Your thoughts on the drone halftime show that nobody on the East side of the stadium could see? And how many people were really in the stadium on Saturday? While it was a lot, it sure as heck wasn’t 114 thousand–kingkub
I actually had left the stadium well before the supposedly underwhelming drone show, for good reason. My good reason is that Penn State messed up, and as a result I had the worst experience at a PSU sporting event (unrelated to the product presented during the game) than I’ve had in my four-plus decades of Nittany Lion fandom.
A few weeks ago, I was able to trade in two of my four season tickets for ADA seating so that my mom could join me for her first white out game in a number of years. We were both excited, even after sitting down – our seats ended up being directly behind the student section, close to the middle of the uprights and underneath the overhang. As the band was coming out, though, it turned bad very quickly.
There was no barrier between our seats and the walkway where students gathered when they couldn’t fit into the stands. And within minutes, our entire area was wall-to-wall pushing and shoving fans; my mother’s (locked) transport chair was pushed forward and she ended up gripping the rail in front of herself in terror before I was able to move her into the permanent companion seat I had been sitting in, and then body blocking her. The pair of fans next to us were similarly affected, with another wheelchair user literally shoved into the rail himself. I still have bruises from where I was shoved into other people and the infrastructure, and I am terrified to think of what might have happened if I hadn’t been able to move my mother.
And we ended up leaving less than five minutes of game time into the game, after paramedics had been called to help us and we took that opportunity to evacuate while they held the students back because we were unsure whether we’d have the opportunity again. What started out with excitement left with tears, fear of bodily injury, and incredible disappointment; the same pair next to us has those seats as season tickets, and while they acknowledged that white out games were always a bit wild, they said it was absolutely the worst they’d ever seen.
I called and complained to Penn State on Monday, and the person I talked to mentioned that they had had other complaints and recommended I write in. I did, and haven’t even received an acknowledgment to my write-in.
The Penn State athletic department announced record-breaking attendance, and my mother and I were considered part of that. But seemingly due to their “headlines at all costs” mentality, we were put in a dangerous situation and two fans who’ve likely spent six figures on PSU sporting events over the course of their lives were left shaken and bruised. This wasn’t just a failure in event operations – this was yet another failure in leadership. And I feel lucky that it wasn’t exponentially worse.
“I have the biggest season-ticket base in the country (94,000 including student tickets),” Kraft told The Athletic recently
“I have?”
This guy strikes me as profoundly, oddly self-centered. Just a weird way to talk about Penn State.–Liongame
As the years since his hiring have gone on, the running of the athletic department at Penn State has gotten worse and worse. This attitude may be part of the reason why. Also, the attitude that the student season tickets are HIS also likely one of the reasons why what happened to my mother and I happened – because he’s getting this press, and he sees the numbers as an extension of himself, so why would he do anything to change that (including protecting the safety of other fans)?
Ok, my mailbag question for the week: Do we overstate the impact of the Whiteout? Don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredible atmosphere and the five or ten minutes or so before Penn State comes out of the tunnel is amazing. Some great Whiteout memories (Allen Robinson vs Michigan, the block 6). But after a while, it’s just a football game and as amazing as the atmosphere is, the more talented and better coached team wins.–LTFT1000
I don’t think we do. I did a deeper dive previously, but it’s typically the toughest home game on our schedule, against a team that is on paper better than Penn State. And yet inevitably we keep it close on the field – and that’s because it’s a raucous environment that is difficult for visitors to play in.
There’s a reason why opposing coaches, if they take it seriously (unlike PJ Fleck), have practice specifically geared towards trying to recreate the environment as much as possible – and yet it still doesn’t always work.
Do you think things will get better?
Expecting a blowout loss from USC, I was a actually please with our play. I mean there is still a lot to work on, but there was a large amount of improvement made by the team in almost all aspects of the game.
Rocco was driving me nuts. When he decided to run, he ran into the ground. He appeared to be semi-afraid of the hit and ducked to the ground usual short of the yardage needed. I also felt he got increasingly sloppy in the 4th qtr.–EagleLionSly
Your first sentiment is exactly what I brought up to multiple members of my family after the game – I thought we played much better this past week than we had the two weeks prior, and if the team can build on it they can beat any team remaining on the schedule. Can they lose to nearly any remaining team? Sure. But the potential and possibilities were there, against arguably the best offense they’ll see the rest of the year.
