Staturdays

Penn State Football

  • PSU is RBU

    Penn State absolutely destroyed Idaho by a score of 79-7 this past Saturday in their 2019 season debut. Firing on all cylinders, the Nittany Lions exploited their massive talent gap against the Vandals by outplaying them in all three phases of the game. While exciting to score the most points in program history since 1991 – what can we really take out of this game? The truth is, not a whole lot. Idaho is far worse than the worst Big Ten team could ever be – and with the way James Franklin has been recruiting, there was just no way that Idaho was going to be able to match PSU’s physicality.

    On the bright side though, this was an awesome chance for a young offense to gain some physical and mental reps in a real live game against a real opponent in front of one of the more massive crowds found anywhere in college football. Sean Clifford’s debut was impressive, completing 14 of 23 passes for 280 yards and 2 scores with 0 interceptions. The offensive line, boasting two new starters, were able to begin to gel and communicate, all while keeping the pocket completely clean. Young pass catchers old and new played good football; the only drop came from a running back – a huge improvement from last season. A huge plus is that in a blowout like this game, so many of the backups got to play and get real reps in game time. This helps to create tremendous depth, which can be especially helpful to Penn State’s young offense.

    One of the most exciting things fans got to see this week was the gauntlet of highly touted running backs Penn State has. The Nittany Lions rushed for 331 yards on Saturday, and quite frankly, would have been more if they didn’t start on the opponent’s side of the field every possession. All off season, there has been tremendous hype around the four running backs that will see time this season. Let’s dive into each one a little bit:

    • #21 Noah Cain: An IMG Academy prospect, the once 4-star running back was recruited by every big school you can think of. But true freshman Noah, a kid who has cited Saquon Barkley as inspiration, and mentioned 3 and out about a dozen times in every interview he has participated in, wanted to go where he could find the most success. Penn State’s history with RBs, especially recently, made the decision easy for Noah Cain. Noah is the bruiser type and will be the guy who always finds a way to get 4-5 yards every time he gets the ball. On Saturday he rushed for 44 yards on 9 carries with 2 touchdowns.
    • #28 Devyn Ford: A true freshman out of Stafford, Virginia, Ford became the third top 5 RB prospect to commit to Penn State in 3 years (Sanders, Slade, Ford). He is an all-purpose running back who basically had offers to go to any school he wanted. This guy is the kind of running back that PSU fans are used to having in recent years: he can combine speed, power, and elusiveness to make a man miss or find the gap. On Saturday he had the most exciting TD run that went for 81 yards. His final stat line on the day was 107 yards on 6 carries with a touchdown. He also caught 3 passes for an additional 6 yards.
    • #4 Journey Brown: The redshirt sophomore out of Meadville, PA was the lowest touted recruit out of the four PSU running backs but has the chance to be the most exciting. If you haven’t heard already, in High School, Journey traveled 720 yards and put up 10 TDs… in ONE GAME. Yea… this kid shattered PA state records and got on everyone’s radar. Journey Brown is the fastest kid in the RB room and showed flashes of that this Saturday. Brown put up 38 yards on 5 carries, two of them being touchdowns. He also caught 2 passes for an additional 31 yards.
    • #3 Ricky Slade: The true sophomore out of Woodbridge, Virginia was listed as the starter for the 2019 Nittany Lions and was no surprise to anyone. Slade was a 5-star recruit, and was the #1 recruit in 2018 for all RBs and for the entire state of Virginia. Last season he backed up Miles Sanders and put up an impressive 257 yards on 45 carries with 6 TDs. His 2019 season debut wasn’t as flashy, only boasting 9 yards on 5 carries with a TD. However, he did catch a pass that went for 26 yards. Regardless of Saturday’s numbers – this kid can play and is going to have a hell of a season.

    Like I said earlier, it is hard to take a ton away from these stats and performances in a game where the opponent was not up to Big Ten standards. However, the one big thing to recognize is that Penn State has an unbelievable amount of talent at the running back position. Incredible right? Well, this can be a gift and a curse, if one of these RBs turns out to be an elite level talent like Saquon Barkley did in 2015 – the rest of these guys are going to lose playing time which could mean losing them to the transfer portal.  

    With that in mind here is what to watch for:

    • Over the next couple games, we are going to find out a lot more about these running backs. Will it really be a platoon between Slade and Brown with a little bit of the true freshman sprinkled in toward the end of games or can it be a 4-man rotation – keeping everyone’s legs fresh and creating a confusing nightmare for defenses? Or… will one of these guys turn out to be the next great RB and steal time from the rest?
    • How will Franklin and Rahne use Noah Cain? It has been a while since PSU has had a true, one-cut, power back like Cain. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him more than Ford this season only because of his situational expertise.
    • Can Journey Brown unseat Ricky Slade as RB1 this season? This is something that a lot of fans and media are speculating could be a move later on in the season. Brown has sat for two years behind Barkley, Sanders, and Slade and is poised for a huge breakout season. If Saturday told us anything, he is going to be extremely hard to get to the ground and when he does get past that first level … well, goodbye.

