Link: https://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2019/01/penn_state_big_ten_football_20.html
Penn State and Big Ten football: 11 thoughts on James Franklin, the Lions and their conference foes in 2019
by David Jones, Penn Live
1. How the West has won bowl season while the East mostly fell flat
Can we please stop with how imbalanced the B1G divisions are and how a realignment is not only needed but inevitable? I think neither is necessarily the case.
In 2018 conference play, the East was a single game over .500 (and, of course, the West was a game under). The Big Ten championship was a 31-24 game with 10 minutes left before Ohio State scored two late TDs on Northwestern to ice it.
And in bowl competition, the West was 4-1, highlighted by two wins over ranked teams (#22 Northwestern over #17 Utah and Iowa over #18 Mississippi State), while the East was 1-3 including two upset losses (by Michigan to Florida and Penn State to Kentucky).
While the East unquestionably is better at the top for the moment, it certainly is weaker at the bottom with Rutgers making no progress and Maryland possibly in freefall in the wake of the Jordan McNair tragedy and subsequent fiasco. Meanwhile, the West promises to progress with Purdue hanging onto Jeff Brohm, Nebraska gaining traction late under Scott Frost and Northwestern at an apex as Pat Fitzgerald has spurned a reported overture from the Green Bay Packers.
2. But if the B1G does realign, a NE/SW configuration is the way to go
If you are someone who needs a big dog in each division, then, fine, there is a way to orient the divisions. I've written this before and it might be where the conference ends up eventually. You herd the divisions roughly into those that are around water and those that aren't. It's the Lakes Division and the Plains Division. It's the only way to balance competitively and still retain a geographic flavor that heightens rivalry.
Lakes: Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers, Wisconsin
Plains: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Ohio State, Purdue
Jim Delany actually sort of backhand mocked this idea when the league was still attempting to prop up the legendarily stupid Leaders and Legends concept. Now that people continue to carp about the fact that the East is dominating the B1G championship game (though not inter-divisional competition), maybe this is the way it will end up. Which would be funny.
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5. Is college football becoming permanently regional?
I remember hearing back around 2010 that the recent binge of national titles for the Southeast U.S. was merely cyclical, that the Midwest and West would eventually re-assert and all would be well with the college football world.
Well, not only is that not happening, the southeast quadrant of the U.S. has become more dominant than ever with no signs of abatement. Clemson and Alabama are about to battle for the national championship for the third time in four seasons. The only hiccup in that string was Georgia, another school in the quadrant, last year.
USC and Oregon have significantly regressed, as has the entire Pac-12. Ohio State just lost its generational coach and hasn't been a CFP factor since 2015. Nobody else in the Big Ten has made a dent nationally. The Big 12 did well this year, but doesn't Oklahoma pretty much fit into that Southeast quadrant, even though it plays in a Great Plains conference?
And the preeminent talent stock of the nation remains centered around the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas and all the Deep South states in between. That's basically the SEC footprint.
Moreover, I don't see the passion for high school football in other regions of the country as I do in the Southeast -- from Texas through Louisiana and all the way to Georgia and South Carolina and Florida.
While the game is holding steady there, I don't think it's ever returning to the status in, say, Ohio or Pennsylvania or California that it once held. Those are critical strongholds for Big Ten and Pac-12 football and for those leagues to compete with the SEC, they have to deliver talent.
You can blame concerns over concussions on some of that. You can also blame shifting demographics. Football attendance is way down and it's not just because of bad weather. It's a cultural shift away from the sport. I don't think it's cyclical.
6. Kirk Ferentz is becoming the Roy Williams tearjerker of college football
Or maybe he’s the Dick Vermeil. Anyway, the man is crying more the older he gets. And it’s actually pretty cool. Now 63, it seems as if age and passing milestones have opened the taps on Ferentz’s tear ducts, especially this year. Maybe his emotion is easier to access. He’s always been quick to tear up, but it could be something about gratitude that only someone who’s been around can appreciate.
Anyway, when former walk-on receiver Nick Easley was named most valuable player of the Outback Bowl after Iowa’s 27-22 win over Mississippi State, the Newton, Iowa native paid tribute to Ferentz for believing in him and for his genuine qualities – that what you see is what you get. That caused another gusher from Ferentz who broke down as he waited off to the side of the podium.
