While many of us were watching Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M pull of an exciting comeback against Duke in the Chik-Fil-a Bowl, news broke that Bill O'Brien would be leaving Penn St to take the head coaching job of the Houston Texans. Of course, this will bring out all of the Twitter tough guys to talk trash about O'Brien. We will also probably see several Penn St reporters talking about how he lied to the kids and how much he just hurt the program. The truth is every Penn St fan should be thanking Bill O'Brien for the time he spent there.
When Penn St set out to to replace Joe Paterno, they didn't have many good options. They couldn't risk hiring anyone with a negative track record because of the negative attention already on the program. There also wasn't a long list of big name candidates jumping to take the job. No one wanted to be associated with the mess that was Penn St and the uncertain penalties that were going to be coming from the NCAA. Current players and recruits were expected to jump ship. A 20 scholarship per year penalty and a 4 year bowl ban was enough to send Penn St into a period of awful football for some time.
In stepped Bill O'Brien. He calmed the storm by convincing most of the players to stay at Penn St, and set the team up for the future by convincing top recruits to come to Penn St even though they wouldn't be able to play in a post season game until they were upperclassmen. Filling the cupboards with as much talent as he could find was a huge benefit to the program. Pulling off an 8-4 record in his first season was just icing on the cake.
This year was a relatively quiet year for Penn St, which I think is a good thing. After being everywhere in the news last year for negative stories, or stories related to negative events, the coverage of PSU this year was based on football. I don't expect Penn St. fans to be excited about 7-5 seasons, but they were moving in the right direction. Hackenberg got a lot of experience, the program was able to get their scholarship limitations reduced, and O'Brien was working on another great recruiting class.
How many of the recruits will stay? I expect chances are most of them will. They will probably lose a few, depending on who the new coach is, but it will still end up being a really good recruiting class. More importantly, I think the two seasons Bill O'Brien coached at PSU opens the job up to a much better class of coaches. The next coach isn't following a legend (Joe Paterno). The next coach isn't following a nightmare situation. The next coach isn't dealing with tremendous uncertainty of sanctions. O'Brien took all of that, and leaves Penn State's football program in a much better place than when he started. For that, Penn St fans owe Bill O'Brien a tremendous thank you.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Outback Bowl: Hawkeyes vs LSU 1/1/14
Happy New Year! Who isn't pumped to see if Iowa can start off the new year right? Iowa is 3-1 against SEC teams in Bowl games under Kirk Ferentz (4-1 if you count Missouri). Is it an issue of SEC teams looking past Iowa or Iowa being underrated? Probably both, but I'm expecting another good game today.
On offense, I don't think any one RB is going to get 15 carries. Instead, we are going to see a heavy Weisman, Bullock, Canzeri rotation for most of the game and it's going to be very effective. Iowa is going to take a lead early in this game and try and run the ball for 3 quarters, amassing almost 200 yards rushing. The surprise of the game though is going to be the emergence of Damond Powell. With the weeks of practice leading up to the bowl, coaches are going to be very comfortable with Damond's offensive awareness. I see him getting 3 or 4 receptions and over 100 yards receiving, a feat only accomplished once this year (Jake Duzey vs Ohio St). Jake Rudock is going to have a safe game, completing 75% of his passes and avoiding any turnovers.
On defense, we are going to see just how good the this Iowa team is. The front seven is going to shut down Jeremy Hill. LSU will be held under 100 yards rushing. Anthony Hitchens will be everywhere and will be a surprise pick for MVP of the game. LSU will get put up some passing yards as they try desperately to catch up, but it won't be enough.
Final score: Iowa 31, LSU 17.
On offense, I don't think any one RB is going to get 15 carries. Instead, we are going to see a heavy Weisman, Bullock, Canzeri rotation for most of the game and it's going to be very effective. Iowa is going to take a lead early in this game and try and run the ball for 3 quarters, amassing almost 200 yards rushing. The surprise of the game though is going to be the emergence of Damond Powell. With the weeks of practice leading up to the bowl, coaches are going to be very comfortable with Damond's offensive awareness. I see him getting 3 or 4 receptions and over 100 yards receiving, a feat only accomplished once this year (Jake Duzey vs Ohio St). Jake Rudock is going to have a safe game, completing 75% of his passes and avoiding any turnovers.
On defense, we are going to see just how good the this Iowa team is. The front seven is going to shut down Jeremy Hill. LSU will be held under 100 yards rushing. Anthony Hitchens will be everywhere and will be a surprise pick for MVP of the game. LSU will get put up some passing yards as they try desperately to catch up, but it won't be enough.
Final score: Iowa 31, LSU 17.
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