9/24/2016 – Michigan 49, Penn State 10 – 4-0, 1-0 Big Ten

[Bryan Fuller]

Two years ago this game featured Dennis Norfleet dancing, a lot of bad football, and a series of increasingly boggling in-game decisions. Brady Hoke and James Franklin engaged in bad decision tennis, lobbing ever more ludicrous balls over the net and daring the opposition to top it. There was no winner—there is never a winner in bad decision tennis—but Michigan did not lose. They won the game, and the tennis match was called on account of forgetting to breathe sometimes.

Fast forward two years and things are a little different for one of these teams. Jim Harbaugh's taking timeout in case Jabrill Peppers can get a punt return in and asking to review a legitimately dodgy fourth-down spot despite being up a gorillion; James Franklin sees a fourth and goal from the two down 28-0 and decides on a field goal... wait, no, he's taking a timeout because he realizes that is a terrible decision. And now he's sending out...

Still the field goal team.

...

So this is a dumb fake—nope they kicked it.

Now they are down four scores, which is a notable improvement from being down four scores. James Franklin has lobbed this one good and high. This is an Eschaton-worthy parabola.

After they kicked it the camera cut to Jim Harbaugh on the sidelines, looking equal parts perplexed and offended on behalf of the game of football:

I had a similar look on my face. This is not good hard friendly competition. This was turtling. Signaled by their coach, Penn State promptly laid down. According to Wilton Speight, Michigan ran the same play eight consecutive times at one point Saturday. While that doesn't seem 100% accurate—there was a sweep in there—the bit in the box score where Penn State lays itself on the altar and hands the squiggly knife to Harbaugh is obvious:

Franklin told them to quit and they quit. I'm not surprised. One year ago this column was all about how pleasant it was to watch a Penn State game and not be stupefied by the things occurring in front of my face, and Penn State's held up its end of the bargain in that department over the last few years.

But I am also kind of surprised that James Franklin, who made Vanderbilt decent, would just roll over and die. You'd think that the kind of person who could stare the history of Vandy football in the face and make the Commodores one of the feistiest teams in the country would at least spit in his executioner's eye, for what little that would help him. Not today, and thus Michigan entered to the "win with cruelty" portion of the proceedings.

And, lo, it was cruel. Michigan acquired 13 tackles for loss and six sacks; they ran for over 300 yards with a carousel of running backs. Michigan threw to Eddie McDoom with less than half the fourth quarter to go, because a rep is a rep is a rep. It's not that Michigan was trying to embarrass or humiliate Penn State; it's just that they didn't care if that happened. Lo, it did. Meanwhile across the country in Autzen Stadium, a Colorado quarterback who was 0/7 with –4 rushing yards last week was spearheading a stunning upset by accounting for 500 yards of offense by himself.

Remember spinning around in circles about this defense last week? You should continue doing that, but for the opposite reason. Lost in the piles of viscera that are all that remain of the Penn State offense: PSU was an efficient, prolific offensive team headed into this game, with 39 and 34 points the last two weeks. It was even one seemingly well-suited to mitigate Michigan's advantages, with Trace McSorley throwing a ton of passes close to the line of scrimmage and completing 80% of them.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. James Franklin woke up this morning in a Cure shirt and eyeliner, because halfway through a game against Michigan he decided life wasn't worth living anymore. Just, like, whatever, man. Three points, seven points. It all leads to one place: the grave. First, Arby's. Then the grave. 

HIGHIGHTS

Parkinggod:

MGoVideo has some other highlight reels if you don't have time for the above.

AWARDS

[Fuller]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

It was this kind of game:

#1 (tie) Chris Wormley, Maurice Hurst, and Taco Charlton nose ahead of everyone else on a defensive line that set the tone early and never let up, racking up six sacks and a trajillion TFLs. Hurst turned in the most impressive individual play of the day when he came from a nose tackle spot all the way around a guard and got in McSorley's business for a sack; Wormley was the most consistent entrant into the backfield, and Charlton's return helped seal the rush lanes that UCF exploited shut. Also he got a sack and a half. Welcome back.

#2 (tie) De'Veon Smith and Ty Isaac and Karan Higdon and Chris Evans were all between good an excellent as they combined for 40 carries for 318 yards, with seemingly nobody getting consecutive carries. Each guy ripped off a 20+ yard run; each guy made big chunks of yards for himself with good vision or broken tackles. Easy sledding but Michigan maximized their opportunities in ways that had not always been the case early this year.

