Takeaways: Blue-White Game
April 20, 2008 by Run Up The Score!
Some reaction to yesterday’s scrimmage from around the The Internets:
Big happenings during a Joe Paterno press conference, as the Patriot-News’ David Jones (universally loved by Penn State fans everywhere) confronted Paterno with two relatively simple questions. First, does the contract standoff between Paterno and Old Main hurt recruiting? Second, in Paterno’s perfect world, would one of his assistants eventually take over for him?
Audio of the press conference, courtesy of FightOnState.com. The Jones-Paterno melee is a few minutes in.
Don’t forget the video recap of the game from Bob Flounders and the pinch-hitting Rich Scarcella.
Judging by the Sunday morning headlines, the other two big stories from the game are the quarterbacks (basically, both played well) and Stephfon Green’s lightning strike of a 55 yard touchdown run on his first touch from scrimmage:
Winter workouts went good and spring workouts went going good, and we got to the spring game and, I guess, according to you guys, I lit it up.”
(Cue the laughs).
— On his speed: “I’m looking to get (my 40-yard time) down. Deion (Sanders) ran a 4.1. I’m trying to get a 4.0, and that’s it.”
(Cue more laughs)
So we have a comedian in the backfield. A comedian who aspires to run a 4.0 forty yard dash.
For me, the most amusing part of the game was the implementation of Jay Paterno’s “Spread HD” offense. Apparently, this is an innovative new offensive philosophy which spreads the field horizontally in order to throw the ball to the tight end 20 times per game. A reverse psychology sort of thing, I suppose. Create a fancy name, put three accomplished wide receivers and two good running backs on the field, and repeatedly target the tight end with seven yard drag patterns.
Three names strangely absent from this morning’s news reports: Brandon Beachum, Andrew Szczerba, and Drew Astorino. I thought they all played quite well yesterday. I didn’t pay much attention to what was happening with individual players along the offensive and defensive lines, but it’s rather clear that our situation at offensive tackle remains perilously thin. Unless the coaching staff plans to nudge a current backup guard over to tackle in case of emergency, our backup tackles are…well, they weren’t very good yesterday. I’ll leave it at that.
Finally, here’s the unofficial tally of which quarterback played with the first and second team offenses yesterday — at least, during the first 11 series, until the annual 4th-string free-for-all broke out in the second half. Numbers are taken from yesterday’s Blue-White Live Blog post.
Blue (First-team offense)
Clark 4
Devlin 1
Cianciolo 0
White (Second-team offense)
Clark 0
Devlin 4
Cianciolo 2
Joe really dislikes Dave Jones.
I really like Jones, he has a set and not afraid of Joe.
Joe refuses to admit reality and not protecting his people…except Jay.
Re: HD Spread
On our way home from the game someone (name escapes me) was saying (I’m paraphrasing here) that they weren’t going to unveil the full “HD Spread” so as not to give “the whole world” a glimpse of what they’ve been working on.
I don’t entirely doubt that was part of the deal yesterday, but really, is this the kind of offensive coaching staff that should be trying to spring surprises upon opponents?
David Jones is the man
He had the guts to call out Joe, and I just love how Joe told us that it’s “our problem” in respect to the future of the Program.
And for someone that doesn’t read papers, Joe sure did pull out the “talk to another autonomous trustee” card fairly quickly.
Obviously the new (old?) offense is going to include more designed QB runs or read-option out of the shotgun. You think any of the coaches want to see Clark and Devlin hoofing it down the field on designed runs?
No.
Therefore, you get runs and short passes. Apparently, to the TE. A lot.
When in the history of the Blue White game have they deviated from that formula?
Re: Holding Back the Full Spread HD
Coastal Carolina will feel the full wrath of the PSU Spread HD Offense.
Book it!
Considering the effort the football marking people put into promoting the new offense, you’d think the coaching staff would at least try to put something semi-flashy out there.
Did Morelli actually get booed at half-time? That’s kinda messed up if he did.
Yea,
Morelli got booed bad. I know someone that was doing AV on the sidelines and they told me it was really loud and Morelli looked visibly upset when it happened
Morelli actually get booed hardd
http://www.games.hn/
The coaches were quoted that they ran no plays that couldn’t be found on film last 2 years. Derrick Williams was pestering the coaches to let him throw one and they let him, because they’ve run that a couple times.
Jones was great by calling Paterno out. He is an angry old man that putting himself and his idiot son above the university. He is going against everything that he ever represented. Maybe his name will be on the back of his shirt this year.
How could Morelli by that stupid to come back? He acted like a 5 year old most of last year, yet he gets upset when he gets booed? He really is a rock.
I feel bad for Morelli, I’m glad to be rid of him, but he’s still a human being. Isn’t anything bigger than sports?
I agree that getting booed is a bit much…
But if he just sucked and was not an a-hole he would not have been booed.
It’s a little messed up for my taste.
I understand booing Morelli because of his practice and post-game temper tantrums, but I don’t think too many people actually know about that stuff. It’s a tiny minority. That leaves the conclusion that they were booing him because of his performance, which shouldn’t happen as a general rule. Either was, what’s the point of booing the guy? What’s the purpose?
I was actually thinking about it earlier this afternoon, and wondered if Matt Senneca would’ve received the same treatment after his final year. There’s no way. Maybe that’s because it would’ve been a “forgive and forget” thing after Zack Mills played well. Who knows.
ZM was a warrior and same w/ Kevin Thompson. Those guys got killed but played hard and never complained…thats the differnece
@17
That’s why I praise Zach Mills so much now. He never complained…never about the crappy WRs…lack of a O-Line….or that his arm was totally shot
Morelli on the other hand
Senneca wouldn’t have been booed.
Green had a couple nice plays, but couldn’t run between the tackles for anything. Maybe the should put him in the slot or split him out wide.
Kick Returners will be Wallace and Green - no doubt.
Senneca wrote his thoughts for an article in The Collegian when walked away:
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2002/04/04-24-02tdc/04-24-02dsports-05.asp
For the love of god, can someone PLEASE provide the only update that matters:
Who won the white rapper contest?