Answer: Increased respiration. Epinephrine secretions. Selective hearing. Perspiration. Tunnel vision. Tight muscles and increased blood flow. Dilated pupils. Constructed blood vessels. Increased body temperature and respiration. Slowed digestion. Goose bumps.
Question: The physiological effects on a body in free fall, according to headrushtech.com.
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Not to be Petty, but the Nittany Lions are free fallin’. (Watch it here.)
This fall…the big fall…Penn State went from No. 7 to 0-5 and is now tied for No. 123 (out of 127 FBS teams), one of the most extreme examples of social distancing in the pandemic.
On August 31, the Nittany Lions were wedged between defending national champion LSU at No. 6 and Florida at No. 8, breathing down the necks of Georgia at No. 4 and Oklahoma at No. 5 for a spot in the College Football Playoffs.
Now, they are in the company of 0-8 Louisiana-Monroe, 0-7 Vanderbilt and 0-7 Kansas, and tied with Florida International for the fourth-worst record in college football at 0-5.
It is the fastest, deepest, most dizzying freefall from the elite company of The Associated Press poll to the depths of college football since…well, ever.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, Penn State is the first preseason Top 10 team to start a season 0-5 since AP started its poll in 1936.
It is new territory for Penn State, worse than the 2003 record of 3-9 in the daggered heart of The Dark Ages or the scandal-torn years of 2012-15, when it still won more games than it lost.
After starting 2020 ranked seventh in the preseason Associated Press poll, the Nittany Lions were subsequently absent — due to a Big Ten season that was once canceled, then re-called and re-released — from the poll until Week 5, when they re-entered the rankings at No. 10.
Four weeks later, in the days leading up to the Nittany Lions’ delayed season opener against Indiana and Michael Pylon Penix Jr., they rose to as high as No. 8. Then, fell to 18. Then to 29 — “Also Receiving Votes” territory — and out of the Top 25 for the first time in 63 polls. Then…radio silence.
And now, entering Week 13 of the weirdest season ever as the Nittany Lions travel to Michigan to play in the Big Empty House on Saturday, they are at or near the bottom of the college Football Bowl Subdivision — depending upon how you slice it:
There are 18 winless teams among the 127 major college teams playing football this fall. The aforementioned Louisiana-Monroe is the worst of the worst, or put more politely, the best at being bad. Eight of the Warhawks’ nine losses have been by 17 or more points and their closest loss was 35-30 to Georgia Southern.
There are 17 teams with six or more losses this fall, headed by Texas State at 2-9. Louisiana-Monroe lost to Texas State, 38-17, back on September 19. Must have been some game.
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Ralph Russo, the national college football writer for The Associated Press since 2005 and the AP poll czar, is as surprised as you are by where Penn State is these days.
Russo, a native New Yorker who went to Fordham, has been with the wire service for more than a quarter century. And his byline — By Ralph D. Russo, The Associated Press — reaches more college football fans than any other news outlet. Anywhere.
More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day. And when it comes to college football, no one’s words are seen by more people than Ralph’s.
That story you read last week, about “Is it the right time for USC to hire James Franklin?”? Ralph wrote it.
In that piece, Russo wrote that “Franklin’s charisma, big-picture thinking and track of success checks all the boxes for USC, even if maybe he has maxed out at Penn State.”
I checked in with Russo on Wednesday about the Nittany Lions’ dizzying drop out of the polls. And despite it being the day before Thanksgiving, being a veteran AP guy for whom seconds are like minutes, Russo responded quickly. And being a veteran nice guy, he also apologized for it not being faster.
Russo has been to Beaver Stadium and the Penn State campus for big games many times. He has a true national perspective perhaps unlike any other college football expert, yet at heart is an Easterner. I wondered what he thought of Penn State’s season.
“My quick take on Penn State,” said Russo: “This season has been a stunning series of calamities, and I do find myself wondering just how different things would have been if Devyn Ford had simply gone down at the 1 against Indiana.
“It doesn’t compute that Penn State should be this bad. And if you look at their underlying numbers, they aren’t this bad.
“I’m tempted to just write it off as an anomaly. Every year there are disappointing teams that underachieve, but this feels like an almost unprecedented collapse that has — at least in part — been exacerbated by the odd circumstances of the season.”
• • •
So: An anomaly. With an asterisk.
The Nittany Lions have been hit by injuries and a Micah-sized opt-out and a career Journey ended way too soon and a quartet of assistants so new that the head coach has yet to meet the defensive line coach’s wife.
Just before the 2020 season finally started, I gave the Lions an out of my own:
“But, if the Nittany Lions fall short — this weekend, next weekend or maybe even both — the sting will be less. That they are playing football is a victory. That they do it safely, with no one taking ill on the journey (beyond Journey), would be a blessing.”
Franklin was preaching that message during his Zoom presser on Tuesday.
Franklin summed up Penn State Football 2020 when he said succinctly: “My No. 1 goal and priority coming into the season was to keep everybody healthy and safe. And we’ve done that. But we also have to find a way to be successful at football at the same time.”
Franklin was right. So is Russo.
Penn State is not this bad.
OK, Penn State is this bad in the first quarter, when it has given up scoring drives of 75, 75, 75 and 55 to four different opponents in its last four games, and trailed collectively 41-17. And Penn State is this bad in the second quarter, when it has been outscored 76-16.
That’s a first-half deficit of 117-33. Bad.
But over the course of five second halves, when many teams would have given up, the Nittany Lions have not. Sure, they still shoot themselves in the foot way too much, with many of the bullets being loaded on the sidelines by their coaches.
However, when you add up the third quarters of 2020, Penn State has outscored its opponents 38-24. And likewise in the fourth quarter, when it has held a 45-31 advantage.
But here’s the thing:
The way Penn State has been playing in 2020, the polls have been closed by halftime — and second-half efforts at a recount have been too little, too late.