Ferentz is the perfect dean of Big Ten coaches, a good guy who’s in the business for the right reasons. As some old ballcap-n-whistle guy once told me: “Some guys love to coach. And some guys love to be the coach.” Ferentz is the former. That has always been apparent since he first showed up as a head coach back at the turn of the century.
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8. Quarterback quality in the B1G needs a boost
With Trace McSorley, Purdue's David Blough and very likely Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins moving on, who will carry the mantle for next break-out quarterback in the Big Ten? Is anyone even above ordinary in a league top-heavy with white-bread game managers? These days, you'd better either be spectacular as a pocket passer, or you need to be good and versatile at both dual-threat disciplines.
At one point, I thought that man might be Maryland's Kasim Hill. But amid Matt Canada's understandably pared-down playbook, Hill really never developed his skill at reading defenses and hitting precise throws.
Instead, I expect the next B1G star QB to be Nebraska's Adrian Martinez. Nobody impressed more during the season's final two months. He has an experienced quarterback mentor in Scott Frost. He has a sturdy 6-2, 220-pound frame. And he can both run and throw with equal aplomb.
9. What about two levels of targeting?
A former coach friend came up with this idea and I love it: What if college football instituted two different types of targeting penalties, something like the Flagrant-1 and Flagrant-2 technical fouls in college basketball?
The reason? There’s a difference between a purposeful attempt to target the head area and an accidental split-second mistake. Ball-carrier’s heads sometimes move. There are instances where there’s no way a defender can alter his body momentum that quickly. One would be only a 15-yard penalty. One’s the 15, plus an ejection, as currently. It’s basically a yellow card and a red card.
To those who might say, “How do you define intent?” I would just say officials usually know it when they see it. And if there’s any doubt, hold off on the ejection. There are too many players being thumbed for targeting that’s neither purposeful nor avoidable. On the other hand, anything judged intentional should leave the door open for further suspension from the league office.
10. When will Jim Harbaugh's offense find some identity?
What is Michigan trying to be exactly? That’s a question after four years of watching Harbaugh’s offense that I believe is still open. Is U-of-M supposed to be Wisconsin? Then, it might be time for Michigan to develop dominant O-linemen, stockpile some big nasty backs and tight ends and do it.
It’s one thing to be multiple, it’s another to be average at a lot of things. And right now, Harbaugh’s offense is average at everything. It tries to go jumbo a lot but isn’t all that powerful doing so. It dabbled with zone-read stuff this year with Shea Patterson but wasn’t committed to it. And when the Wolverines got in big games this season – Notre Dame, Ohio State, Florida – they had nothing to hang their hats on.
I think Harbaugh is finding it tougher to achieve the big-boy-football model he did at Stanford, where the Cardinal was a total outlier in a finesse/speed-based Pac-12. It was a lot easier to do there, especially with a QB like Andrew Luck.
11. Pat Fitzgerald is B1G Coach of the Year, maybe every year
Trey Klock is the perfect Northwestern player. He is the kind of kid around which Pat Fitzgerald has built more than a good football program but a culture of doing more with less. Klock transferred two years ago as a graduate after starting at offensive tackle for Georgia Tech. He was looking to both retain two years of eligibility and get some serious academics done. He wanted to get his MBA and originally was looking for a Patriot League school until he learned that FCS colleges don’t deal in grad transfers.
So, Klock, who played tight end at Lower Dauphin and whose dad Rob was head coach there, found a perfect fit in the Big Ten’s only private school, the prestigious academic institution that once just happened to also have a football team until Gary Barnett’s mid-‘90s teams led by linebacker Fitzgerald changed all that.
Barnett’s 1993-96 teams took average talents with big hearts, turned them into players and went 15-1 the last two years in the Big Ten. I don’t know if Fitzgerald can ever match that as a coach. But the Big Ten recruiting rankings, which consistently list NU in the bottom fourth of the league annually, prove Fitzgerald is doing wonders with kids like Trey Klock.
In the Wildcats’ improbable and thoroughly stunning comeback to beat Utah 31-20 in the Holiday Bowl, they proved again how much they love to play for Fitzgerald. No team hangs in games, or in seasons, after bad starts like the Cats. And late in the third quarter, the 6-4, 290-pound Klock declared himself eligible and hung around for a play. Then he broke from his left tackle spot unnoticed by the snookered Utes to catch Clayton Thorson’s pass and rumble/stumble (literally) into the end zone for the 20-yard go-ahead score.
Said Thorson afterward, tongue deeply in cheek: “We just had to get the ball to a playmaker.”
Penn State and Big Ten football: 11 thoughts on James Franklin, the Lions and their conference foes in 2019
by David Jones, Penn Live
1. How the West has won bowl season while the East mostly fell flat
Can we please stop with how imbalanced the B1G divisions are and how a realignment is not only needed but inevitable? I think neither is necessarily the case.
In 2018 conference play, the East was a single game over .500 (and, of course, the West was a game under). The Big Ten championship was a 31-24 game with 10 minutes left before Ohio State scored two late TDs on Northwestern to ice it.
And in bowl competition, the West was 4-1, highlighted by two wins over ranked teams (#22 Northwestern over #17 Utah and Iowa over #18 Mississippi State), while the East was 1-3 including two upset losses (by Michigan to Florida and Penn State to Kentucky).
While the East unquestionably is better at the top for the moment, it certainly is weaker at the bottom with Rutgers making no progress and Maryland possibly in freefall in the wake of the Jordan McNair tragedy and subsequent fiasco. Meanwhile, the West promises to progress with Purdue hanging onto Jeff Brohm, Nebraska gaining traction late under Scott Frost and Northwestern at an apex as Pat Fitzgerald has spurned a reported overture from the Green Bay Packers.
2. But if the B1G does realign, a NE/SW configuration is the way to go
If you are someone who needs a big dog in each division, then, fine, there is a way to orient the divisions. I've written this before and it might be where the conference ends up eventually. You herd the divisions roughly into those that are around water and those that aren't. It's the Lakes Division and the Plains Division. It's the only way to balance competitively and still retain a geographic flavor that heightens rivalry.
Lakes: Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers, Wisconsin
Plains: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Ohio State, Purdue
Jim Delany actually sort of backhand mocked this idea when the league was still attempting to prop up the legendarily stupid Leaders and Legends concept. Now that people continue to carp about the fact that the East is dominating the B1G championship game (though not inter-divisional competition), maybe this is the way it will end up. Which would be funny.
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5. Is college football becoming permanently regional?
I remember hearing back around 2010 that the recent binge of national titles for the Southeast U.S. was merely cyclical, that the Midwest and West would eventually re-assert and all would be well with the college football world.
Well, not only is that not happening, the southeast quadrant of the U.S. has become more dominant than ever with no signs of abatement. Clemson and Alabama are about to battle for the national championship for the third time in four seasons. The only hiccup in that string was Georgia, another school in the quadrant, last year.
USC and Oregon have significantly regressed, as has the entire Pac-12. Ohio State just lost its generational coach and hasn't been a CFP factor since 2015. Nobody else in the Big Ten has made a dent nationally. The Big 12 did well this year, but doesn't Oklahoma pretty much fit into that Southeast quadrant, even though it plays in a Great Plains conference?
And the preeminent talent stock of the nation remains centered around the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas and all the Deep South states in between. That's basically the SEC footprint.
Moreover, I don't see the passion for high school football in other regions of the country as I do in the Southeast -- from Texas through Louisiana and all the way to Georgia and South Carolina and Florida.
While the game is holding steady there, I don't think it's ever returning to the status in, say, Ohio or Pennsylvania or California that it once held. Those are critical strongholds for Big Ten and Pac-12 football and for those leagues to compete with the SEC, they have to deliver talent.
You can blame concerns over concussions on some of that. You can also blame shifting demographics. Football attendance is way down and it's not just because of bad weather. It's a cultural shift away from the sport. I don't think it's cyclical.
6. Kirk Ferentz is becoming the Roy Williams tearjerker of college football
Or maybe he’s the Dick Vermeil. Anyway, the man is crying more the older he gets. And it’s actually pretty cool. Now 63, it seems as if age and passing milestones have opened the taps on Ferentz’s tear ducts, especially this year. Maybe his emotion is easier to access. He’s always been quick to tear up, but it could be something about gratitude that only someone who’s been around can appreciate.
Anyway, when former walk-on receiver Nick Easley was named most valuable player of the Outback Bowl after Iowa’s 27-22 win over Mississippi State, the Newton, Iowa native paid tribute to Ferentz for believing in him and for his genuine qualities – that what you see is what you get. That caused another gusher from Ferentz who broke down as he waited off to the side of the podium.
Ferentz is the perfect dean of Big Ten coaches, a good guy who’s in the business for the right reasons. As some old ballcap-n-whistle guy once told me: “Some guys love to coach. And some guys love to be the coach.” Ferentz is the former. That has always been apparent since he first showed up as a head coach back at the turn of the century.
