Yesterday was a great day. Not only did the Nittany Lions defeat the Irish in the first all-stadium white out (ie: "White House") in Beaver Stadium history, but Tom Glavine nearly pitched a perfect game en route to a 3-1 Mets victory.
Although the Penn State v. Notre Dame matchup started unexpectedly (Notre Dame scored first on a long INT return, and then Derrick Williams of PSU returned a punt for a TD), the game continued in a manner expected by most fans. That is, Jimmy Clausen got sacked multiple times while the Lions put up a decent offensive display. While the Penn State defense was outstanding (Notre Dame's only TD was the INT return), Morelli had a very ho-hum performance. 12/22 is nothing to write home about, but he did show a touch of greatness on a throw midway through the 3rd quarter. With the Lions up by just a touchdown, and facing 3rd and 4 from their own 41, Morelli dropped back and thread a pass between two defenders to reach Chris Bell well beyond the first down marker. Bell then took off to eventually gain 51 yards on the play, and PSU eventually punched it in the end zone. Although it's somewhat discouraging that Morelli's other 11 completions only led to 80 yards, the strike to Bell showed that both the senior QB and sophomore WR are capable of making big plays this year.
The best part of the victory, however (at least for me), was PSU's ability to run down the clock with the run in the 4th quarter. Running the ball effectively was made to be somewhat of an issue after Austin Scott's struggles against FIU, but it was made clear in this game that PSU could run over a defense if it needed to.
By the way, Jimmy Clausen went 17/32 for 144 yards. When he was able to release the ball, he was pretty effective, and I think he'll be great for the Irish down the road (based on one game).
In preparation for the NFL season, ESPN's Tuesday Morning Quarterback has written a great article about how more effective NFL offenses could be if they just took a chance on 4th down once it a while. Very interesting stuff.
Also, if you love Moneyball (and if you know me, you know I do), then you should take a look at this page. Some very enlightening material there.
Anyway, besides the first NFL Sunday of the year, I get to look forward to Pedro's return to Shea Stadium. Hopefully we'll get to see some of the new call-ups. I know Humber looked pretty decent in his first major league appearance a couple of days ago.
Last thing: A couple of GREAT college football game that I think might have been missed by partying PSU fans (fortunately Dan G and I caught a lot of the action):
1) USF's overtime upset of Auburn.
2) Wisconsin's close call in Vegas
Only 30 minutes until NFL football! Good luck everyone!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment