If Pinegar made that FG, PS would have lost by one point...again! Instead they lose by four! Bad news is they gave 14 points instead of twelve in the 2nd half! If this is Franklin's idea of moving from "great" to "elite" we have a long rest of the season ahead of us! As Paterno was fond of saying, "if you are not improving from week to week you're getting worse!" Can anyone really see any improvement? BTW, I understand that Delaney likes PS so much he's giving them an extra bye week next year!
JF and coaches have no answers how to make the necessary changes for improvement. OSU games last year and this year, same circumstances and the same results. JF will always be known has a great recruiter and an average coach. Yesterday’s game plan was awful.
I have never had much confidence in Bret Pry, and I'm starting to lose confidence in some of the other coaches as well. I know Pry has some history with JF, so we might consider looking at him, because loyalty creates blindness in some cases. I think PSU has enough credibility along with JF's recruiting to lure a very good, established defensive coach.
Where is Tommy Stevens?
Great question and he must be extremely disappointed on his usage after deciding to return to PSU. Too bad Franklin does not allow his coaches to be part of pressers because Rahne would be bombarded with tons of questions on his offensive game plan.
The challenge for PSU is paying the better coaches and coordinators. The LSU DC makes $2.5 million. PSU found the money to pay Franklin and time to pony up for elite coordinators.
I think Penn State is not a very physically tough team. When they get punched in the mouth against physical teams they cannot punch back. The evidence is the offensive line play. This was supposed to be the strength this year and turns out they just an above average line. Unsure how Franklin can correct that weakness. With Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin coming up this will be a tall order. Just cannot be a finesse team and expect younger skill players to pull out wins.
I will say that the offensive line was not supposed to be a "strength" this year, they were supposed to finally be average. I think people maybe started to over estimate what they would be.
Bottom line: OLine sucked the first two years, was bad in 2016, was okay in 2017, and is basically average this year. Next year I think they will be above average, but still not great. We essentially had to recruit this until from the ground up, and last year was the first time they even had a full 3 deep roster.
The OLine has been better every year, but that doesn't mean they are anything other than average now. I think with the recruiting going on we will continue to improve there. Hopefully the coaches can learn how to be effective in the 4th quarter with a lead. That's really all that is missing.
