SB Nation User Blog: Kevin HD

Inside, Outside: Playing Thin and Bullies In High Places

Kevin HD — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:50:01 -0000

Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman explains to the
rest of us how we just don't get it, man. (AP Photo)

Somehow, "72 64 days until football" seems like a very short time, but it's still ten full weeks until Penn State takes the field against Akron. Either way, football will be dominating every aspect of our lives before we know it, so it's time for your trusty BSD writers to pick at some issues that will not only impact Penn State, but the college football world at large. It's a little something we'll call Inside, Outside.

Inside: Despite the title of 'Linebacker U", Penn State has been just as successful at performing on the defensive line. However, with Evans and Project Mayhem now NFLin', plus additional injuries, is the defensive line a weakness in 2009? And how thin is Penn State at the position, anyway?

RUTS: Pretty damned thin, L.J. Sr.'s unbelievable coaching success notwithstanding. We're not "Defensive Line U" quite yet, but it's hard to argue with the results of the past 5-10 years. For 2009, however, things may be difficult. Jack Crawford is apparently on his way to being the next great Penn State defensive end, but he played very sparingly in 2008 (and didn't always look so great, although he was frequently lined up at DT). His backup appears to be Pete Massaro, who also has next to no experience or not. On the other side, we have Kevion Latham and Eric Lattimore. By the way, if you are asked which of these four players had the only QB sack in 2008, the correct answer is Lattimore. Basically, these four players have done absolutely nothing so far at Penn State. Harsh, but true. Lattimore had seven tackles in '08. Crawford, four. This...this is not good, which is why we're really going to have to count on the returning Jerome Hayes, he of the multiple ACL surgeries. If he can provide some speed from the edge, Penn State might be fine. Otherwise, our only hope is that our defensive tackles are so dominant that offensive lines will have to pinch down to protect against Odrick, Koroma, et. al. and leave guys like Crawford and Lattimore to fight against only the offensive tackle.

I suppose it's not completely out of the realm of possibility to have a Tim Shaw stand-up DE player in the mix (really, that's Hayes, but someone like Nate Stupar or Bani Gbadyu might be useful on third downs). Otherwise, perhaps you'll see occasionally see one of those jumbo defensive lines with a natural DT lined up at DE. Either way, this isn't an ideal situation.

Kevin: The question probably goes too far, but with the success of guys like Alford and Hali, along with the high draft status of guys like Maybin, it's no wonder we were all sweating bullets back in January.

History aside, my preliminary set of worries probably starts with the dline, specifically the ends. The inside appears to be on track, with Odrick and Ogbu back in front of Still and Koroma, but the outside looks unfamiliar at best.

I am most concerned because I don't want our All-World linebacking corp having to deal with a bad line. If the holes don't get filled it's not going to let these guys attack the ball the way they know best, and from there things could get ugly.

Outside: Despite being the new kid on the block, Penn State (depending on your opinion) either had the privilege or was forced to bear the burden of playing The Granddaddy this past January. With those thoughts in mind, how seriously do you take this threat from Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman: "What I think most people don’t understand is that the alternative to the current system is not a playoff. The alternative to the BCS is going back to our traditional relationship with our bowl partners."

Kevin: My initial reaction is "yeah, screw it", I don't have anything vested in the new system and I sure as hell hate the politics that go down at the end of the season. You could argue that the voters actually have much more control than ever, especially the coaches who now want to pull the veil back over their ballots. And now that teams like Auburn of old and more recently Texas have felt the burn, who really loves this new system, anyway?

The only problem is that I'm not that crazy about the Rose Bowl under current conditions. USC is (repeatedly) the only team in the nation with negative odds to win their conference, and it's taking the fun out of it. The players complain about having to play in the Rose Bowl every year, well I'm complaining about having to watch them play in the Bose Bowl every year because they forgot to show up against Stanford.

So to answer the question: the threat is indeed hallow, and frankly I'm not sure there is much of a difference between the two systems.

RUTS: Hell, I welcome it. At least we kind of knew what we were getting in that system and didn't have to put up with all of this non-stop lobbying at the end of the season by coaches, media, and conference commissioners. If the SEC champion is automatically sent to the Sugar Bowl, great. Put the ACC in the Orange Bowl, the Big 12 in the Fiesta Bowl, and the Big Ten and Pac Ten in the Rose Bowl (I'd prefer Tempe, but it'll never happen). Oh, and the Big East can have the Meineke Car Care Bowl. Okay, the Gator Bowl, but that's as far as I'm going. And when the bowls all shake out, maybe then we could have a plus-one game for the national championship. I don't know how how serious Harvey Perlman was when he suggested it, but what the hell, it could possibly warrant more than 45 seconds of consideration.

