BPR is back after a holiday vacation with considerable blog stored in its hump…
Alamo Bowl: Please understand that This Space is not a fan of Anthony Morelli. He was not a good major-college quarterback, and wasn’t close to what Joe Paterno and his staff portrayed him to be.
His performance in San Antonio included a lot of what’s frustrating about watching Morelli, including several classic moments from his force-the-deep-ball collection.
Please, please understand that this is not a defense or Morelli, OK? Having said that, and having watched enough teams in bowl games lately with laughably unsophisticated approaches to the passing game and QB play….
Morelli isn’t nearly horrid enough to justify the way he’s been villified. It’s like he molested children or something.
The tone of too much Alamo Bowl coverage was on the order of, “Penn State won, but let’s be very clear that Morelli had nothing to do with it…” And let’s not turn Daryll Clark into Tim Tebow based on half-a-dozen snaps against a mediocre defense that obviously hadn’t game-planned for him.
Geez. Lighten up, people.
While we’re in let’s-not-get-carried-away mode, don’t order your 2009 national-championship game tickets yet, Nittany Nation.
JoePa wants you to know, ad nauseum, how young this team was (this is Joe’s 26th consecutive young team, but never mind), but Penn State isn’t younger than USC, Florida, Ohio State, Georgia, Illinois, Auburn, Clemson, etc, etc. The Lions have a lot coming back in key places (the offensive line in particular), but no more than USC, Florida, Georgia, etc. etc.
Penn State has a chance to be very good, but no better chance than… well, you get the idea.
In other Nit-News: Naturally, Joe says the QB job is wide-open. That’s what you’d say, too. The truth is Clark has to start… Two Mid-Penn Conference products, punter Jeremy Boone (Mechanicsburg) and fullback Dan Lawlor (Cumberland Valley), were serious bright spots by the end of the season…
Joe says his most important job now is keeping his coaching staff together. That job’s going to be especially tough the next month or so, it says here…
Other colleges: Fox’s Pat Haden said a smart thing on the Fiesta Bowl telecast tonight- “Bowl games are a lot like opening games.” USC and Georgia certainly look like the two best teams out there right now, but with the month-to-six week break and so many programs in upheaval due to coaching changes, so many bowl participants are to some degree starting the season over. Over-concluding would be a bad idea.
Auburn, for example, hired a new offensive coordinator three weeks ago, and installed the new guys’ (spread) offense, in its entirety, for its bowl…
By playing with a separated shoulder on his throwing arm for an extended period, Michigan/Wilson High School’s Chad Henne proved he’s one of the toughest QBs in the country. With his play in the Florida Citrus Bowl once finally healthy, Henne proved he’s one of the best.
Funny how announcing his retirement turned Lloyd Carr from a grumpy doofus to everybody’s favorite uncle… With the ESPN pundits unanimously congratulating Florida State for it’s tough handling of a third of its football team cheating on an online, open-book music class exam, bear in mind that at most D-1 schools, all scholarship athletes are told (or given strong suggestions) what classes and profs to take. In other words, I’m guessing the reason so many Noles took the class isn’t that they’re serious music lovers…