#3 Ben Gedeon was the closest thing to a one on one matchup Michigan had with Saquon Barkley and that went all right. Gedeon tracked PSU RBs in space repeatedly, had a couple of impressive sideline-to-sideline tackles, and got in the backfield for 1.5 TFLs amongst his 11 total tackles. Barkley got his yards mostly on screens and shovels and the like, a couple of them on Gedeon. This was still a win against one of the top backs in the country.

Honorable mention: The right side of the offensive line was the main area Michigan attacked on the ground. Khalid Hill had another solid all-round FB performance. Channing Stribling and Jourdan Lewis helped shut down the PSU receivers on the rare occasions PSU managed to target them.

KFaTAotW Standings.

5: Jabrill Peppers(T2, Hawaii; #3 UCF, #1 Colorado).
3: Mike McCray(#1, Hawaii), Wilton Speight (#1 UCF).
2: Ryan Glasgow(#2 UCF), Jake Butt(#2 Colorado), Ben Gedeon(#3 Colorado, #3 PSU).
1: Delano Hill (T2, Hawaii), Chris Evans (T3, Hawaii, four-way T2, PSU), Chris Wormley (three-way T1, PSU), Maurice Hurst (three-way T1, PSU), Taco Charlton(three-way T1, PSU).
0.5: Mason Cole(T3, Hawaii), De'Veon Smith (four-way T2, PSU), Ty Isaac (four-way T2, PSU), Karan Higdon(four-way T2, PSU).

Who's Got It Better Than Us Of The Week

This week's best thing ever.

Taco Charlton and Chris Worley combine to sack Trace McSorley on the third play from scrimmage:

That set up the ensuing Peppers punt return and was an emphatic declaration of the way the game was going to go.

Honorable mention: Karan Higdon rips off an offset draw touchdown; Peppers decoy sends Smith into the secondary, where he goes stomp. Any one of Michigan's 12(!!!) other TFLs. Peppers returns a punt and windmills down to the nine.

WGIBTUs Past.

Hawaii: Laughter-inducing Peppers punt return.
UCF: Speight opens his Rex Grossman account.
Colorado: Peppers cashes it in.
PSU: Wormley's sack establishes a theme.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

This week's worst thing ever.

Jeremy Clark ends a kickoff return on the ground, writhing, and is almost certainly lost for the year.

Honorable mention: Michigan fails to gain every yard available to them when Jehu Chesson drops a ball on fourth and two.

PREVIOUS EPIC DOUBLE BIRDs

Hawaii: Not Mone again.
UCF: Uh, Dymonte, you may want to either tackle or at least lightly brush that guy.
Colorado: Speight blindsided.
PSU: Clark's noncontact ACL injury.

[After THE JUMP: Speight is still on his fourth-down scramble.]

OFFENSE

[Upchurch]

Obligatory fretful Speight evaluation. He was... eh... fine, I guess. This is better than last week but not what we were hoping for after the first couple. He did not throw into coverage much, and when he did it was often situations like "it's second and goal and everyone is covered so let's see if I can put it in the #buttzone," which I'm totally fine with. He continued to demonstrate that he's surprisingly hard to sack and can move around in the pocket to buy time and find guys downfield on broken plays. This was far from last week's worst case scenario.

It was still a little frustrating. What remained ominous was Speight's accuracy. Speight flat-out missed a half-dozen throws, more than a few of them pretty simple. A screen to Bunting was set up for a potential touchdown; Speight took him off his feet on a throw Bunting could not bring in. He missed Perry and Chesson on five-yard hitch routes so badly neither guy could get a hand on the ball.

He could still be working through a bruise or stinger that he suffered against Colorado, or he could be losing his mechanics and doing the things that Harbaugh yelled at him about in that HBO special. The Bunting miss did see Speight start backing up instead of standing and delivering in the face of the rush; there might be a middle ground between Speight being completely set on his spot, when he's excellent, and Speight breaking the pocket entirely, where he's very good. If a defense keeps him penned in and forces him to move his feet around maybe his accuracy goes down considerably? Hawaii and UCF didn't do any of that. UCF either got through clean or didn't come near Speight.

Rumblin' stumblin'. Speight's ten-yard scramble to convert on fourth and seven is still ongoing. It is scheduled to complete on October 5th.