Nitt Picks Will Not Take Those Odds

Kevin HD — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:57:45 -0000

The new Heisman Pose? Probably not.

I didn't know they still gave that thing out. The Big Ten Bloggers voted in the unorganized, haphazardly way you would expect. LTP tallied the results, and the main talking point seems to be this:

Heisman Hopeful: Terrelle Pryor
Yes, I know, not much of a shock here. However, as BHGP so eloquently pointed out in his unsolicited essay responses, "This can only go to an offensive skill position player on a high-level team upon whom his team depends at a surreal rate. This necessarily excludes all players but two: Pryor and Royster." It is scary to think we all had the same thought and the ballot box was almost unanimously either Pryor or Penn State's Evan Royster. The only non-Royster/Pryor ballot came from Enlightened Spartan who cast a lot for Juice Williams.

I would argue that Royster doesn't actually qualify; Green gets way too many carries for the former lacrosse player [/you've been espn'd!] to even get a mention.

I like this because it tells me everything I already knew about the Heisman: Clark was named first team All-Big Ten and didn't share snaps in his bowl game, yet he's a distant inclusion and not even BTBers vote getter. Cue the June Heisman odds.

June Heisman odds. If there is one thing this humble sports gambler will never bet on it's Heisman odds in June. I would argue that, despite the defined purpose of the award, a player's "outstandingness" makes up about 7% of what it takes to win the thing, and therefore predicting who will win is a foolish exercise, weighted to screw the better anyway.

But don't tell Ohio State fans that:

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks Terrelle Pryor has a more than legitimate shot at the 2009 Heisman Trophy.

The odds for college football's most prestigious individual award have started to be released and Pryor is gaining some respect on a lot of sites around the net. BetUs.com and Sportbet.com have Pryor fourth on their list at +800 and +700 respectively....

A couple of things:

Pryor is fourth on the list but also at three to four times the odds of the first three guys.
His coaches thought so much of him last January that they gave the backup half the passing attempts against Texas. The backup was also nearly twice as efficient with his throws.
The backup was not a Heisman candidate.
Before you start: everyone looks good in their spring game, especially quarterbacks.
This thing will always be a popularity contest, and Ohio State fans have to have someone to bet on.

11W goes on to list five things he needs to do to pass the front-runners, which, like, if anyone were to beat USC, put up "Nintendo Numbers", and play for a team in MNC contention they would be giving a December speech in NYC. That list is much less a Terrelle Pryor Checklist and much more a Heisman Trophy Formula. And a good one at that.

Backhanded jokes. OMG Four-star DE Dakota Royer did one of those interviews with the local paper where he lists his finalists and then gives little clips where he says the best thing he can about each one. Penn State was "nice", and the best he had for the also-finalist Wannstedters?

Pitt — "It's pretty cool that the Steelers are right there."

Seriously. I didn't make that up.

More in Schadenfreude. I received an email notification about a comment left on Derrick Williams' Wiscy TD return, and, well, long live the bottom line!

It's like some type of awesome time capsule.

Nitt Picks Is Sold Out

Kevin HD — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:13:54 -0000

Tickets. With the shift from paper tickets to virtual ones, there was destined to be a bit of a drop off as the ebay crowd was gotten rid of. And while we've gone over the lackluster non-conference schedule here in detail, it's worth pointing out that the former scalper-types could have gotten more than their money back out of the Ohio State game alone. Throw in the Iowa revenge match-up and it's not a bad package.

Anyway, it was slower this year but corner seating is now unavailable. There was this interesting chest-puffing line from GoPSUSports:

The nation's largest full-season student section in college sports again will be filled to capacity in 2009.

It makes me curious what a "full-season student section" is, although I can guess. I suspect it's to differentiate from the Ohio State system, which is much more lame. Buying "Student Tickets" means tickets to every game as long as they are these five:

vs. Illinois
vs. Wisconsin
vs. Minnesota
vs. New Mexico State
vs. Iowa

A list that is clearly missing USC, although Trojan tickets still appear to be available in a much more limited number to students.

