Gophers go to a Happy Valley – PSU Preview

Whoa. Our schedule just got a little heavier. Going to #14 Penn State and then to #7 Ohio State tends to have that effect. We didn’t get much time to celebrate our Homecoming win. The team’s got serious business to take care of now if they want to make something out of this season. First on the list? Get Coach Brew his signature win, make that mascot that looks like he’s wearing a home-made Halloween costume cry, and win that Bell.

That’s no small feat going up against a team like Penn State in Beaver Stadium. They’re loaded with talent on both sides of the ball. They’ve dominated all their lesser opponents and racked up large margins of victory in doing so. Joe Pa put together a BCS-ignorant schedule, getting to face Akron, Syracuse, Temple, and most recently Eastern Illinois. They did however struggle mightly with an Iowa team that came onto their field and dominated them. So irritatingly, it’s the Squawk-eyes gameplan that we need to emulate to get the upset. I watched a good chunk of this game in a Chicago bar, and I won’t claim to understand exactly what that gameplan is in terms of X’s and O’s. But two things stuck out with me thru the haze of all the gin and bourbon being consumed. Iowa’s offense is pretty average but opportunistic, and their defense is extremely PHYSICAL. They took QB Darryl Clark off his game, holding him to 19 yards rushing and a miserable 12-32 throwing the ball.

Everything on offense for Penn State goes thru Clark, however I feel the primary focal point for Cosgrove as he’s preparing the defense should be Royster. PSU’s starting halfback Evan Royster is an excellent runner, and is probably salivating at the prospect of playing the Gophers if he watched any of the tape on the Wisconsin game. I’ll continue to assert that our run defense performance was not a scheme issue vs. Wisconsin, but rather the defense’s struggle with taking down a 250 lb halfback. The secondary focal point should be pressuring Darryl Clark, forcing him to unload the ball earlier that he wants. He melted down under pressure from Iowa and made some bad mistakes. The Gophs will have to force several errors to have a chance to win this game. The Nittany Lions do have a trio of solid wide receivers (Moye, Powell, and Zug), but they’re not world beaters, and a rattled Clark would keep them from hearing their names over the PA much.
Getting pressure on Clark is going to have to fall on the shoulders of our front four d-line rotation, as we’ll likely be spying a LB on Clark most of the time to keep him from bolting from the pocket. We need backfield penetration early and often from the big boys. DE Cedric McKinnley fresh off his 2-game suspension this week, so that should help matters.

Admittedly, none of this is particularly thoughtful (shut down Royster, slow Clark), but it’s what needs to be done to keep the PSU offense from dropping 40 points on us. I realize Penn State is going to get some yards, and their going to make some big plays. We just need to minimize them, and force mistakes. Penn State has fumbled the ball an ugly 10 times. We lead the Big Ten in fumbles recovered (8). That combo, with potentially wet weather Saturday afternoon makes it sound like balls could be rolling on the turf all over the place.

Offensively, I’d like to believe that we’ll continue our progression with the running game, and keep pounding the ball inside and out, especially if the weather and field is sloppy as Just Jake suggested. I just can’t shake the feeling that if we get a couple TDs down, we’ll fall back into Weber-shotgun Mode. And who knows if ‘Good Web’ or ‘Bad Web’ shows up? Pass blocking being what it’s been, I’ll guess ‘Bad Web’. Hopefully we can move the ball on the ground early, and not be forced to pray that when Weber locks in on Decker in traffic every 3rd and long that he doesn’t get him killed. Overall though, I do like Mr. Just Jake’s idea of changing pace with RBs (handing to Bennett up the gut and Whaley outside and on counters & traps). He’s right – mixing it up on offense is key. I am worried that if indeed PSU’s LB corps are finally truly healthy this week, we won’t find much room to move the ball.

I won’t even speculate as to what Decker’s contribution this week will be, as I have really no idea what to expect from the passing game at all, given last week’s performance. I’ve read that PSU’s d-backfield is their weakest link from a few sources, but their front 7 seems plenty good to get pressure on Weber for them. And if we do end up down in the game by a large margin, we had better see MarQueis Gray get some real snaps, not just gimmick plays. Otherwise, why not redshirt the kid at this point?

We all know that the Gophs will need to play a near perfect game and get some breaks to pull out the win here. And a ‘back-atcha’ kick return score from Troy Stoudemire might be just what we need to hang with the Nittany Lions on the scoreboard. So (surprise, surprise), I’ll call for it again. Troy will run one back this week, and keep us in the game (for at least a little while longer). And don’t worry, I know if he does return one, I in no position gloat about the prediction at this point. I just really like watching him return the ball.

Predictions: Penn State 31, Minnesota 23

Nittany Lion Player of the Game: Daryll Clark 18-26, 275 yards, 3 TDs passing

Gopher Player of the Game: Garrett Brown, 8 tackles, 3 TFL with a sack and a FF