Comment by Dan (Guest)

Dan (Guest) — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 00:32:05 +0000

Hey Ken. Glad you are back for another year of college football! As always, I appreciate the insights you bring and am looking forward to reading the blogs.

There's a lot of angst among Nittany Lion fans about not destroying Pitt and the first-half troubles we had against Buffalo. Personally, I don't get it. Neither game ever felt like we could possibly lose (unlike App State last year which had me scared to death). This is a young team, and we should expect a few struggles along the way. Wins are wins.

There are lots of positives. Our depth is better than it has been at any time since the sanctions. We finally have backups who can handle things if the starters go down. Our defense is incredibly talented. They are inexperienced and will make dumb mistakes like letting the opponent's best receiver get behind them, but those are correctable things, and this unit could be a real force for the next couple of years. On offense, the talent at WR and TE is remarkable. Sean Clifford certainly has all the tools that he needs to be a successful college QB. And, we have 4 very talented RBs fighting each other for playing time. Special teams, which were terrible last year, have become a strength thanks to the addition of new ST coach Joe Lorig and new long-range kicking stud Jordan Stout.

But there are a lot of negatives too. It starts with the offensive line. A unit that was thought to be a strength has clearly been the biggest weakness so far. They are struggling with BOTH run and pass blocking. Not helping matters is the fact that none of the 4 previously mentioned RBs have shown the ability to get in the way of a blitzing linebacker. As for Sean Clifford, for all his tools, he has been making far too many mistakes on his option reads. That should get better as the season goes on. A bigger concern for me has been his accuracy on deep balls. Even when the receivers are wide open, they have to adjust to the ball or are getting overthrown. It worries me because I'm not sure how fixable that is. There are surely mechanical things that can be tweaked, but part of deep ball accuracy has to be instinctive, doesn't it? Either you have the touch or you don't? I don't know, but if it doesn't improve quickly, the better DBs in the conference will be licking their chops.

Well I didn't mean for this to be so long. I just got on a roll I guess. Thanks again for having this blog. You will have at least one loyal reader this year.

College Football 2019: Week 3 Preview

Ken — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 18:31:05 +0000

Last week: Michigan squeaked by Army, while N.C. State and Penn State won comfortably. Next week: Michigan has a bye, N.C. State faces a shaky WVU squad, and Penn State plays pesky Pitt.