So, a rather fitting end to the 2007 season

Penn State's offense scored a good number of points on Saturday - but not enough. They had a (despite what the announcers say) 17 (not 21) point lead at one time. They ran some crazy plays - a half back pass (which I'd been calling for all season - if I'd known that DWill can't throw the ball - I wouldn't have) - a fake field goal (which was brilliant, btw) - AND Sean Lee caught an interception - we should have known that something wasn't right in the cosmos.

For my part - I wore my new Pat Devlin Jersey (here's hoping that the kid doesn't transfer) - but I wasn't the perfect fanatical fan - I didn't watch much of the 1st half - I was entertaining my little goddaughter who, while she adores "Penn State! Nittany Lion!", hasn't really caught on to the whole watching football thing yet (she's 3). But we did manage to see a touchdown or two - unfortunately we missed the fake field goal - I was SHOCKED when I saw the replay. By halftime I was watching the game on my own - which, I've found isn't exactly conducive to actually watching the game - with remote in hand - every time I was annoyed by the play or the announcers, I'd flip the channel - which, at the end, was a lot. That final PSU drive was a heart breaker - they made some incredible/implausible plays early in the drive and then - at the 24 they stalled, as only a Anthony Morrelli led, Paterno coached, team can - it should/could have been a great highlight reel - but now I'm just ticked off.

I don't know if the defense was out coached or out classed - but they were not good. Special teams had some troubles - but who cares? the defense was letting the spartan o run and pass at will - it really didn't matter how many yards they had to go. They were knocking PSU's defenders off the line - bouncing off of tackles - running wide open in the soft secondary. There were many key plays where the PSU defense had read the play perfectly - they just couldn't make the play (that, I guess I can't, primarily, blame on coaching).

Joe's blown leads before - conservative 2nd half defense is not a new strategy at PSU - but on Saturday the D showed inability to stall the msu offense at all (reminiscent of tosu game). And there was no definitive winning drive by the offense -

Listen - I wasn't one of the people who thought that PSU was going to make any kind of a "run" this season - and I was very discouraged by the "off the field" incident(s) during the spring/summer of '07 - I've really been wondering who, if anyone has control of this team.

I'm ready for a change. My disdain for a certain coach down in the panhandle is finally being overshadowed by the realization that PSU needs to be revitalized and needs it soon.