The obviously starting point for Saturday's game is Jimmy Clausen, and while pundits who note it's hard to take much away from a game where he was limited by both the offensive playcalling and defensive expertise are somewhat right, I saw enough to be happy.  There were several times when he held onto the ball for too long, including the first sack of the day where simply stepping up in the pocket and delivering a strike to any of the open receivers (they all had separation to some degree, including a lonely John Carlson in the middle) would have warranted a first down, but these are correctable issues.  If our biggest problems from Clausen in a game starting against those linebackers in that atmosphere is a moderate case of happy feet in leaving the pocket too soon and a willingness to hold onto the ball instead of just throwing it away, I think that's a very good thing.

It got scary for young Jimmy at night, although he didn't let it show.

I was sure I'd find Penn State fans claiming that their "White House" had shaken Clausen into those numbers, but through my limited travels and running into some Nittany Lion fans walking out of the game, not one mentioned that, so kudos to them.  I was sure Clausen would either be completely calm or totally rattled, and he definitely maintained his composure through the majority of the game.  He was allowed to throw medium-to-deep only a few times, but the throws were there, finding Golden Tate on a play negated by holding (AGGGGH, offensive line) and bouncing it off the hands of both Duval Kamara and Robby Parris in the endzone, one of which deflected into Justin King's hands for the lone interception of the day.  All-in-all, a great start for Clausen, although now he must face the wounded animal of Michigan, with the only question being is the wound too severe for the animal to want to fight back, or just slight enough that it's really, really pissed now?

As far as the offensive line goes, another woeful performance, although in the first half they weren't helped by any of the tight ends or backs assigned to help protect.  On one first half sack on third down, Penn State brought both outside linebackers with John Carlson lined up next to Paul Duncan and Junior Jabbie sidecar left to Clausen.  Carlson just sort of flailed at what I'm assuming was his assigned man, while Jabbie immediately ran into the center of the line, perhaps waiting for a defensive tackle to break through that never came.  The blitzer that came flying by Sam Young, who was engaged with the defensive end, was essentially untouched, and despite Clausen's best efforts to get away, did not.

Of course, a lot of the poor protection and poor hole-making is the offensive line's fault.  There's no excuse for our starting left tackle to get called for false start after false start (What is this, Ryan Harris at Southern Cal?), or for the constant holding penalties (14 for 97 yards!) that continually screwed over the Irish in their quest for some sort of offensive momentum.  I think run-blocking might really be the worst, as on a lot of plays it looked like the line was doing some sort of zone blocking scheme where everyone just plunged forward.  Most of the time they didn't even make contact with the Penn State defenders, instead taking out patches of air that might contain spores or germs that could conceivably get our ball-carrier sick if he could ever reach that spot on the field (he could not, due to the unblocked tacklers filling the hole).    

The theme of the first two games of the Irish season.

During the second half Saturday, I wished Weis had pulled the old Coach K trick where just yanks everyone on the field, only in regards to the offensive line.  The most notable time I remember Duke's basketball team doing this was in the Jimmy V classic at the start of the 2001-2002 season, where despite having future NBA draft picks Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Jr., and Carlos Boozer on his team, Coach K just pulled them all because the game was going so poorly.  The subs actually held serve with the Kentucky Wildcats and when the starters returned, they were properly motivated to not suck.

Differences?  While you'd think John Sullivan and Young were the equivalents of future NBA draft picks, they have not shown that ability thus far.  Plus, do we even have five back-up offensive linemen?  Even if it was only for a play or two, can the five reserves be much worse than a negative total of rushing after two games and thirteen sacks allowed?  Weis and Latina have to do something, or as Rob said, at least one of them will be watching football with Rick Minter next season.

Truthfully, it might be Charlie Weis with his old friend Minter in a few seasons, because his apparent strength, playcalling, was atrocious on Saturday.  There's absolutely no reason - no reason! - to put in Travis Thomas when Armando Allen is helping to lead the team down the field.  I realized there were some slips and drops, but don't forget, that was his first collegiate start as well.  Thomas simply lacks a redeeming quality, as he doesn't hit the hole particularly hard and apparently his leadership skills are worthless, too, since he decided to attack a helmetless Penn State player.  Weis should take a stand and suspend Thomas for the rest of the season, one or two games for the terribly unsportsmanlike action and the rest of them for killing our offense every time he is in the game.

We also managed to not utilize John Carlson again, and on a third-and-one sweep toss to Thomas (DAMMIT), a team with four tight ends that see the field had D.J. Hord in to seal the outside, where he managed to both get flagged for holding and allow the Penn State defense to tackle Thomas well short of the mark.  If you ever want to see a play just go to hell, go watch that third and one.  The entire right side of the offensive line collapses, whether it be for some sort of sealing chop block or people just falling down, lead-blocker Asaph Schwapp manages to take out a potentially hazardous cloud of air and comes close to nothing else that resembles a Penn State player, Thomas doesn't commit to any particular hole and you can almost hear my wails of grief in the background as we lose any momentum gained from the first quarter.

