The last mention of the OSU/PSU game on this blog...

We've now heard 3 opinions of the carnage from Saturday night. Here's my theory, I promise I'll keep it brief.

This week, all the focus was on the 2005 game, when we had one of the loudest crowds ever and Penn State upset Ohio State. The problem was, people thought that the reason PSU won that game was because of the crowd. While I'm glad to take credit and we certainly didn't hurt their cause, the players on the field were the main reason we won that game. The defense played with heart and passion and aggressiveness, and the offense did the same, not making any mistakes and pulling out the big plays when they needed against an equally potent Buckeye D.

So this week, everyone talked about how PSU had the chance to pull an upset based off the crowd noise. I personally think that the players may have heard all this and relied on the crowd too much to provide the adrenaline. It seemed like the players, especially on defense, lacked much passion throughout the game. If you show up without the desired intensity needed to win a football game, a bunch of noise aint gonna give it to you. It'll just give you a headache.

I agree with Tom, the offense really didn't execute that badly, but when you only have the ball for 22 minutes there's really not much that can be done in terms of yards or points. That's true especially with the PSU offense which has never been described as explosive. The punt from the 38, not to mention the FG down 17, were both chicken **** calls that could have changed the outcome of the game, or at least delayed it a bit.

That said, OSU deserves all the congrats. They came in and smacked us around and proved why they're #1. I'll go ahead and say that I'd kind of like to see them win out and get the BCS title and prove all the Big Ten critics this year wrong.