Over-rated Linebackers BEGONE. WWAHT details this year's version of the Ohio State linebacking corps, and you know Penn State's group is going to be special when even Buckeyes are saying things like:

Overall, there is nothing to suggest that this unit will be anything other than a solid Big Ten linebacking corps, perhaps even good enough to be the 2nd best in the conference behind Penn State's dynamite group.

So Woo Wooo LBU and all that. It's actually a great breakdown, although I couldn't help but snicker a bit at this:

So how do I expect the group to differ from last year's? Well, Laurinaitis and Freeman were legends, so a bit of a drop-off is inevitable.

Freeman was a good athlete but didn't go until the 5th round, but I still scratch my head at the glorification of James Laurinaitis. Plus gold like this only comes around once in a James Laurinaitis solo tackle, so I'm going to use this as another excuse to link it.

We'll talk about this more but, yeah, the PSU linebacking corps is going to be awesome this year.

(NIT) National Champions. The Banner in all of its glory:

C&C via TwitPic

In Scores Of Other Games....JayPa is talking offensive trash.

Big Ten Announces Game Times and Stations, Suggests Buying Louder Alarm Clock

Kevin HD — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:27:48 -0000

Big Ten Announces Game Times and Stations, Suggests Buying Louder Alarm Clock

Your schedule and network for the first three weeks of the 2009 football season:

9/05/09 - Akron at Penn State, Big Ten Network, Noon ET
9/12/09 - Syracuse at Penn State, Big Ten Network, Noon ET
9/19/09 - Temple at PENN STATE, Big Ten Network, Noon ET

Yes that's three weeks, all noon starts, all BTN specials. And thanks again, Syracuse, for all your hard work...

Nitt Picks Is The Youngest Evah

Kevin HD — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:54:45 -0000

But first, this old drum. SN is in the middle of one of those great conference-by-conference lists that will give you literally weeks of material. Penn State was naturally 11th on the Big Ten SOS ranking,which is fine, but I'm mostly concerned with how he blurs lines in the rest of the article:

There's this little problem with a soft nonconference schedule: It only amps up expectations.

Case in point: Penn State. The Lions' non-con schedule is the weakest in the Big Ten, and the league schedule includes the other two top teams in the league (Ohio State and Iowa) visiting Happy Valley.

The concept behind this is 180 degrees wrong. Is anyone here really excited because of the schedule? If anything I think it deters from the season because, no mater talented the players may be, the story won't be the team but rather the schedule and how awful it is.

It's a failure to understand this point that will forever make media polls stupid.

And along the same lines:

I keep hearing about a step back for Wisconsin. Look at the non-con schedule—and how the league's rotating schedule is overly kind to the Badgers—and Wisconsin could be playing for yet another 10-win season in a bowl game. Northern Illinois, Fresno State, Wofford and at Hawaii are four winnable games, and athletic Penn State and Illinois aren't on the schedule. Three of the four toughest league games—Michigan State, Iowa, Michigan—are in Camp Randall.

Missing Penn State and Illinois don't make you a better football team. We have actually gotten to the point where we think the pollsters are so stupid, though, that people at SN can write columns talking about how you better look out for Team A because they play Wofford and not because they might actually have, like, a talented football team this year.

Penn State Turfgrass Rules. Local sports network MASN interviewed the heads groundskeeper at Nationals Park, who happens to be the youngest in Major League Baseball at age 26, and what was the first thing they talked about?

Interviewer: Now you did play college football under Joe Paterno at Penn State, that's gotta help you lead these guy out there on the field [as in the grounds crew on the baseball field -ed].

John Royse: That's correct I played for Joe Pa for four and a half years. Just listening to him every day really helped me be mature and be a leader to the guys.

Awesome.

The video isn't embedable but to better understand why our turf grass program is better than your turf grass program check out the rest of the interview.

While we're at it. As certified by JayTweet, "the nations newest law school building", which by now should have fully shed its brick skin.

The hardest evah. C&C backed into discovering another member of Penn State's basketball schedule: the Big South's Gardner-Webb. He's got the numbers for you, a nice review of the rest of the schedule, and this good news:

[The 2009-2010 schedule] will probably be DeChellis’ toughest in his 7 years here.

Which isn't necessarily good news but I suppose isn't necessarily bad news either.

In Scores of Other Games: Minnesota may have to get drunk before the game like the rest of us...it's Birthday Week at LTP...and ladies and gentleman, the Man Wall.