    Now that we know a little bit about all the running backs and what to look out for, here are my early season predictions: (disclaimer: I know literally nothing)

    • Journey Brown will have the most rushing yards and touchdowns at the end of the season. I’m not sure that he will ever become the starter, but he is going to earn playing time. This former 3-star recruit has a chip on his shoulder and I fully expect him to make the most of his time on the field this season. Fans are going to love this kid by the 3rd or 4th week of the season and with a name like Journey – I can see him becoming a household name among Big Ten fans.
    • One of Noah Cain or Ricky Slade will transfer at the end of this season. I hope I am wrong but I feel that if they do not get the playing time that their talent probably warrants, they may leave to go to another school where they can showcase their skills more regularly. Slade was a former 5-star and Cain has brought up the NFL quite a bit before even seeing the field; playing time and stats are going to be very important for these two.
    • Devyn Ford is the best running back of the four. When this will show its head, I am not sure. But I truly believe that Ford is going to be a menace in the Big Ten for many years with first round draft pick potential. If any of these guys has the chance to steal reps from the others, its Devyn Ford.

    It is going to be an extremely fun season watching these dudes compete at a really high level, and I cannot wait to see what happens with all four of Penn State’s running backs. We just need a few more games against more comparable opponents to find out the answers.

    PS: have to give a little love to redshirt junior Nick Eury. Played his heart out at the end of this game and rushed for one of the coolest, hardest TDs I’ve seen in a while. YouTube it when you get the chance.

  • Stickler for PSU

    How does anyone start off writing their first article? Well, um … hi!

    I’m Brian (semi-new to Staturdays) and I wanted to introduce myself seeing that I’m going to be writing more and more for this blog this upcoming college football season. If you follow me on Twitter (@Brian_Stickler) you know that I have very intense specific interests and tastes in things – which makes it somewhat hard to follow me I think. To be honest, I am not sure why anyone follows me. Unless you’re super into Penn State Football, the New York Yankees, Breaking Bad, and like a whole bunch of miscellaneous movies and TV shows that I happen to be watching at that moment, I’m not sure that the package of information I send out into the world is all that relevant to you. So assuming that you don’t know my twitter account and frankly don’t care either, I’d like to start by telling you a little bit about me and my relationship to college football, and specifically Penn State.

    I am a novice college football fan. In fact, before I attended Penn State as a freshman I don’t think I ever even watched a college football game in my life. During a tour of campus when I was 16 years old, a tour guide told the group that we would all become the biggest football fans in the world after spending a few years at school. She was definitely right … but not immediately. Admittedly, the Christian Hackenberg era didn’t do much for me right off the cuff. I did love the atmosphere of the games, the tailgating, and the community that surrounded the football games – but it wasn’t until Penn State started really winning that I became really invested.

    Does that make me a bad fan? I don’t think so. In a class I took with our beloved StaturDAD, Kyle, we learned that the product on field is what makes the difference for attendance, more than any other external factor (such as promos, weather, cost, etc.). I don’t know much, but what I can tell you is that that is unequivocally true. When Penn State beat Ohio State in the 2016 white out game there was a clear difference in the way the community behaved. The campus and surrounding areas came alive and it hasn’t died down yet, not 3 years later. Penn State Football demanded our attention, and boy did it suck me right in. I was hooked and since then I haven’t been able to unattach myself, even if I wanted to. I became a superfan – living and breathing Blue and White during the fall and craving even the heartbreak of a 3-hour rain delay loss to Michigan State during the summer. I love the games, the anticipation, the atmosphere, the players, the coaches, and especially my peers. But that last one is where I feel I differ from the rest of the twitter-verse – and this should give you a good look at what to expect from me in the future. Here are a few things that fundamentally define my fandom:

    • I do not think the backup quarterback should be starting. I am sure Will Levis is an unbelievably talented player and has tremendous potential to be a huge impact at Penn State. I am sure that Tommy Stevens did too. But QB is a really hard job … a really hard job. Our friend Sean Clifford (4 Heisman) is going to be a first-year starter for the Nittany Lions this season, and while there will be times where he will shine, there will also be times where he will struggle. That doesn’t mean he sucks or should be replaced — that means he is growing and learning on the field in one of the most competitive environments in all of college sports. Twitter was ready to write off Trace McSorely during the Michigan game last year. Yes, #9 was getting monstrous hate every single pick or incompletion. That absolutely baffled me. He was arguably the best QB in the history of Penn State, and a large portion of the fan base thought his backup was going to be better than him. What are the odds of that? Kyle? Drew? You are the stat guys, let me know the probability that anyone was going to outperform the PSU leader in almost every measurable offensive statistic. It’s unlikely. We need to trust our coaches and know that they evaluate talent much different (and way better) than we do. Which brings me to my next point…
    • I am not one to call for the firing of coaches off the cuff. I will not use the heinous hashtag, #FireFranklin, every single time Penn State loses a football game. You know why? Because it is ridiculous. There are not many proven coaches in college football like James Franklin right now, and I am curious where all these fans calling for his head would like to find his replacement. How many active coaches right now have won a Big Ten Championship? The answer is 2 – and we have one of them. The truth is, sometimes coaches do need to go – like David Corley (PSU WR Coach) after a horrid year for the receiving core. I am just far more comfortable with someone who knows more than me making that decision. I said before, I know almost nothing – but here are two things I do know.
      1. Penn State exceeded all expectations following the sanctions in 2011
      2. I like people who like Penn State

