Last call for a Big Ten win? Going once, going twice... - Penn State @ Minnesota

Another long week for Gopher Bandanna Guy, and I didn't get to write as much as I would have liked.  I watched the Purdue game through bloodshot eyes last Saturday, badly hungover from celebrating my first ever PTP (Pursue the Pennant) Title.  The details of the game barely registered with me outside of the fact that we lost and let Dan Dierking run all over us.  Unacceptable.  A team on its 3rd-string QB, and second tier RBs and WRs, shouldn't be able to score that many points on even our youthfully bad defense.  And yet it happened.  And even when things seemed to look like they might swing in our direction, they turn on us.  'Hacksaw' Gary Tinsley (love that nickname from FBT), epitomized our season by stepping into the passing lane early in the 3rd quarter and picking off an errant Rob Henry pass, returning it down inside the five.  But not before fumbling it out of the back of the endzone.  This play felt like our entire season in a nutshell.  One step forward, two steps back.  The mid-season firing of Brew?  I certainly didn't expect it so soon (I figured right before Iowa was the time), but let's hope this jumpstart's the search for the next coach and will be considered a strong step forward down the line.

And Weber, our all-time leading passer - continues to pile up garbage time numbers, and ascend up the Big Ten All-Time passing charts in what is becoming the most meaningless compilation of career numbers in recent memory.  All those yards and TD, for so few wins.  To be fair, this season's horrific slide is really Web's fault.  He's played fairly well, and minimized his turnovers.  His accuracy is still awful on the short throws, and that's what hurts us from time to time.  But the defense can't stop anybody, and so the offense is under all the pressure to win games. 

And wait, what's this?  A Patrick Reusse column I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH?  Wow.  For a long while I didn't think this would happen, and in this one, Fat Pat actually shows a sliver of positivity that the right guy IS out there to turn the Gophers into a winning program.

But enough about the Purdue loss, and our search for the next head coach.  We've got Penn State and that most milquetoast of trophies coming in - The Governor's Bell.

The Nittany Lions are probably our last, best chance to get a win in the Big Ten this season (and for the remainder of the season for that matter).  They are not good.  Unfortunately, neither are we.  Both squads are winless in the Big Ten, and both have senior that are no doubt disappointed in how things have gone (Adam Weber and Evan Royster). 

Penn State has had an extra week to prepare for this game, coming of a bye week, and have already faced two of the tougher Big Ten defenses (Iowa and Illinois), with little offense to show.  But now they face the polar opposite in defensive prowess.  Their QB, freshman Robert Bolden has struggled with accuracy tossing only 4 TDs to 7 picks, and Royster has not enjoyed the season many expected.  Conventional wisdon would say that the prescription for these woes are to play the Gophers. 

But now the Gophs are truly at rock bottom.  And have nothing to play for but pride and a little personal glory.  The boo-birds at TCF mean nothing now, and Brewster is gone. They know that Ohio State is looming next week, ready to beat them into submission, and they know Penn State is vulnerable.  Question is, can they muster a complete effort one more time this year, and get at least 1 Big Ten win?

I think they can and will.  Horton and Weber will manage to motivate these kids to play with the talent they have (pretty decent on offense), keep the game plan simple, and just play football.  This game also marks my last chance of the season to make a fun 'homer' pick and take the Gophs, because I see them being double-digit 'dogs the rest of the way (maybe not at Illinois, we'll see).  The PSU defense is still a bit dinged up, and that combined with a shakey starting QB on the road seems like a reasonable recipe for a decent Gopher performance.  The one nagging thought in the back of my head though is Royster.  He's yet to really go off this season, and this could be the game.  Royster is a quality and experienced Big Ten back, and could easily gash the Gopher defense for 200 yards and multiple scores if we don't commit to stopping him. 

That said, I think the defense will do just enough to keep him from taking the game completely over, and the offense will put up 30 points, mostly through the air.

Prediction:  Minnesota 31, Penn State 27

Gopher Player of the Game:  Adam Weber - 18-27 for 265 yards and 3 TDs

Nittany Lion Player of the Game: Evan Royster  22 carries for 135 yards and 2 TDs

Gophers at Nittany Lions - What we learned

Sigh. This was one of those games you’d like to forget immediately after you watched it. Penn State dominated us all game, particularly their defense. Sometimes you need to have to have a poor short term memory to get over these kinds of losses.

Unfortunately my short-term memory is fine, so we’ll go through this cathartic exercise of breaking down the game a bit and gathering a few lessons learned along the way if we can. Let me stay positive to start things off. The Gopher defense played hard and did as well as could be expected given that they were on the field for 42 minutes. Yeah, that’s not a typo – our defense was on the field for 42 of the 60 minutes played. They started out well enough, holding PSU to a pair of field goals, despite Weber giving up field position via another foolish interception. The long TD drive they gave up at the end of the half (Moye’s excellent catch) was clearly a result of a worn down D, that needed a blow. The second half was much the same. Given the time of possession situation, I’d say we were lucky to get out of there 20 to nothing.

The offense was so absolutely horrid that they couldn’t provide any kind of breather at all for their teammates on the other side of the ball. So I give the defense credit, they played a decent game, despite struggling mightily to stop 3rd down conversions (Penn State was 11 of 17 – ouch).

Talking about the offense is hardly worth my time, as I’m sure all of you saw the carnage that our offensive line allowed to happen. Nothing we ran worked. Our running backs were constantly savaged at the line of scrimmage, and Weber was again wilting under any semblance of pressure. And unlike last week, where Decker’s numbers were down because we simply didn’t need to force the ball to him, in this game we found out that even Decker couldn’t get open fast enough to have Weber throw the ball, before he had to dodge tacklers. Remember how Weber had some pocket-presence when he was a frosh? He’d take some nasty hits that had us gasping, but he’d get the completion. Those days seem so long ago now.

Did Fisch have a plan for the offense if trying to run the ball effectively didn’t work? It sure didn’t look like it. Were we so arrogant to assume we could run the ball on the Lions? I don’t know, but I suppose no gameplan, no matter how brilliant, can succeed when players don’t execute.

So what did we learn from our trip to Beaver Stadium? Well, Penn State’s defense seems mighty good (or our offense is conversely mighty bad), despite the opponents they’ve played. We learned that our defense plays with a lot of heart and pride, but that only goes so far, and they’ve got to catch a breather once in a while (not just at halftime). We learned the coaching staff still isn’t comfortable putting Gray in late in the 4th quarter with the game out of hand (redshirt anyone). And finally I learned that even Troy Stoudemire can be contained from time to time. I’d like to add that I was pretty impressed with the size of the Gopher contingent at the game. It looked like they filled up a pretty decent sized section. Good job road-trippers. We need to see more of that.

And irritated OSU looms ahead, and I’m sure they are expected to get things right at home against the Gophs. I’m curious to know when the last time OSU lost 2 straight games. Seems like it might have been a while (I’ll look that up later this week) That doesn’t seem to bode well for our squad, but stranger things have happened. Go Gophers!