[Fuller]

Deep shots: nyet. The above wheel route was the longest throw of the day until a bomb down the sideline in the fourth quarter; it was complete, but short enough to limit the gain to about 30 instead of a potential touchdown, depending on the disposition of the PSU safeties. (Speight also hit Darboh in the endzone on a scramble drill, FWIW.) I'm not sure why Michigan eschewed those deep shots. Could be they tried but PSU's very good safety tandem had it covered, could be they didn't need to when any number of run plays were likely to break for big piles of yards.

With some tough defenses that might be a bit vulnerable on the back end coming up (cough, cough) I'd like to see Michigan hit some dudes downfield.

[Upchurch]

Hello Mr. Higdon. The only real personnel surprise in this game was the insertion of Karan Higdon before Ty Isaac and Chris Evans. Over the course of the game playing time came close to evening out—I don't think a running back took consecutive snaps in the second half—but the order probably does mean something. A lot of folks, including myself, overlooked Higdon this offseason because nobody was talking about him. That's because he had mono and then an injury, so he didn't see much time in practice.

Now that he's back to full strength he looks pretty good. He was reputed to be a tough insider runner coming out of high school, and he demonstrated that. Hidgon regularly changes his angles of attack when he's running between the tackles, and he's low to the ground. He gets a lot of glancing contact and gets under much of the direct stuff, so he's good for a couple yards of YAC on most plays where he gets started. Eric's shot above is a great view of how he runs. That's a guy who is behind his pads, as they say. The first thing most tacklers are going to contact on him is a portion of the body that's tough to get a grip on, so he falls off a bunch of tackles.

Higdon also felt like a proverbial slashing runner; on his first carry he followed a sweep outside and then made a hard cut directly upfield that I thought was going to get him the maximum number of yards. That one run last year when he had a slick cut past a Northwestern linebacker was intriguing, and this was his first real chance to follow up on it. Stock: up.

[Upchurch]

Also the rest of the backs. Smith had a big run on short yardage where he "pressed the hole"—by which people mean he threatened a gap until he convinced the defense it was his destination—and then popped outside after the linebackers had vacated that gap. That's the cut we'd been discussing in UFR the past few weeks on those double isos (though this was not a double iso) and looks like progress. Opponent caveats are about half valid and half not. A better linebacking corps may not vacate that gap entirely, but it's tough not to react when a back seems to commit to a hole. That's why there's jargon for it.

Meanwhile Isaac had an excellent backside cut when a PSU DE paid way too much attention to Wilton Speight on a zone read and had a series of jinking runs through contact, plus a few of his extremely effective stiffarms; Chris Evans had the least impressive performance... and still almost ripped off a huge touchdown run on one of Michigan's offset draws.

Last year my opinion on the backs oscillated by the week so I don't want to declare things fixed, especially against a defense that was down to what PSU fans are saying is their fifth-string option at MLB. But they made a bunch of yards themselves and if they spurned any I haven't caught it on a cursory rewatch.

[Upchurch]

Khalid Hill, impact fullback? Hill didn't obliterate two guys for 45 yards mostly generated by him; he did display some of his recruiting rep by plucking a flat route off his shoetops and still turning upfield to grab 15 redzone yards. Not many 260 pound guys can both make that catch and get the yards after consistently. He and Poggi—who caught a better thrown and equally wide open flat route—continue to split snaps almost down the middle; I wonder if there's going to be a point where either guy emerges.

[Fuller]

Asiasi-asi, oy oy oy. Apparently some intrepid folks in the student section engaged in this chant after Asiasi's touchdown, which yes keep doing that. The play itself was a good way to exploit defense's tendency to overreact to Butt; Asiasi just found the bit in the defense that would open up once a linebacker reacted to Butt's drag route, and Speight confidently stepped into it and hit him. Getting a wide open throw in the dead center of the endzone is not a common occurrence; good design and excellent to have a weapon like Butt.

Reports have it that Bunting tweaked something and that was why he wasn't out there; Asiasi looked very good on the ground in his stead. He's going to be a monster.

Tactics. Big shift in approach in this game, as Michigan went from a super-heavy approach against Colorado (almost 30 plays featured 1 or 0 WR) to a much more shotgun-oriented attack. It wasn't exactly a spread but I'd be surprised if there were more than a half-dozen jumbo formation snaps outside of goal-to-go and short yardage.

