the possible exception of 2001 season, after the 9/11 attacks (don't recall if PSU played on the second Saturday after 9/11 attacks).
The problem I have with you is that you do not allow any comment with regard to coaching -- good or bad. Play calls are a big part of that. How can you even discuss the slate of plays without tying it back to coaches? This is a football message board. The plays that are run and practiced each week should be a part of rational discussion.
You are on a mission to be the board antagonist in this area. So you lose credibility, because you are in fact, as a result, quite biased. By taking this stance you show bias against the players. You can't have it both ways.
If you think leadership has no impact on performance then I would encourage you to closely examine the various findings on Airline Disasters (Smithsonian Channel). It's always the pilots flying the plane, but they are only in very rare cases solely responsible for plane crashes. In fact I can't think of a case -- pilot error, mechanical, or combination -- that completely left management off the hook. It can always be traced back to who was hired, procedures, and training. Who does that for a football team?
But the best play call in the world looks like crap if the execution fails or if the defense counters with a better play. Yes, the ultimate success or failure of a team lies with the coach, but that should be determined season to season, not game to game or play to play. Recruiting and overall success is what matters, not plays that get second guessed after the fact. If my credibility is lost then what’s the credibility level of posters who use the result of a play after the fact to justify their opinion of that play? Hence the term Monday morning quarterbacking. And if posters are going to criticize coaches shouldn’t they have some experience or a resume showing they have the know how to criticize guys that do it for a living at a very high level? I know one thing, the worst coach in D-1 still knows more than the posters on here.
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