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8. Quarterback quality in the B1G needs a boost
With Trace McSorley, Purdue's David Blough and very likely Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins moving on, who will carry the mantle for next break-out quarterback in the Big Ten? Is anyone even above ordinary in a league top-heavy with white-bread game managers? These days, you'd better either be spectacular as a pocket passer, or you need to be good and versatile at both dual-threat disciplines.
At one point, I thought that man might be Maryland's Kasim Hill. But amid Matt Canada's understandably pared-down playbook, Hill really never developed his skill at reading defenses and hitting precise throws.
Instead, I expect the next B1G star QB to be Nebraska's Adrian Martinez. Nobody impressed more during the season's final two months. He has an experienced quarterback mentor in Scott Frost. He has a sturdy 6-2, 220-pound frame. And he can both run and throw with equal aplomb.
9. What about two levels of targeting?
A former coach friend came up with this idea and I love it: What if college football instituted two different types of targeting penalties, something like the Flagrant-1 and Flagrant-2 technical fouls in college basketball?
The reason? There’s a difference between a purposeful attempt to target the head area and an accidental split-second mistake. Ball-carrier’s heads sometimes move. There are instances where there’s no way a defender can alter his body momentum that quickly. One would be only a 15-yard penalty. One’s the 15, plus an ejection, as currently. It’s basically a yellow card and a red card.
To those who might say, “How do you define intent?” I would just say officials usually know it when they see it. And if there’s any doubt, hold off on the ejection. There are too many players being thumbed for targeting that’s neither purposeful nor avoidable. On the other hand, anything judged intentional should leave the door open for further suspension from the league office.
10. When will Jim Harbaugh's offense find some identity?
What is Michigan trying to be exactly? That’s a question after four years of watching Harbaugh’s offense that I believe is still open. Is U-of-M supposed to be Wisconsin? Then, it might be time for Michigan to develop dominant O-linemen, stockpile some big nasty backs and tight ends and do it.
It’s one thing to be multiple, it’s another to be average at a lot of things. And right now, Harbaugh’s offense is average at everything. It tries to go jumbo a lot but isn’t all that powerful doing so. It dabbled with zone-read stuff this year with Shea Patterson but wasn’t committed to it. And when the Wolverines got in big games this season – Notre Dame, Ohio State, Florida – they had nothing to hang their hats on.
I think Harbaugh is finding it tougher to achieve the big-boy-football model he did at Stanford, where the Cardinal was a total outlier in a finesse/speed-based Pac-12. It was a lot easier to do there, especially with a QB like Andrew Luck.
11. Pat Fitzgerald is B1G Coach of the Year, maybe every year
Trey Klock is the perfect Northwestern player. He is the kind of kid around which Pat Fitzgerald has built more than a good football program but a culture of doing more with less. Klock transferred two years ago as a graduate after starting at offensive tackle for Georgia Tech. He was looking to both retain two years of eligibility and get some serious academics done. He wanted to get his MBA and originally was looking for a Patriot League school until he learned that FCS colleges don’t deal in grad transfers.
So, Klock, who played tight end at Lower Dauphin and whose dad Rob was head coach there, found a perfect fit in the Big Ten’s only private school, the prestigious academic institution that once just happened to also have a football team until Gary Barnett’s mid-‘90s teams led by linebacker Fitzgerald changed all that.
Barnett’s 1993-96 teams took average talents with big hearts, turned them into players and went 15-1 the last two years in the Big Ten. I don’t know if Fitzgerald can ever match that as a coach. But the Big Ten recruiting rankings, which consistently list NU in the bottom fourth of the league annually, prove Fitzgerald is doing wonders with kids like Trey Klock.
In the Wildcats’ improbable and thoroughly stunning comeback to beat Utah 31-20 in the Holiday Bowl, they proved again how much they love to play for Fitzgerald. No team hangs in games, or in seasons, after bad starts like the Cats. And late in the third quarter, the 6-4, 290-pound Klock declared himself eligible and hung around for a play. Then he broke from his left tackle spot unnoticed by the snookered Utes to catch Clayton Thorson’s pass and rumble/stumble (literally) into the end zone for the 20-yard go-ahead score.
Said Thorson afterward, tongue deeply in cheek: “We just had to get the ball to a playmaker.”
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