I actually was more ok with Rocco’s play than you were; I thought he made some better decisions, didn’t take multiple egregious sacks, and was ready to drive the team down to win (and put them in a good position to do so with that first strike to Eskildsen, prior to the fumble). This week was more of the performance I think we could expect from him, as opposed to against Wisconsin (or Northwestern, though that game’s glaring issue was more to do with run defense).
What’s the biggest problem with the running game? Is it the talents of the running backs? The blocking of the offensive line? Or is it the play calling?–Gerry Dincher
Honestly, it’s probably D – all of the above!
You can scheme around lesser talent at the running back position, or you can call plays that take advantage of athletes on the edge if there’s lesser talent to run block in the middle. But you can’t get around deficiencies in all three.
I still to the life of me do not understand the repeated insistence of calling runs between the tackles when that hasn’t worked all season, even against teams that were less talented than we were – if our offensive line can’t get interior push and RBs can’t manage more than 2 ypc up the middle against a team like Marshall, why in the world would you think that that would work against a Big Ten team? It’s nonsensical.
What happened to Quinton Martin last week? Did he get any touches? Was he in the game at all?–wvpsufan
What happened to Quentin Martin? I feel like he showed promise not only at the end of last year, but in a few games at the beginning of this year. Also, Alex Tatsch certainly can’t be worse than Ebel. Is Campbell just that committed to playing his Iowa St guys? What are the odds Martin and others transfer out?–Kijana1994champ
I’m combining these two questions because they’re linked. According to the snap counts, Quinton Martin Jr didn’t play at all – another baffling thing that I feel hasn’t been addressed. Was he held off due to injury or something that happened off the field? We haven’t heard, and with a run game that has only shown sparks with a few backs most of this season (with Martin being one of those backs), it’s even more inexplicable.
As for the last point, Tatsch is out for the rest of the year due to injury, unfortunately.
Are we 5-1 right now if Koby Howard doesn’t get hurt? I feel like we would be.
In my alternate reality we still lay a complete egg against jNW, but Howard provides enough offense to close out UW and outscore USC.–vern05
Maybe – but going down the rabbit holes of what-ifs does no one any good. We might feel a little bit (or a lot bit) better if we eke out wins against Wisconsin and USC, but that wouldn’t have covered up the glaring deficiencies in this team – and it would probably have led to more delusion that’s since been laid bare with the losses.
I know Rocco doesn’t have a cannon for an arm, but why so many plays short of the first down marker?–The Crawling Chaos
There’s been two distinct types of these plays – designed plays that are short of the markers, where the hope is that the receiver or tight end can get enough yards after catch to move the sticks, or plays that are obviously designed to be thrown farther downfield but the intended receiver (for whatever reason) isn’t available, so a pass catcher before the sticks is the recipient as a result of a check down.
For former is one more thing that this coaching staff has done that makes no sense to me – aside from Howard, your receivers and TEs have shown an inability to get significant yards after making the catch (if they hold onto the ball at all), and so why would you rely on that for a first down? The latter is…fine, I guess…better than a sack or a throwaway, but in many of these instances I’d prefer the quarterback to take off and try to get the first down with their legs, instead of settling. Risk vs reward, and all that.
Is next year’s QB on this team? I know Rocco is going to continue to start, as he should, in spite of his shortcomings. But clearly he has no future in the NFL and the team has no shot at the playoffs. So it seems we ought to start mixing in the next QB to get some playing time and see what he’s got.–JayMPSU
As much as I want to think Maske could be that guy, I don’t see it. The quarterback of the future is either currently being recruited, or (more likely) currently playing on a different team.
What does it feel like when your favorite football team wins games?–PSU1979dude
Does Penn State make a bowl game this year? Granted, I did not see much of Saturday’s game. I did see some in the sportsbook when USC scored their final TD. I see Maryld, Rutgr and Purdoo and possible wins to get to 6. Maybe look at going to Tucson for a postseason game?–LarzLion
It really depends on how the team responds to this down stretch.
We could go into the bye 3-4, but every game left on the schedule (including this week’s) is winnable as long as the team that played last week, or the first three weeks of the season, shows up. They can’t play (or coach) scared, and the play calling needs to be improved.
The possibility is there for an 8-4 or 9-3 season – but 5-7 (or even less, depending on how Maryland vs Rutgers looks this week) isn’t off the table either.
Related to a question I asked in one of the post-game articles…
What does the team do well? What are we hanging our hat on moving forward?–CaptBombs
Our cornerback room is actually quite good. USC, one of the best offensive teams in the nation, quite clearly and vocally schemed away from throwing their way – and because they’re a well-coached and versatile offense, it worked when they focused on matchups against our safeties and linebackers.
