PSU DT P.J. Mustipher Out for the Season
PSU announced DT P.J. Mustipher is out for the season. He might be their best DL. No update on QB Sean Clifford, but I would assume he will be back at some point this season if they have not released anything yet.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:12 PM ^
The Mustafar System is where Anakin Skywalker lost his legs :-( That’s all I got.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:30 PM ^
? I left my arm (and legs).... in Must-a-far....?
Doesn't quite have the same ring as San Francisco.
October 13th, 2021 at 9:02 PM ^
Not sure what happened. Mustiphert himself pretty bad.
October 13th, 2021 at 11:51 PM ^
All Michigan needs is the high ground
October 13th, 2021 at 7:13 PM ^
Beat bye week!
October 13th, 2021 at 8:40 PM ^
Beat Wife Day!
October 13th, 2021 at 9:02 PM ^
Dude…
October 13th, 2021 at 11:06 PM ^
Phrasing?
October 13th, 2021 at 11:23 PM ^
His mother tongue is Russian. Give him a break.
October 13th, 2021 at 11:42 PM ^
How do you know so much about his mother's tongue?
October 14th, 2021 at 9:42 AM ^
I think we all know the answer to that question.
October 13th, 2021 at 11:12 PM ^
I lol’d and I NEVER lol.
October 14th, 2021 at 3:56 AM ^
In Russia wife beats you.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^
Big big big loss for Penn State. Shoot, that's now 3/4 of the season-beginning projected DL.
As for Clifford, Franklin only announces season-ending injuries.
There's also been a brewing Franklin vs Ferentz drama brewing over the last 96 hours. Ferentz essentially said earlier this week that PSU was faking various injuries in Saturday's game, including Mustipher's, At least as regards Mustipher, that's apparently not the case.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:25 PM ^
It is, but PSU's back seven might be the best in the conference. As long as the backup is not a huge weak spot, they may not have a huge drop off in play. I actually think the DL has been better with Luketa at DE.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:28 PM ^
It's a good back seven, but I am worried about the mental state of the team, and Franklin's ability to rally them.
Things were going well in Iowa, PSU was up 2 scores. Then Clifford gets hurt, everyone can see the back-up can't generate anything, then this news.
In theory, PSU has everything still in front of it. Win out and they win the B1G East. But it does have the feel of "things went sour all of a sudden very quickly in the first half in Iowa City."
I worry about Franklin too because PSU is 3-18-2 (!!!) all-time ATS in his PSU tenure coming off of a Penn State straight up loss. He doesn't handle adversity well. And PSU is facing some adversity now.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:30 PM ^
I think the bye week and Illinois will help. But that game at OSU after that is most likely going to determine the rest of their season. Hopefully, PSU gets Clifford back by then. As if OSU needed any more breaks, their next two games are against @Indiana and PSU, both teams with starting QBs nursing injuries.
October 14th, 2021 at 10:53 AM ^
I think OSU's schedule is setting up perfectly for them - lucky bastards. I've read - don't know how true it is - that 14 out of their defensive 2-deep are either true or redshirt freshman or 1st and 2nd year players. And on offense, every B1G freshman of the week award has been won by an OSU freshman - Stroud 4x, RB Henderson once, and even backup QB McCord once. .All that youth - from those monster 2020 and 2021 classes - showed against Minnesota (somewhat) and Oregon, but is starting to kick it into gear. Penn State could be walking into a buzz saw - with or without Clifford. I actually consider Clifford the no 1 MVP to his team in the B1G. He's a very good QB
October 13th, 2021 at 7:58 PM ^
i wonder about clifford's injury in that it was enough to keep him out of the game and largely responsible for your tough loss, but he was on the sidelines moving seemingly normal, albeit with shoulder pads off. also, unless it happened at the stadium it didn't look like they bothered to do any imaging of the injury, at least not that night. makes me think it might have been a pre-existing issue and that he'll be back.
sorry for that DT. very talented, high round pick, and a season ending injury. no bueno.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:13 PM ^
As long as we beat them don’t care
October 13th, 2021 at 8:40 PM ^
Great info now that sportsbooks are now legal in Michigan!
thank you very much!
October 13th, 2021 at 10:48 PM ^
Thank me with some winnings.
Although .... PSU is 1-0-0 ATS in their last 1 game in that situation. So they bucked the trend in their last game in this spot.
I'll let the researchers go back and determine what God awful football game that was. :-)
October 13th, 2021 at 11:45 PM ^
This is a team that was fortunate to get out of Wiscy with a win.
Purely overrated.
October 14th, 2021 at 9:57 AM ^
Eh, Penn State will rally. Michigan lost their best WR in the 1st game of the season, everyone moved on. Happens, it's football.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:13 PM ^
There’s a story about crying wolf I heard a long time ago.
that drama isn’t really dram tho.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:33 PM ^
Iowa doesn’t play tempo. They let you sub every play if you want. There is literally no reason to fake an injury against Iowa.
October 14th, 2021 at 7:15 AM ^
And yet I've never seen injuries look so contrived before. Like the players had a running joke between themselves about how many they could get away with.
October 13th, 2021 at 9:21 PM ^
Ferentz essentially said earlier this week that PSU was faking various injuries
What, doesn't he believe his team plays hard?
October 14th, 2021 at 12:54 AM ^
If someone blamed noted dbag Scott Frost of this, for example, I would 100% believe them. Somehow this seems unlike James Franklin. Good recruiter, bad tactician.