I realize there are protection issues, but that's no excuse for the scant number of deep shots we've taken over the last two weeks.  The clear-cut sign of a punchless offense that's easy to defend is one that has every route ending within ten to fifteen yards of the line, meaning that the defense has far less ground to cover.  Ever think the running game would be more effective if the safeties actually had to worry about someone ever running behind them?  Penn State trusted Anthony Morelli to throw more deep balls in one game than Weis has allowed his quarterbacks to probe with in two!

I'm going to watch the Oregon/Michigan game again, but between Dennis Dixon using his legs as a lethal weapon and the sweet play-calling (a fake State of Liberty?  Genius!), they looked about a thousand times more fun to play for and to watch than the Irish, while Michigan was on their heels the entire game.  If Weis doesn't start in the spread hurry-up that he neglected to go to at the start of the second half last year against the Wolverines, despite the fact it worked in 2005 against them, was the most effective offense against Penn State the week before and had worked at the end of the half to make the score almost respectable, I will shake my head in disgust and, if not at the game, flip over to Rocky Top/Florida.

As far as the defense goes, not bad.  I think our pass defense is better than the last two seasons, but it's hard to tell because both Morelli and Taylor Bennett were rather limited in both chances and ability against them.  Corwin Brown's revamped secondary might make it all the way to Curtis Painter and Purdue at the end of the month before really getting a challenge, but after that the flood gates open with Ben Olson, Matt Ryan and John David Booty, so hopefully we can figure out if any sort of deep ball is a liability as it's been the last couple seasons.  As good as Darrin Walls' pick and return was, I'm hoping it doesn't stand as play of the year at the end of the season.

Our rush defense played well in the first half, holding Penn State to something like 33 yards, and then just got tired.  Poor offensive play-calling helped the cause, as Austin Scott was repeatedly directed to dive into the middle of the line instead of cutting it outside where Tashard Choice found most of his success.  Our linebackers just seem to be a step or two slow pursuing, meaning going to the inside against them is like letting your little brother get a shot-off in a game of pick-up after pretending to fall down just so he can feel good about himself.  If Michigan just runs power left - as bad as their rushing attack may have been against Oregon - I can't imagine our pursuit being good enough to bring down Mike Hart.

The Penn State fans around us at both the tailgate and game were nice, although I heard horror stories from around the parking lot to Irish fans wandering on their own.  Luckily, we had a massive tailgate set up at that warded off all but a couple advances from Penn State fans.  To aid our standing in the community, some idiot Nittany Lion fans from a row or two away were chucking eggs in our general direction, although they only seemed to ever make contact with the cars of their brethren.  This started a united front between us, the Penn State fans in our general area and the limited security presence in the parking lot to try to find who thought chucking eggs at a tailgate was a good idea.

One minor conflict arose early on Saturday, as we started the day with the waving of the American flag and a rousing rendition of the national anthem.  Upon completion, the large Penn State tailgate next to us broke into cheers of "We Are!  Penn State!" (the only non-"Zombie Nation" cheer in their repertoire), at which we responded "Are you cheering against America?!".  They were great neighbors the rest of the time, including laughing a little bit when a renegade group of PSU fans stopped by to (and I'm serious about this), jump up and down singing "Zombie Nation".  After they stopped, someone yelled from the top of our Suburban "Sing your fight song!", and while the confused looks on their faces might have lasted all day, we gave them reprieve by blasting "The Victory March" and showing them how a non-techno college fight song sounds.  

As far as their choice of t-shirts go, I'll leave it to Pete at BGS to describe them:

There was one for sale in a satellite bookstore that said, "I Don't Give a Notre Damn." Of course, if you're willing to see this shirt, hold it up to your torso for a size approximation, wait in line, and then trade in hard-earned cash for this product, it's pretty apparent you sure do give a Notre Damn.

But the one that stuck out most to me was the one that read, "You May Have Jesus, But We Have JoePa." This should give you some sense of scale when it comes to discussing a Penn State fan's love of their Ensure-fueled head coach. Not only was the shirt claiming that Joe Paterno was equal to Jesus Christ, but also that the fan thinks he got the better end of the deal.

Friday night in State College was a blast, as there are loads of lovely ladies that attend PSU and a bunch of bars and pizza places to frequent, although the lines for all of them were absurdly long from early evening on.  I also got my favorite fraternity stereotype confirmed during our late afternoon walk to grab dinner on Beaver Avenue, as it was complemented by the brothers blasting Dave Matthews.  I'm glad there's no Jumbotron at Notre Dame and I'm glad there are is no Greek life.

All in all, a great trip.  Darrin Walls gave us all hope for that game while Jimmy Clausen gave us some hope for the future.  Penn State has a good chance at winning the Big Integer, as any disadvantages they have (Morelli) are reflected across the rest of the "favorites", although I really feel like if we played them in late November, it would be a toss-up.  Still, they did the things you have to do to win a football game - stuff the run, sack the quarterback, run run run the ball and make a special teams play or two - and I tip my hat to them, the tailgating and Beaver Stadium.  The entire crowd white-out was a sight to see, although the crowd itself was not nearly as loud as it was for Nebraska 2002 or Ohio State 2005.