Michigan didn't show much that was new or odd. They hit Jake Butt for nine yards on one of those empty sets where you line up an OL as a slot receiver and your tight end as the nominal left tackle; they ran a jet sweep decoy with Peppers that Smith broke for a big gain; they ran a reverse that should have gotten more than it did but for both Smith and Speight running by the linebacker level. They got a couple big plays off their offset draw, but they showed that a few times last year.

One thing of note is that the outside runs and run-type plays that were Michigan's main scoring engine against the Buffs (and foretold a much worse defensive performance by them against Oregon, the king of getting  yards on the edge) were held largely in check by Penn State. Michigan's first jet sweep got blasted by a linebacker who'd been prepping all week to stop the jet sweep, and various crack sweeps and the like met heavy resistance at or near the line of scrimmage. That's the natural effect of sucking so badly at something for a few weeks: you way overplay it. Michigan ate a loss or two but then used the threat on the outside to good effect; they finally had a consistent between the tackles run game and busted that long Smith run as a direct result of PSU overplaying the jet.

Powering out those first downs. Amara Darboh added two first downs to his collection of mansome YAC events. He ground through a DB to turn a third and thirteen slant into a first down, and similarly ran through a tackle on a later drag route. That's a trend, and a valuable asset since defenses will so often give you all but three yards on the assumption they can tackle to force a punt.

Offensive line? Magnuson got a big grade from PFF:

Michigan had massive success with power-and-man concepts in the run game, gaining more than 300 yards and scoring six times on the ground. ... The offensive line made much of that happen, especially right tackle Erik Magnuson, who made multiple key blocks to seal the edge and generated big movement on several double teams near the goal line.

Kalis and Newsome also grade out well, which is a merciful bounceback from last week. As always, more later after the detailed rewatch.

DEFENSE

Beastmode. I mean, there's not much to say. PFF listed the top performers for PSU's offense. It includes three offensive linemen and a writeup on how bad the offensive line was:

One of the few performances of note on Penn State’s offense was right tackle Andrew Nelson. He went back and forth in the run game against linebacker Mike McCray and tackle Matthew Godin, ending with slightly more negative plays, but only surrendered one pressure in 38 snaps in pass protection. None of the team’s other linemen graded better than average, and they particularly struggled at the right guard spot. Both Derek Dowrey and Connor McGovern saw snaps there, but the two combined for four pressures and both played below-average in run blocking.

So Nelson, the best player on offense, was still slightly negative. This was a thrashing as comprehensive as you can find between Power 5 teams. The vast bulk of PSU's yards came on flips and shovels and screens and flares and the like, plays on which PSU successfully turned not blocking anyone into an asset. It looked like a 1-10 high school team going up against Cass Tech.

Lessons are correspondingly thin on the ground. Should be noted that these guys put up 39 against Pitt and 34 against Temple, so this is an accomplishment of a sort. It's just that the thing that we all expected to happen happened, minus a bust that hands the opposition a free touchdown or Barkley conjuring something out of nothing.

[Fuller]

Taco pushing the pocket closed. We've talked about keeping your rush lanes a lot the past couple weeks since UCF burned Michigan repeatedly on scrambles. This space projected that Taco Charlton would provide a big upgrade in that department and it was so: despite facing a slippery Tate Forcier-esque quarterback, Michigan allowed just two scrambles*, both of them on third down and short of the sticks.

Charlton didn't take long to demonstrate his proficiency, as he was an unheralded reason that Wormley got a near safety on Penn State's opening drive:

This play started on the eight and Wormley gets around the corner at maybe 9 yards, which isn't quite enough to get to a QB who can step up. McSorley cannot because of the way Taco tends to rush the QB:

Taco bulls a guy back and then pushes inside, as he usually does, and Wormley now has an environment where his edge rush can pay off. McSorley took off a ton in this game and Michigan was able to get sacks most of the time that happened. I think we can put that issue from the UCF game to rest.

*[A third McSorley rush that crossed the line of scrimmage was a designed run.]

[Upchurch]

Exit Clark. F. Just when Michigan gets Jourdan Lewis back and I'm thoroughly enjoying the three-CB sets Michigan is fielding, Jeremy Clark gets struck with the worst damn luck. Or maybe just some bad but not horrible luck?

He'll be back, don't rule this year out. https://t.co/W7W33SILae

— Jourdan Lewis (@JourdanJD) September 26, 2016

Noncontact knee injuries are usually of the season-ending variety, but that ACL diagnosis was preliminary. I'd still be surprised to see him back this year.

