Penn State Football It Takes ToP to Play
Written by Jeff Sunday, 18 October 2009 08:28
The defense was dominant, yielding only seven first downs in a 20-0 victory over Minnesota. (It should have been six first downs. The penalty on Sean Lee was a bad call.) The front seven allowed a paltry 37 yards of rushing. Jared Odrick had the game’s sole sack. Odrick was simply dominant. Josh Hull had the game’s sole interception – beautiful pick! Lavarro Bowman led the defense in tackles with eight, with two TFLs. The Penn State secondary held Minnesota QB Adam Weber to 10 completions and only 101 yards. The supposedly best WR in the Big Ten, Eric Decker, had only one catch on the day. (We’ll ignore the fact that it was for 42 yards and amounted for 30% of Minnesota’s total offense.)
The best way to describe the performance of the defense is TEAM. There cannot be a complement better than that. The statistic that stands out most is PSU’s 41:59 time of possession. I went through the stats back to 2005 and could not find a ToP even close to 41:59. Of course it takes ToP to play. The offense was just as responsible for the stat.
TB Evan Royster led Penn State with 137 yards rushing; his best effort of the season. Overall, Penn State had 177 total yards rushing. QB Daryll Clark connected on 21 of 32 passes with 1 TD. Clark had all day to throw. It is clear that the offensive line is coming of age. The rushing game is working and the QB is protected. That is what it takes to post 464 total offensive yards with an average gain of 6.2 yards per play.
Next up: scUM on the road.
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