Almost Heaven?

Kevin HD — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:53:19 -0000

Grottoes, Virginia

Just A Friendly Phone CaLOL.

Kevin HD — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:49:11 -0000

Just A Friendly Phone CaLOL.

It's funny because we wish it was true.

Blogfightin' The Rock

Kevin HD — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:47:26 -0000

We are apparently throwing lacrosse mud.

I took off on a trip Thursday, but before I did I wrote about Penn State’s newest lacrosse recruits and apparently hurt some feelings.

A Michigan blogger went on a thousand word rank about how Bill Plaschke I am but provided almost nothing in the way of links or even accurate statements. The whole spark of last week’s post was to call out BWI for a comment that was no where close to true about the Brother Rice (MI) High School lacrosse team. The spark of his whole post was that I was right:

So the Warriors didn’t finish this year #1 in the nation. BWI regrets the error, since the #1 ranking for Rice was not this year, but last year. And the year before. And the year before that. Yes, until this year, Rice was 3-years running considered the best lacrosse team in the nation. BSD: "Geekness aside: only historians in the great state of Alabama would ever consider Brother Rice a national champion."

On what planet did this happen?

Other than this self promoting, unreferenced photo from the Brother Rice website, there isn’t any evidence any of this is even close to true. The year the school Bama’d themselves they didn’t play a single team outside of the Midwest. LaxPower ranked them 15th that year and the human poll on the site ranked them 14th. The explanation is probably going to be along the lines of a random media endorsement, but if that is the case no one else agrees.

As for the two years before that: VB is talking total nonsense. In 2007 they lost 10-3 to a Columbus team in the annual MSLA tournament and were listed on LaxPower at #32; the humans said #33. The year before they lost three games, all to teams in Ohio, and besides there were four undefeated teams from NY and MD that year. The human poll slotted them at #42. At no point did they ever beat a team from out east. I have no frickin’ clue where he’s pulling those unlinked #1 rankings.

Black Shoe Diaries pointed out the error in this statement by pointing out that Rice finished #21 in a year-end power poll.

Actually I said they finished #31, and in the time it took you to not look at that they actually dropped to #33…see:

Also, KevinHD, you may have heard of Warrior Lacrosse (for those who aren’t familiar, it’s the largest (only?) reputable manufacturer of lacrosse gear)....Warrior Lacrosse was founded by a Brother Rice alumnus, and is based in Warren, Michigan. Brother Rice is indeed a lacrosse school, despite being some 500 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

How Warrior became the "only" reputable lacrosse manufacturer is beyond me when you consider STX is the exclusive supplier of the US National Team; a company not long ago purchased by Nike because of its brand recognition. It also happen to be founded out east, in Baltimore. Brine is also at least an equal player in all of this, founded awful close to the Atlantic, and also a family friend of Cascade, the company that makes everyone's helmets, which is HQ'd in New York. Why this has anything to do with anything I don't know, but the idea that Warrior is the only reputable manufacturer of lacrosse gear is kind of asinine and besides a stupid way to claim a talent advantage.

Black Shoe Diaries says that there’s no way Rice possible could put out enough prospects to fill a full team....The least you could have done was look at THE TEAM WHO WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME, for god’s sake. The National Champions from Syracuse have three players from Michigan on their roster.

Fine, you want me to do your work for you? Roster spots of three eastern elite power-programs (college names in bold) by state of origin:

Anything standing out here? You made me look at rosters I didn't want to but you still don't have a point. There may be three Michigan players on Syracuse, but there are twelve times that from the combined NY, NJ, Conn. area. Maryland recruited as many players from the Great Lakes State as they did from Nevada and, somehow, Australia. Virginia has more players from Ontario than they do from Michigan (because one > zero).

If you want to have your own fun with pivots, go filter out how many kids from the midwest were on the 2008 National U-19 team.

Brother Rice’s team in 2009 has 13 players committed or signed to play with Division 1 schools (sadly, the source for this is an article in the Oakland Press that I read in an actual newspaper, and can’t find in a quick search of the internets). So, Brother Rice has more Division-1 players than a Division-1 team. Way to do the homework before running your mouth, Kev.

Uh, what lacrosse team at any level have you ever seen roster 13 players? I have no idea what this even means. I do have questions, though: is what you are saying even true? Because a lot of what was in the post isn’t. What schools did these kids go to? How many of those schools made the NCAA tournament? This is why you link things...