Since Lewis was out the first three games we don't have to speculate about what Michigan will do: Tyree Kinnel and Brandon Watson will get snaps when Michigan goes to a three-lineman look.

Now would be a great time for David Long or Lavert Hill to start asserting himself, both for potential dime upside and depth. I'm a little disappointed that neither has gotten any time in the Watson role since Watson's been iffy so far.

Clark redshirt? Apologies to anyone who took me seriously on twitter about Clark's potential return. He redshirted as a freshman and would have to get a sixth year. That is faintly possible. He did get hurt early enough in the season for this year to be a potential medical redshirt—game four is the cutoff—but the NCAA is usually very persnickety about year six.

Now everyone is saying "Ed Davis," and yeah, Ed Davis. Davis was winning scout team player of the week, getting talked up regularly in Dantonio press conferences, and both dressed and travelling during his redshirt season and the NCAA still approved a sixth year for the guy. On the surface, Clark could have a similar case. Harbaugh is notorious for seeking every advantage he can find within the rules and it would be really nice to get Clark back since the rest of the secondary is gone.

[Fuller]

Jourdan's back and Stribling's not bad. Michigan's starting corners are now set in stone, and happily both played well. Stribling got hit with a couple of pass interference calls, one legit, one dubious; Lewis got beat on a Hamilton slant. These were the only negative plays for them all day. PSU's wide receiver production downfield was almost literally nil. Their slot caught three passes for –1 yard; Godwin's only catch was the tunnel screen that got them their touchdown. The 11-yard Hamilton slant was the only downfield completion to a WR.

The rush had a lot to do with it; so did the CBs. Stribling got a couple PBUs on Godwin, including the critical-for-this-game-column breakup on third and goal. The PI doesn't really bother me. I think the first one was a good call but it wasn't the kind of thing that gets called all the time; the second one appeared to be the WR simply falling over on his own accord; Stribling had a sneaky hand on the guy that probably doesn't get called except in that corner case.

Let's recall that Chris Godwin managed 1100 yards last year and nearly brought in an Allen Robinson/Amara Darboh combo platter of a catch. He's legit, and it was mostly Stribling holding him in check.

Meanwhile, Lewis had one PBU and then was avoided. He had a couple of opportunities to make good on Don Brown's assertion that he was the best run-defense corner Brown had been around, and made that look good. He had a TFL on a fourth down screen (that never should have been thrown since Lewis was in press coverage on the dude); more impressively, when PSU tried to hit Michigan with the same play that UCF got their long touchdown run on McCray again got sealed inside but Michigan bottled it up much better thanks in large part to Lewis, who beat his blocker and helped tackle near the LOS. (Thomas was also much quicker to the point of attack; I'm assuming he got a different playcall that had him closer to the trouble spot.)

Michigan should be more than fine as long as the starters remain healthy; knock on wood.

McCray and Gedeon. Gedeon got beat by Barkley on a couple of those flip passes and screens and the like. He also racked up 1.5 TFLs and 11 tackles; McCray had a pick and also helped Michigan's blitz game. Outright errors from either have been rare (unless they were the main culprits on Colorado's slants, which may or may not be the case) and they've shown an impressive athleticism on both blitzes and sideline to sideline pursuit. They're probably upgrades on Michigan's 2015 seniors, which is a hell of a thing for the bar-none worry spot for this year's defense.

Safeties? Ask again later. PSU could not and did not test them deep. Thomas had a couple of good open field tackles on Barkley and that's about all I remember from his day. Hill did have a +3 stop on a screen pass. He got blocked, convinced the back that he was on one side of the block, and then popped up to prevent a third down conversion once the back cut. Super tough play that highlights his own ability as a spacebacker.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Upchurch]

Limited. Peppers only got the one return opportunity, that on a punt from the Penn State one where they had to abandon spread punting and Gillikin blasted one deep enough that Peppers could put the ball on the ground and still calmly survey his options before bursting directly upfield. This version of last week's punt TD was very similar: the two main gunners locked their guys to the outside of the field and Peppers just had to run up the middle of the Red Sea.

The final ten yards were gained by a windmilling Peppers trying to maintain his balance, and we now know that telekinesis doesn't exist. If it did, one of the 110,000 people gathered would have succeeded in his or her attempt to keep Peppers upright with the POWER of his MIND. C'est la vie.