    This is why I like Franklin — He wins with integrity, he recruits competitively with the best teams in the country, and he leads with clear direction — all of which demand respect and exude warmth. The guy is a really good coach, and just because we lost a few games doesn’t mean he should go. That, and he’s going to lead the Nittany Lions to a national championship during his tenure. @OldTakesExposed.

    • I root for the guys in Blue and White. All I have been saying over and over again is that I really don’t know much other than that I want to see us perform well. I am not an athlete, a coach, or a scout – I am simply a fan. So when there is someone on my screen in Nittany Lion gear, I am going to root for that dude to kick ass. I will not root for someone on this team to fail so that another can get an opportunity.

    Those three points make up my fundamental beliefs about sports and Penn State in general. It is important to make that clear because if you are looking for an overly emotional reactional blog this is not necessarily the place for you to get that release.

    It’ll come up over and over again throughout the season, but I cannot wait to experience that joy, excitement, anticipation, and even heartbreak with you all over the next 16 weeks. Let’s watch some college football together. Man does it feel good to be saying that again! We Are!

    Your Pal,

    Brian

  • These are the fastest-starting (and slowest-starting) college football teams

    Every fan, at some point, has complained that their team starts slow at the beginning of football games. It’s one of the cardinal sins of college football — not coming ready to play and finding yourself down early after giving up an easy touchdown at the start of the game. Well, now we can actually put some truth to which teams actually start slow, and which come out of the gates firing.

    As Penn State fans may remember, we embraced the “second-half team” mantra by the end of the 2016 season, but turned things around a bit in the two years since then. So let’s see who’s at the top of the list of the fastest-starting college football teams.

    We used the play-by-play data from the 2018 season to look at which teams scored in the first 5 minutes of games in the 2018 season. This data included both regular-season and playoff data, which, as you’ll see, makes the team at the top all the more impressive.

    Teams Who Get Up For Gameday

    Top 15 teams ranked by points scored in the first 5 minutes of games for all of 2018.

    Alabama is far and away the best team at coming out of the gate early and punishing sleeping teams. This comes as no surprise if you’ve ever turned on an early season Alabama game at 12:05 to find that the score is already 14-0. What is surprising is their margin to the next-closest team. They average nearly a TD a game in the first 5 minutes. As we can see from the upcoming histogram, this is hardly the norm.

    Histogram showing the distribution of teams and their average points scored in the first 5 minutes. Alabama is a clear outlier and the data is skewed right.

    Clearly, this data is not normally distributed about the mean. Most teams are slow starters. The median points per first 5 minutes is 1.58. Since the data is not normal, it wouldn’t make much sense to use a z-score, but you can see from the chart itself that Alabama is in a class all their own.

    Teams Who Do Not Score In The First 5 Minutes

    So let’s look at the other side – does your team take some time to get going? Let’s look at some of the worst teams at scoring early.

    Teams who score the least amount of points in the first 5 minutes of games. Several teams – including Tennessee, Minnesota, and Florida State – didn’t score at all at the start of games last year.

    As you can see, several teams didn’t score at all in the first 5 minutes of games all season long. I really feel bad for those fans. Some big names are at the bottom of the list too, including the Big 10’s Iowa, Michigan State and Minnesota. Also featured in this list are UCLA, Miami, Tennessee, and Florida State. All are brutally slow at being explosive in the beginning of games.

    Teams Who Get Scored On In The First 5 Minutes

    Last, let’s look at the flip-side of the equation. Which are the teams that are allowing these early TDs at the start of the game. Whose defenses, and perhaps, special teams, are sleepy at the start of games?

    These are the teams that get scored on the most early in games. Some big names on the list include Texas and several teams from the SEC, and, most surprising of all, College Football Playoff semi-finalists Oklahoma.

    So a lot of teams here to choose from, but I’m just going to jump right to the most glaring team on the list here, the College Football Playoff semi-finalists. In 2018, the Oklahoma Sooners were 15th in the country in allowing early scores to the other team. This comes as a bit of a surprise given how successful they were last year, but it isn’t as shocking when you think back on how high-powered their offense was as well. When you throw in how soft the Big 12 plays defense, it’s no surprise that early-game points were given out like candy in that conference.

    We’ll make sure to revisit this stat in a few weeks to see how teams like Penn State, who said that they were going to start playing faster this year, do at getting points on the board early.