When I "ran my mouth" last week I said UM needs major east coast talent to fill a competitive D1 team; at no point is this refuted with anything worth reading.

The truth of the matter is, if the Wolverines were to make the jump to varsity at some point in the near future, they’d be well-positioned….[T]he team would have the most financially-stable athletic department in the nation backing it….

You hear this all the time from name brand schools but the facts don’t support the logic: if it were as easy as being rich I suspect Penn State, Ohio State and most certainly Notre Dame would have figured out a way to at least compete with the puny pockets of Johns Hopkins and Syracuse. And Oklahoma State would have won the last seven BCS Championships.

My point was very clear: Michigan cannot compete at the D1 level on the backs of Michigan players. Look at high school lacrosse, look at the rosters of elite teams, and look at where midwest schools are picking up most of their players. It's hard to compete with the traditionals in college lacrosse and don't get so cranky when I say Michigan isn't going to be able to do it with local product.

Oh PR, You Fill Our Hearts With False Hope

Kevin HD — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:11:19 -0000

[Warning: Lacrosse post. And part of it is about Michigan.]

Blue-White Illustrated did a story about how well Penn State was recruiting in sports that didn't play in front of 110 thousand people. Buried in that story was this blurb about the Men's Lacrosse team:

Coach Glenn Thiel signed a monster class for the 2010 season that includes nine players and two from lacrosse powerhouse Brother Rice in Bloomfield, Mich. All-Americans Nick Dolik (attack) and Danny Henneghan (midfield) will bring championship experience after leading Brother Rice to the No. 1 national ranking this year. Dolik led the way on offense, amassing 65 goals and 41 assists while Henneghan added 23 goals and 16 assists.

Lacrosse is an interesting sport in that just about all of the power is centered in Maryland, New Jersey and New York. Teams like Penn State, Ohio State, and Notre Dame often compete, but when it comes to winning championships they are simply no match for the powerhouses out east.

Penn State is an afterthought and so Thiel needs to be creative when he recruits. Getting these Michigan players is great, but there is a reason the national powers in college lacrosse are out east: that's where the high school talent is.

Now Brother Rice has been dominating their competition; according to these guys "in the Michigan lacrosse scene, it’s been Rice and then everyone else." Great, but like, it's Michigan.

And how exactly does BWI get off calling Rice the #1 team in the nation? Because, um...

Now that's not a real poll, but rather a totally awesome national high school power ranking from a site called LaxPower (NCAA Men's and Women's rankings are also available). As a long LaxPower addict, I warn you to click at your own risk.

Geekness aside: only historians in the great state of Alabama would ever consider Brother Rice a national champion. They lost several games to teams in Ohio, which only placed one team in this top 31 poll. It's not to say they aren't a very good lacrosse team, and that these players aren't elite, but let's be real: the PSU lacrosse team isn't a national powerhouse and they aren't recruiting like it either.

And while we are here: A Michigan varsity team? Our friends at Varsity Blue have been covering what is essentially the Penn State Icers of college club lacrosse. The big question is whether the state of Michigan can support the varsity team that so many people up north desire. The answer is pretty simple: without some type of major east coast pipeline, they don't stand a chance.

Ohio State, which is the only D1 lacrosse team in the state, has exactly five natives and one player from Michigan on a roster around 40.

Notre Dame, which generally speaking has major ties to the east coast but also a monopoly on the entire midwest save OSU, has just three players from Ohio and one from Michigan.

Penn State, which has the advantage of being quasi-east coast, has one player from Ohio and two from Michigan.

There are probably some Michigan natives out east, I don't feel like looking through any more rosters, but the point is a UM team would be competing with ND, OSU and perhaps PSU for midwest recruits and there simply aren't enough to go around (and keep in mind they don't stand a chance of picking up guys who Cuse, Hopkins or Maryland think are worth a phone call).

After that, it's sifting through the leftovers in Maryland and New York. You can get in line back there behind Detroit:

DeChellis Live ESPN Chat At 3:00 p.m. Today

Kevin HD — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:09:28 -0000

DeChellis Live ESPN Chat At 3:00 p.m. Today

Coach will chat with fans online; two BSD bucks for anyone who gets a question in.

[ALSO: GoPSUSports preview with auto-play video that will get you in trouble at work.]