Gillikin did a great job to limit Peppers on his other punts, and this is where we're at with Peppers punt returns: one, the stadium stands for them deep into a 35-3 blowout. Two, when he signals a fair catch the stadium audibly goes "awww."

[Upchurch]

No field goals for me, thank you. Both Ace and I noticed that in warmups Kenny Allen looked decidedly off; Harbaugh was out there watching his kicker as he struggled to hit from 38 against no rush, and he took that data seriously. Michigan had a number of fourth downs in field goal range and went for all of them. They should have gone for almost all of them by the Big Book Of Math Nerd Fourth Down Decisions, and the fourth and seven was probably borderline.

So for a day Michigan got a glimpse into the life of a Pulaski Academy fan. I was pretty all right with it.

More seriously: Michigan might need a field goal against a very good Wisconsin defense and it's unknown whether Allen can deliver it, or what his potential issue is. (Oddly, Wisconsin was in the same boat last weekend; with their kicker hurt they tried to avoid having a new guy do much of anything, especially after he missed an extra point.) I'm having a hard time coming up with an injury that would hurt you on field goals but is no problem for punts and kickoffs and drawing a blank unless it's the flu or something similar. 

MISCELLANEOUS

Fists raised. Please do not turn this into an MLive comments section. During the national anthem a number of Michigan players raised their fists in protest of police violence:

[Junfu Han | The Ann Arbor News]

Lewis, afterwards:

For collegians, one common counter-chorus is based on symbolism. Some believe student-athletes represent the school, not their personal ideologies.

Lewis was asked for a response to such criticism.

"I'd say, I have a platform," the senior replied. "Regardless of anything, I'm going to stand up [to] injustice. I was never disrespecting anything. I love this university. I love this country. But things can get better."

Harbaugh:

"I've been thinking a lot about this over the last four, five, six weeks," Harbaugh said after No. 4 Michigan's win. "Because I am the football coach doesn't mean I can dictate to people what they believe. I support our guys. I think this is something, it's not going away, it's gonna keep happening."

The thing about Colin Kapernick's protest is that it works. We are seeing black athletes, and the occasional white one, across the country continue to reinforce it. Every time it happens there is a discussion about the fact that every month there is another video of a police offer shooting someone for no reason. I don't have a problem with that, with asking the country to live up to the ideals it professes when the national anthem plays.

The targeting call. The incident:

If you're focusing the WR, he is in a defenseless position and gets thwacked in the head. If you're focusing on the LB, he is trying to intercept the pass and incidentally contacts the WR's head because the WR is trying to do the same thing. That is not targeting. The rulebook has a note in it:

"Targeting" means that a player takes aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball.

Brandon Smith did not aim at Perry for any purpose. I totally get why they threw the flag on the field, but the replay official should have overturned it. He did not because he spun the wheel and it came up black.

Cumong, BTN. It's been nice to have some highlights already posted by the time this goes up. This week's selections are a one yard touchdown from Hill, Joey Julius decleating Jourdan Lewis (fair enough), and the linesman getting doinked in the head by a ball:

Maybe they're submitting the latter to America's Funniest Home Videos?

I assume that ABC/ESPN grabbed all the relevant plays and left them with various fullback dives and pratfalls. Given the direction of last week's game this may be generous.

Icky Thump. Yeah buddy. I feel like Special K should explore more of the White Stripes' discography than just Seven Nation Army.

HERE

Best and Worst:

Worst:  Depths of Excuses

Before we go too much farther, I do want to point out a bone of contention I had with PSU fans continually claiming their mediocre performance is due to the ongoing recruiting issues stemming from the scholarship reductions.  While it’s true PSU was limited somewhat on the recruiting trail, it’s not been a barren wasteland.  Here is a chart of PSU’s recruiting numbers these past 5 years, taken from 24/7:

Year	National Ranking	Conference Ranking	# of recruits
2012	46	8	23
2013	33	4	16
2014	24	3	26
2015	15	2	25
2016	20	4	20

Yes, Penn State had some limitations in terms of class size, but this wasn’t a team unable to recruit solid players to their program.  And yet, the offensive line remains, at best, below average, with additional depth issues along the defensive line.  Nobody can prepare for losing all 3 starting LBs, but this is a team that seemed to live off the last couple years of Joe Pa’s tenure and Bill O’Brien’s first year without properly replenishing the stock at key positions.  Over Franklin’s first 3 years, they’ve recruited a total of 12 offensive linemen, exactly 3 in the top-250.  Offensive line is always a bit of a crapshoot, but at least some of their issues do come from ineffective recruiting on the offensive line and, to a lesser extent, the linebackers and defensive line.  The sanctions are all gone and their effects, whatever they are, should be mostly gone by now.  I just don’t buy that their struggles keeping their QB upright is mostly due to a couple of missed scholarships.