Also, special teams is pretty ok and seem to be sound on the whole. They weren’t taken aback when USC inexplicably kicked an early on-side kick last week, which got us (iirc) our best field position of that night.
Why do the $^&&##^ officials (sometimes needlessly) stand in between the center and QB until there’s less than 3 seconds on the play clock?
It forces the team to waste a timeout, because there’s no $%&&%#% way to get a play off in time.–BornInBellefonteNRaisedInBoalsburg
It’s a legal rule. If the offense substitutes late, then the defense is allowed to take their time to substitute – as long as it’s reasonable. I think it’s debatable whether the time USC took last week was reasonable, to be sure, but we’ve done the same thing in recent years, where opposing coaches were also forced to call time outs because we were late. Do I like the rule? Hell no. But what’s reasonable and not is a pure judgment call, and I don’t think any true Penn State fan ever expects to be on the good side of referee judgment calls.
Question about the 10 second run-off rule. When the Penn State receiver is stopped inside two minutes in the first half, there is 34 seconds on the clock but it is running because he did not get out of bounds. With 24 seconds left, the officials finally notice Sowell is injured and stop the clock. They then invoke the 10 second run off, but from when they recognized the injury, not from the end of the previous play, and put 14 seconds on the clock. If the purpose of the rule is to simulate the time it takes an offense to reset when there is no injury, shouldn’t the run off be from the end of the previous play, and not from when they notice the injury? Is the rule badly written, or did the officials blow it?–mountaindog
I can’t say that the rule is or is not badly written, but I do think that the reason for the rule isn’t simply that it’s to “simulate the time it takes an offense to reset”. I think it likely more has to do with closing a loophole that certain coaches would take advantage of – faking an injury for a “free” time out at the end of a half. Without the rule, I’m sure we can all think of a few coaches who would instruct non-key players to go down with “injury” when the team doesn’t have any time outs left and their offense is driving; with the rule, that’s decidedly less likely.
I do agree that the officials should have stopped the clock earlier in this instance, but I wanted it to be clear on the reason for the rule (and I think it’s likely a good one).
On the 1-10 scale, with 10 being “My entire emotional wellbeing is vested in the result of the weekly 3.5-4 hours of a Piowa State football game.” and 1 being “Wonder if there will be a wrestling match in Beaver Stadium this year?” how emotionally invested are you? You can answer for this year only, in general, whatever.–PSU_Lions_84
Probably a 2 or a 3 for this season? Even immediately after the Wisconsin game and during the Northwestern game, sure I was disappointed, but it wasn’t as disgusting to me as last year’s UCLA and Northwestern losses were – probably because I didn’t really have playoff expectations preseason this year, whereas last year with the talent we had returning, a final four berth was inherently reasonable on paper.
Plus, we always win our tailgates! And spending those time with the people that I love is truly invaluable.
Assuming that this year is a wash, what do you need to see from the team and coaching staff to have faith that it will get better next year?–Gestaltshift
It mostly boils down to competitiveness. If we see any additional efforts (aside from maybe this week) like we did in Evanston two weeks ago, my faith might waver.
I do think that depending on how this season finishes, next year (and especially 2028) we could see a much improved team with a worse record, just due to the schedule. That’s something that we as fans should try to take into consideration (though I do think that this year’s conference slate will look better, even if marginally, than it had appeared pre-season).
According to ESPN, the 24 team playoff is likely coming next season. How many more teams do you think they will have to add before Penn State makes it again? 48? 64?–Homer Ozzie & The Straw
Penn State may make it in 2029? You never know (and the schedule in 2028 is what’s keeping me from thinking that year is reasonable).
Also, expanding to 24 teams is a fucking stupid call and that’s probably why the NCAA is doing it.
We’re six weeks into the season, and there are six B1G teams ranked in the AP Poll: Ohio State, Indiana, UCLA, Iowa, USC, and Northwestern. Had you been asked at the beginning of the season who in the B1G would be ranked right now, how many of those would you have gotten correct? I would have gotten only the two obvious ones.–Smee
Definitely three, and maybe four; USC isn’t shocking as they were ranked in the preseason, and Iowa is has been in the mix for the latter half of the rankings many times. It’s really just UCLA and Northwestern that are baffling – especially when Oregon started off the season so high.
Kraft really shit the bed on the Chesney whiff but plenty of BSDers still think he will come east just because of his Pennsylvania roots.
What are the chances of that happening now that he has the Bruins rolling and is gathering a lot of attention? I highly doubt there is even a flicker of hope for this.
