Ben State Football: Balancing The Blame Game With The Reality Checks

Figuring out who, or what to blame for any given issue is perhaps the hardest aspect of covering or even just following Penn State football.

Finding the happy medium between critical analysis and the understanding that the chips are intentionally stacked against the Nittany Lions. Even in the “post sanction era” the sanctions are still very alive and well in Happy Valley.

And so the mountain of dilemmas only continues to grow.

How do you critique an offensive line that can only be so good because it only has so many bodies? How do you decide when Penn State’s struggles to run the ball fall on the shoulders of the players and when do you let it all boil down to the fact that maybe the ceiling just isn’t high enough to get the job done at a high level.

Where does the fact that Penn State is the second youngest team in college football come into play? The fact that the Nittany Lions are somehow 4-0 with a roster that is 73% underclassmen with 84 of the 117 having a year or less of football under their belts. The footnote of that being a blunt realization that not all scholarship players are created equal.

Unfortunately the answer isn’t clear.

But a quick run through the land of Penn State message boards is an abrupt reminder that some of us see a very different situation when Penn State hits the field. One thread on how Hackenberg is overrated due to his 3-10 start against UMass, another comment on how the offense would have more success if it ran fewer wildcat plays or spent less time trying to be fancy or “More like Joe.”

Most of the fun that comes from watching sports is coaching from your couch or seat in the stands. Because at the end of the day it really is just a game. Lives will continue and while we may have emotional attachments to our favorite team’s success it isn’t as though the fate of the world is really being decided on the kick of Sam Ficken. I’m not reporting on world news, I’m telling you which kids who haven’t even voted for a president yet will start next week.

So in turn the rational and irrational analysis of Penn State is a perfectly fine thing in the grand scope of sports. 

Even so, the are a few near facts to be had midst the debacle that is properly handing out blame for some of the Nittany Lions’ issues.

• Penn State’s sanctions aren’t an excuse, they’re a reality.
• Sometimes good coaching just comes down to masking massive weaknesses. 
• Sometimes masking those massive weaknesses only turns “bad” into “serviceable.” Sometimes “serviceable” is the result of some damn fine coaching and playing. And sometimes things just can’t get better than “serviceable.”
• Not all bad passes are created equal.
• Despite all of the above, even non-elite players make mistakes that shouldn’t happen.

With Penn State sitting at 4-0 it isn’t as though the Nittany Lions have taken a shotgun blast to the chest before trying to walk through the conference schedule. But the line between a 2-2 record and a 4-0 record has currently been razor thin. The inevitable is inevitable for a reason. And Penn State as it stands today is a team that is interestingly average but doomed to inevitably lose. Talented enough that an undefeated season in a weak Big Ten isn’t a sign of insanity and riddled with issues and inconsistencies enough that it’s just as easy to find four losses. When in doubt, issues will almost always trump the possibility of the unlikely.

Analysis is what the seemingly dozen of Penn State beat writers get paid to do and do well. But there is a moment where one has to shrug and simply accept the fact that this isn’t 2008. Mistakes and issues aren’t automatically the result of a good player making mistakes and good coaching not being good enough.

Somewhere in here there has to be a truth. The truth that a shorthanded, undermanned and sometimes overmatched team is coaching, playing, and winning far more often than it really should be.

It isn’t always pretty and it won’t always work.

But understanding where Penn State is right now makes you appreciate Hackenberg’s closing stretch of 9-for-13 passing more than shake your head at his 3-of-10 opening.

And it’ll make you appreciate 4-0 for what it is rather than just take it for granted.

But who knows, Penn State football has been coming up on the winning side of inevitabilities for a while now. Doing it one last time wouldn’t be the most surprising thing that has happened around these parts.

Guess that’s why they play the game.