College Football Week 9 Recap

Penn State/Ohio State
Mike: Unbelievable game. I don’t think I was alone thinking there would be more than 1 TD in the game. It seemed that Penn State was able to move the ball when they spread out Ohio State. Yet they still kept deciding to run the ball up the middle and not gain any ground. I read somewhere that JoePa yelled at JayPa for not spreading them out. I thought maybe it was Joe pushing the conservative play calling. How the running game opened up when Devlin came into the game, I have no idea. I think we had just worn down the defense as we’ve done in almost every game this year. Needing to bring in Devlin worried me because we gave up getting him meaningful minutes after the cupcakes were over. I pointed out numerous times when it would have been a good idea to bring him in. He really only was in there to hand the ball off. He threw 1 pass, but there was a pass interference call. So he didn’t even get his name into the passing stats. Then they run him on the QB sneak at the goaline? Did anyone realize Clark wasn’t in the game? The off week coming up for Penn State is huge. The team needs to focus for the last road game of the year, at Iowa. The Michigan State game to end the year still looms.
Matt: It was a really great game. I did think there would be more offense in the game, as my preview last week stated. I was upset at Royster a few times because he continued to run laterally and not turn upfield to gain much needed yardage. This happened on that screen play in the red zone on our first scoring drive, and it almost happened on the 3rd down run around the 5 yard line. Luckily, he was able to get the necessary yards. Do the refs know what holding is? Numerous times, Maybin, Gaines, and Evans were held, and blatantly I might add. What were the refs watching? Regardless, it was a well played game on both sides, and we were able to come out with the win. The Iowa game will be a tough one, but the bye week comes at the perfect time.
Ahad: This has to be one of the best games I have seen this year. Like everyone else, I expected more scoring. I think both teams went conservative with the play-calling trying to avoid making a costly mistake. I expected Ohio State to remain conservative with the play calling simply because the offense has been scaled back due to the true freshman QB. It was surprising to see PSU stay away from the spread. This was one area where I thought the offense would have success. How often do you see a center asking the QB how many fingers he is holding up? At that point, it was pretty clear that Clark was banged up. Devlin came in moved the team. Granted, he only attempted one pass; but he kept things going and got in the end zone. The defense did a great job containing Beanie and Pryor. The bye week will help the team recuperate from a physical game and get ready mentally for the last couple of games.
Evan: I actually really enjoyed this game. I felt that Penn State exorcised a lot of demons. I was utterly confused about what was going on with Darryl Clark and why he came out of the game. Kirk Herbstreit said if Penn State won that game then they are in the nat’l championship. I think people were saying similar things about West Virginia last year because all they had to do was beat Pitt at the end of the year. Michigan State looms large, and they’re much better than Pitt.

Matt on Gameday and Florida
What was everyone’s favorite Gameday sign? I can’t remember too many off the top of my head right now, but I liked the one that said, “I bought this beer from Ki-Jana Carter.” Kind of random. Probably would have been better if it said they bought it from Kerry Collins.

Florida looked very impressive against the top scoring defense in the SEC. Great game coming up between them and Georgia this week. Should be a shootout.

Ahad on Texas Tech
How about Texas Tech running the walk-on kicker out there? They found him during in-game field goal kicking contest last week. I guess their kickers must be terrible if this guy comes out of the stands and is the new kicker.

Evan headed to the Cocktail Party
I’m heading up to Jax for the FL/GA game, although will most likely not actually go to the game.  I’m very pumped up for this one, the winner should get into the BCS top 5, ahead of USC and Oklahoma, though I don’t know if that will happen.