October 14th, 2021 at 8:38 AM ^
Right? He never met a timeout he didn't mind burning.
October 14th, 2021 at 9:36 AM ^
Ferentz son used to work for Franklin...and he said they definitely have 2 calls that coaches use to tell players to go down with an injury
It's interesting that Franklin acted like this was beyond the realm of possibility.
October 14th, 2021 at 9:54 AM ^
Good information. Thanks. Are they down to walk-ons at this point in their rotation?
October 14th, 2021 at 10:12 AM ^
Iowa literally tries to play as slow as possible. If Penn St was faking injuries, that plays right into Iowa's strategy.
October 13th, 2021 at 7:37 PM ^
Sorry to hear of it. Good luck to the young man. Hope he recovers for the NFL Draft.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:11 PM ^
I have it on good authority that Franklin is only putting him out for the season to keep up the lie that they weren't faking injuries.
Wish him well in his recovery, looked like a good player from the bit of PSU I had watched this season.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:20 PM ^
I realize the first part is sarcasm but hot damn if that doesn't almost sound like something Franklin would do.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:41 PM ^
Yeah it was Sarcasm for sure but if I am being honest, Franklins most recent press conference reeks of guilt. Add to that one of his old assistants at Vande said he used to do it there, The drama around this is pretty funny, maybe PSU finally found a rival.
October 13th, 2021 at 9:35 PM ^
I guess they'll have to protect that cross division game from here on out
October 14th, 2021 at 12:11 AM ^
If Iowa's current Director of Recruiting Tyler Barnes --- who was a Recruiting Coordinator at Vanderbilt in 2013 (e.g., NOT an assistant coach, and neither a Director of Recruiting) --- wants to make such claims, he should come out and say it. Barnes shouldn't be hiding behind Ferentz, Barnes should say it.
And then Barnes can face the questions of "given you & Franklin were only at Vanderbilt together for 6 months, and given that you were only in an administrative role at the time and not an actual coach, how do you know? Why is there nobody else who coached under Franklin who is also telling this same story? Can you tell us the specific Vanderbilt games in 2013 where this happened?"
I know, I know ... that involves asking questions as opposed to automatically believing. But I think those questions above are all fair.
I've posted a few times here over the years about how I am a PSU fan who doesn't love Franklin. But, as of this moment, I am seeing very little reason or proof for buying this story. He's sticking up for his players and team right now while Ferentz and Iowa are firing off their dubious volleys. I can't hate him for that. Let's also not forget the Iowa assistant coach (LeVar Woods) who was literally falling down on the sideline himself, in a half-mock.
Franklin has coached at Penn State for 7.5 years now. Where is the prior history of him doing this in the B1G? He's really waited this long to pull this stunt? And against slow-paced Iowa of all teams? Why not wait for an actual good tempo offense to do this? Does Franklin deserve any benefit of the doubt here, or do we automatically believe his accusers?
October 14th, 2021 at 9:20 AM ^
Why do you not love Franklin? That hire has been a home run. I would be sorry to see him leave the conference like I was sorry to see Lou Holtz leave Minnesota. He's good for the B1G.
October 14th, 2021 at 9:30 AM ^
All good points; well stated. Also, in the Glass Houses Department, Iowa's football program has been shown to have a culture of racial bias and bullying. I generally hate whataboutism, but in this case, Ferentz is asking for it in my opinion.
October 14th, 2021 at 5:41 PM ^
This is not really worth that much of my time, but I will bite
The 6 months were during a football season, are you saying that if that was a thing that happened there would be anyone on staff who didn't know about it? Why would it matter what his title is?
Why would anyone else on staff even bring it up? It happens all the time in a whole bunch of different places, this is not some wild scandal that requires extraordinary evidence.
Again, you make it sound like this is some crazy new thing he has been accused of, it is as rampant in college football as flopping is in soccer.
Franklin said he had notes about it before Ferentz made the comment. Were the boos enough reason for him to prepare a legal defense?
So the main reason we should believe it did not happen is that Iowa does not run a tempo offense? if they did run tempo would that be ok to do it?
Coaches and team get accused of things all the time, I can't remember ever seeing a response like the one Franklin gave for anything. It's the reaction of a guilty man.
October 14th, 2021 at 10:33 AM ^
If he did fake injuries while at Vandy, it doesn't mean that he did it while at PSU. Vandy is historically among the worst SEC teams. To survive there, its entirely plausible that one would need to stretch the bounds of what is acceptable.
But PSU during his tenure has been one of the two best programs in the B1G East. There seems to be a lack of necessity to pursue this strategy. Additionally, this was against Iowa, probably the slowest team in the B1G. Why playing against Iowa would be the first time for PSU faking injuries doesn't seem plausible.
October 13th, 2021 at 8:50 PM ^
Sorry about any player getting hurt.
October 14th, 2021 at 10:25 AM ^
After seeing the www.roarlionsroar site, and some of the videos of the plays in question (and the plays before the supposed faked injuries) most of the injury time-outs looked pretty legit.
Too bad about Mustipher. He was a solid DT.
If Clifford isn't healthy, the game vs OSU could get ugly.
October 14th, 2021 at 1:24 PM ^
Hope he’s okay and heals up well in time for the draft, but if this improves Michigan’s chances of winning in Happy Valley then so be it.
October 14th, 2021 at 5:55 PM ^
I'm sure that Clifford will be out vs OSU but 100% for us.