Yes, this defense needs work, but it bowed up against a great offensive line. Pitt had the ball for 38 minutes and was lucky to score ONE touchdown. Similar O lines we'll face this year? MAYBE Iowa, not Michigan, MAYBE Ohio State, and that's about it, unless we make it to Wisky again in Indy.
Pitt's O line with Bookser nearly as good as last year.
- Thread starter BisbeeMike
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PSU does a good job rotating the DL to keep guys fresh to the point I don't think the time of possession impacted out DL all that much. Tackling was spotty but positioning was sound so not dealing with some major fixes that need to be made.
+100. He made a huge difference.
Can I also remind some people that this is exactly what pitt did to Clemson and they won that game. They tried to do it to us and we beat them by 19.
Seriously some of our "fans" need to understand or learn the game and stop thinking its fantasy football.
Disagree I do think the TOP did take its toll on our guys. You can't be beaten up by a pretty physical OL for 25+ minutes and not take a toll I don't care how deep you say you are.
If you don't believe me just listen to Jack Ham he was very concerned.
I'm telling you, we will not see another offensive line that good. Three of them will play on Sunday next year. What they are missing, and why they aren't who they were last year, is no Peterman and no Connor. I kept saying the difference between the two replacing them, was gigantic, but nobody seemed to get it. Yes, they controlled the ball. They'll control the ball on every team they play this year, and they'll control the ball next week against Oklahoma State.
That line is the product of Paul Chryst. He brought in big, physical offensive linemen left and right.
I think you might be right about it being the best OL we face. Them getting their OL guy back was huge. One thing though their transfer Olineman was a hot mess.
Also our young DE's are going to have to learn to stay home a little more. I thought they all had "stars" in their eyes and over ran some plays. Now that being said. Miller and the newbie Shaka Toney...Damnnn they fast.
Miller was our best DE today, with Buchholz right behind him. Not too impressed with Torrence Brown so far. Hopefully he can step it up.
Bookser should only be allowed to be blocking other inmates in jail.
Playing Pitt is a lot like playing GT or Navy. Their offense is gimmicky, and every now and again it succeeds, but it's never going to be good enough to even win them even their terrible division... especially with how terrible their recruiting has become.
Mike,
I agree with you. I thought the one series where Pitt's coaches really screwed up (to our advantage of course!) was when they were inside the 5, had 3rd down, and threw the ball! I said to my wife all they had to do was run Ollison 2 times and they had a TD. Thank God they didn't!
Agreed, they are simply a poorly coached team. They got lucky last year, but that luck has run out.
I'm looking more at how Pitt was moving the ball on their scoring drives and thought they had some good play calling to keep our D off balance more than our D looking gassed. It's obviously not ideal to be on such a lopsided end of TOP but at this point of the season and getting more snaps for the whole rotation can pay dividends
Bookser was just coming off a suspension; he is a regular starter.
Isn't he the one who was driving drunk, nearly ran over a bunch of people, then resisted arrest?
Exactly what I was thinking czar. You won't see another offense like it, they are very unique in what they do, like Navy, Army, GT, and Air Force, except with a much better O line. Now, actually LSU is similar to them with Canada and his system in Baton Rouge, so add them in also.
I agree with the spirit of your post but we will see better against both tOSU and UM.
I'm not sold on Michigan, but agree with you about Ohio State. Iowa is good also, but I'm not going full panic like some on here, about Iowa moving the ball on a horrible Iowa State team.
The idea with great DL depth is to wear out the OL. But that sure was not the case yesterday........
Please take this opportunity to remember that Penn State has a culture problem.
Bookser and O'Neill are future pros just like Biznowaty and Dorian Johnson were future pros last year. I expected there to be a noticeable drop-off in their OL from 2016 to 2017 and I was surprised that they seemed just as strong as they did last season. The difference was last year their lines pushed our lines around all day on both sides of the ball, and this year I felt like our OL played their DL to a stalemate, and our defensive line was able to get decent pressure and a pretty good push for long stretches. We're significantly better on both lines than we were last year and it really showed - but they were about the same as they were last year, which I really didn't expect.