The state of our open threads is a very MGoBlog undertaking:

First, let's point out something rather positive about the analysis - this was a "great" game. Indeed, that's the most common word in this week's analysis. "Great" actually outpaced "f--k", and even the "f--k" was pretty positive overall. 123 instances of "great" versus only 107 fucks, which is not something that we manage very often even in these much better times.

Let's delve into the f--ks though  - a great majority of them actually center around one particular moment in the game, and that is Clark's injury. That goes for many of the instances of "s--t" too, so while it was a mostly positive day, the misfortune that football can bring to a team was obviously at play in the numbers.

ELSEWHERE

I got hit by a nose tackle that can kick.

— Jourdan Lewis (@JourdanJD) September 25, 2016

This is certainly a terrible shame:

We're having a couch drive to help some hurting hearts.

Elsewhere in "mmmhmmm":

Sap's Decals:

DEFENSIVE CHAMPION – Michigan Stadium public address announcer Carl Grapentine said it best today.  Instead of just calling out that the Penn State QB was tackled, he said that, “McSorely was overwhelmed by (insert UM DL name here).” It’s hard to believe that Maurice Hurst is listed as a 2^nd Team D-Lineman for the Wolverines but he was on his game today. He was in the Penn State backfield most of the first half and recorded 6 tackles, 3 TFL and 1 sack. Overwhelming indeed!

Baumgardner:

Harbaugh was never an offensive lineman. But, at times, he's been known to coach like one.

During a blowout win over USC with Stanford in 2009 (Pete Carroll's "what's your deal?" game), Harbaugh once called the same power running play 14 straight times.

This is how you break an opponent while also building confidence and toughness at the same time.

It's old school. And it's Harbaugh 101.

Baumgardner is now doing a Monday review column that's quite good. On Lewis:

As far as the coverage goes, Lewis was mostly himself.

He spent most of the game playing press man -- his specialty -- and basically was taking his half of the field away.

By my count, Penn State only really tested him three times. The first is a play where Lewis is covering a receiver on an underneath route. He's right on his hip and he nearly picks the pass off. The second happens when Penn State, for some unknown reason, throws a tunnel screen at him on fourth down. That play ends with a tackle for loss.

The third was a deep throw down the middle of the field where it looked like Lewis might have given an inch or two to the receiver. The ball ends up incomplete as Lewis probably gets away with some holding and grabbing on the play.

But, as I wrote so many times last year, this is another reason why Lewis is a master in man coverage. Because he knows what he can -- and can't -- get away with. He's always on a player's hip, he's always running right with a guy. So when he holds -- and he did on this play -- it's not obvious. He slips a hand in for a split second to help regain some ground. In real time, the ref never sees that. The flag never gets thrown.

This isn't a guy who has lost the football, is three strides behind a receiver and is obviously holding. It's a smart, established player getting away with what he knows he can get away with.

That's above and beyond almost anything else you'll see a reporter venture.

Touch The Banner:

Redshirt blowtorch continued: Freshman linebacker Elysee Mbem-Bosse played on special teams, so here are the remaining freshmen who have yet to play:

• WR Nate Johnson
• DE Ron Johnson
• K Quinn Nordin
• QB Brandon Peters
• OG Stephen Spanellis
• RB Kareem Walker

That means 20 of the remaining 26 signees from the 2016 class have burned their redshirts.

Wormley as quoted by Wenzel:

"I think some of the sacks today were coverage sacks," Wormley said. "All the DBs, not only Jourdan, do a great job of covering and knowing their assignments and when the quarterback is back there seven, eight seconds, it's a great benefit for the defensive line to get back there and attack the quarterback and make plays."

Dan Murphy:

Jim Harbaugh’s team has scored at least six touchdowns in all four of its games. Don Brown’s new defense is averaging more than four sacks and 10 tackles for loss per game. The slimmest margin of victory has been 17 points, hardly worthy of a single gray hair added to Harbaugh’s youthful, 52-year-old head.

Hoover Street Rag on various Penn State philosophical items.