PSU 10.5 Point Favorites

Submitted by FauxMo on
I'd never bet against Michigan, but if there was a gun to my head, I'd pick PSU to cover this one. And I'd bet my house Franklin will make dickish comments after the game.

BursleyBaitsBus

October 15th, 2017 at 5:52 PM ^

It won't be a blow out. We'll be within striking distance all game because of our defense and our offense will let us down. So we'll lose very slowly down the stretch. 

Or if the gods are really cruel, Michigan will take the lead with a few minutes left and there will be a spectacular fluke or fuck up by the team that gives PSU the victory as the game ends. 

That seems to be the trend so far. 

There's also option 3 in which Michigan historically plays well against PSU even during White Outs, so maybe we can rise to the occasion and pull an upset. 

Squash34

October 16th, 2017 at 3:18 PM ^

I have watched most of their games and they have struggled with Indy's defense as well. The rest of their games were against bery overmatched teams.
However, if you just look at the box score of Indy it looks like they owned them, when in fact Indy defense held them in check until the fourth. At which point Franklin really padded the old stat line by keeping the starters in and throwing deep. Culminating in a halfback pitch pass for a 25 yard-ish td with 4 min left in the fourth up over 21.
But, Indy shut Barkley down and got good pressure throughout. The pressure caused mcsorley to make huge mistakes. He either kinda froze and got sacked, throw a pick that got picked or throw a pass that should have been picked.
Indy basically spotted them 21 points in the first 6 min on a KO return by Barkley on the first play, a fumble at the 39 and a fumbled punt return that was returned for a td.
Just look at the drive summarize for the second and 3rd quarter. There is a stretch of 3 and out, 3 and out, 7 play -3 yards and punt,an int, and a 3 and out to end the half. They started the 2nd in the redzone after an int and missed a chip shot field goal.
Here is there scoring drives in the first half 6 plays for 39 yards for td; 9 play 74 yards and a td and the rest punts or int.
The second had one none garbage time to drive of 52 yards and a fg after a 40 yard drive. Then a long 80ish yard td with 6 min left that featured mcsorley throwing most of the plays.
So the score makes it look like they are legit. And the passing stats look legit, but like 60 of the 330 came on the last drive looking to pad stats. Moreover, they completely shut the run game down.
Again, this is not last year's psu offense, and not by a long shot. Not to say they are a bad offence, they are good. Just not elite like some seem to think.

TrueBlue2003

October 16th, 2017 at 12:55 AM ^

and fucks ups (SFFUs) are actually probably fairly even in the Harbaugh era (2 for us, 2 against):

For us:

Minnesota 2015. Woof. That was an incredible gift from the Minn coach.

IU 2015. We couldn't stop them.  Jordan Howard decides to score a TD instead of taking a knee after a first down when they could have run out the clock and kicked a game-winning FG.  Phew.

Against us:

That one game in 2015.  You know the one.

Iowa 2016.  I don't even think The Game 2016 counts as a SFFU, it was just an excruciatingly close (literally a 50/50 coin flip that the refs of course gave to the home team), and hence painful way to lose.  Fuck ups did occur, but they were much earlier in the game.

I think it's just because the SFFUs against us have happened in rivalry games that we remember them more painfully than the ones that have gone us.

 

In reply to by ijohnb

clarkiefromcanada

October 15th, 2017 at 8:22 PM ^

Also, IIRC Indiana ran tempo to keep Kemp/Solomon on the field.

Hot takes blaming this defense for anything other than being exceptional in very adverse conditions are just BS

TrueBlue2003

October 16th, 2017 at 1:20 AM ^

that was a spot that an elite defense takes care of business: up 10, playing a bad offense and they failed to limit to a FG after the punt return and then up 3 with the offense needing to go 40+ yards in about a minute.  Certainly wouldn't call it being shredded, but a little disappointing the defense couldn't win the game with not one but two opportunities to do so at the end.

Overall, defense was very good again, except for the drive that Kemp and Solomon got locked out there in tempo and the two final drives in regulation.

Also, let's cut down on the penalties, guys.

LKLIII

October 15th, 2017 at 8:09 PM ^

Agree. If we get Purdue O'Korn and Indiana run game, we definitely win this thing. Our defense is excellent unless gassed and/or we need to put in our second D line and the other team is smart enough to tempo them to lock them on the field. That's how Indiana got that one long TD drive after halftime.

saveferris

October 16th, 2017 at 7:36 AM ^

Part of getting "Purdue O'Korn" is actually playing against Purdue, I'm afraid.  Right now, the data is pointing to JOK's Purdue performance being the outlier, not the norm.  We're going to need to have a lot of things that have been going wrong for us this season, go right this weekend, if we hope to win.  The defense will keep us in the game though, so we will have a chance.