Also, what is your favorite Polish food? That would be a difficult choice for me between potato pancakes and perogi.–AndOthersReceivingVotes
It likely depends on whether UCLA has the money to stave off potential suitors if Chesney continues to show the coaching prowess he’s demonstrated so far. I’m not sure why you would doubt it – it’s not like Chesney’s had a history of west coast coaching, or has strong recruiting ties on that coast (or the south). And it’s not like he’s at a school that is typically one of the top paying athletic departments in college football – in fact, it’s the opposite, as UCLA’s athletic department is decidedly in the red and absent a billionaire donor stepping in, wouldn’t be able to outbid a big spender.
As for my favorite polish food, it’s absolutely pierogi and I’m not sure it’s close.
Given how many folks here seem to think Penn State missed out on Bob Chesney, what do you honestly think Penn State’s record would be this season had they played Cal, SDST, Purdue, Maryland, and Oregon with its backup QB? On the plus side, of course, we’ll get to use Purdue, Maryland, and USC as the true head-to-head tests since we don’t play UCLA this year.–MCK84
Honestly, it likely depends on which Penn State team shows up. If it’s the one that played versus Wisconsin or Northwestern, maybe about the same (or 4-2 if we’re lucky). If it’s the one that played last week, we may be undefeated.
We may know more in a few weeks when we see how this PSU squad matches up against Purdue after the bye week!
If Michigan beats us, will they storm the field?–Homer Ozzie & The Straw
It depends – if they get another two seconds added on the clock in order to win the game, then the odds are good some field storming will occur.
Is the Michigan fan base having buyer remorse about the Whittingham hire?–Nittpicker
I feel, rightly or wrongly, like a lot of Michigan fans were underwhelmed by the Whittingham hire from the jump. Yes, he’s a good coach with an accomplished career; but the hire was absolutely a safe one, not splashy, with a seemingly-high floor but fairly low ceiling. The hire itself felt more like the Michigan administration was doing what it could to bring in someone with integrity whose methods and reputation was above approach, so they could negate the bad press they’d lived through since the national title.
Not so sure it’s worked out that way, but that’s how it’s felt to me.
Is 11th ranked and undefeated Utah(5-0) happy Whittingham left for Ann Arbor?–Nittpicker
Whittingham didn’t leave for Ann Arbor – he had been announced as leaving Utah before Michigan hired him, Michigan didn’t hire him away from Salt Lake City. They were ready to move on from his long career there, and I think for good reason – it’s obviously worked out for them, even though they were obviously and rightly very thankful for his years helping put their program back on the map.
What on earth were Jayden Daniels and the Commanders’ coaching staff thinking in overtime? You have the ball with 50 seconds and no timeouts, and you’re in field goal range…YOU DO NOT NEED TO DRAIN CLOCK HERE! Spike the ball, kick the FG and win the game! Some may say that you don’t want to leave the Giants any time in case you miss the FG, but come on, have some faith in your kicker. It truly was one of the most boneheaded decisions I’ve ever seen on a football field.–kavija66
Boneheaded is absolutely one word to describe it.
It just goes to show that ALL coaches, no matter what level or how much they get paid, struggle with clock management. Every single one makes wrong decisions at points in almost every single game – we just don’t always notice those wrong calls, because often they don’t lead directly to their team not winning. Only when it so directly impacts the outcome does it get called out in blaring headlines, but it’s a very, very common occurrence.
How much would you hate it if scrapple was banned and the punishment for consuming bootleg scrapple results in a $5,000 fine and 2 weeks in the county jail? Do you do the crime and the time? Or do you find alternative breakfast mystery meats? Assuming you don’t want to pay the fine or do the time, how much fine and time are you willing to pay?–Gerry Dincher
Listen, I do love scrapple (I may not love it as much as Gerry hates it, but I do love it). But that doesn’t mean I don’t also really enjoy nearly every other breakfast meat! I’m an equal opportunity pig-meat eater, sorry. I might miss scrapple a little bit, but all kinds of bacon and sausage and ham would make me feel better about missing it.
What food from your hometown and/or State College do you miss? Do you stock up on them when the opportunity presents?
For me it’s Diner stickies, pierogis, kielbasa and Middleswarth chips–kingkub
I don’t miss any one specific food from Maryand, but more the wide variety of all different kinds of international cuisine. In the DC area, there’s such multiculturalism in restaurants that you can drive within fifteen or twenty miles and find food from a hundred different cultures, whatever your fancy. I absolutely miss that.
