Offensive Indeed

Musselman at the P-G has an article today that pretty much echoes verbatim statements that I've been making since the Penn State game this past Saturday.

Penn State isn't going to do anything this year unless they can run the ball and that falls squarely on the shoulders of those turnstiles up front.

I didn't get to see the opening game against Akron, but I had a "what the hell" moment when I saw that they threw the ball 40 times. Yup, that's right, 40 damn times. Well, ok I thought, maybe it was just a matter of us wanting to get more reps for our new starting receivers, since our easy non-conference schedule amounts to preseason games anyway.

Well then what I saw the next game against Syracuse was my worst nightmare, we can't run the ball because our line stinks. Well, I really don't know if they truly do stink at this point. It's only been 2 games and they can still turn it around, but a shakeup may be needed.

Let's face the facts here fellow Nittany Lions' fans, if we can't run well and have our line make holes to run through against Akron and Syracuse, then they sure as hell won't be able to do it to Big Ten teams and we'll be in trouble. Our defense will keep us in games, but we're not going to win games with Clark throwing the ball 30+ times a game every game.

My second point is this; where is the spread option offense? Why is Clark merely a shotgun and dropback passer now? Where are the QB option running plays in short yardage situations? Why not at least spread the opponent's defense out with 4 wr's and run from that formation? Who's calling the plays? Why in the hell do we still have seperate coordinators calling running and passing plays? Oh, wait, I know the answer to that one.

Who knows, maybe JoePa is playing it safe in these games to not show much to future opponents. Somehow I doubt it though and our season may not be as good as it should be. Sure we'll compete for the Big Ten title, but I thought it was more a sure thing before the season started than it is now.

More on the line and running game here and here.

And lastly, I just wanted to say that so far, I'm looking like a genius here.