Penn State is riding a very bumpy four-game losing streak.
And if the Nittany Lions are not winful, their recently-regenerated hopes of going to a bowl game this year will be sacked. Literally.
As it is, Penn State has not won in 44 days … and counting.
And Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg has been sacked 30 times … and counting.
The Nittany Lions have been close to winning. Darn close. They’ve lost their last three games by the smallest of margins – five points, in double overtime and then by one point to Maryland on Saturday.
In two of those games, they led more than they trailed. Against Michigan, the Nittany Lions were in front for 30 minutes and 24 seconds, and into the fourth quarter. Against Maryland, they led for 32:17 and up until the final 51 seconds of the game.
Ohio State was a different story: Penn State tied the Buckeyes with nine seconds left in regulation, and led briefly – in the first overtime – albeit before Ohio State had a chance to match their touchdown (which the Buckeyes did).
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Still, Penn State sits at 4-4 and still needs two more wins to qualify for its first bowl game in three years. That was zero wins, one-third of the schedule, two off-weeks, three different calendar months, four losses, soon-to-be five opponents and six weeks ago.
On the second-last official day of summer Penn State beat UMass, 48-7. The next day, both The Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls had Penn State ranked No. 27. At the time, the Nittany Lions were riding high and less than two weeks removed from the NCAA lifting its final bowl sanctions against Penn State.
As a result, Penn State is now permitted to play in a bowl. IF it wins the requisite six games. If you recall, the ever-optimistic James Franklin was a realist – nay, a pragmatist – one day after the ban was lifted on Sept. 8. It was then he told folks they should understand what it’s really all about.
“It’s amazing how many people texted me and mailed me last night and said, ‘How awesome that you’re bowl eligible,’ ” Franklin said eight Tuesdays ago. “We’re not bowl eligible. We have an opportunity to go to a bowl game. We need to make sure that we can take care of our business this week, which is Rutgers, and that’s really what I’d like to talk about.”
Franklin knew whereof he spoke.
THE STRETCH RUN
Painfully slow forward to today: Penn State’s upcoming run of four opponents isn’t exactly Murderer’s Row, although Michigan State – at 7-1 and No. 8 in the College Football Payoffs rankings — plays with great conviction. Penn State travels to Indiana (3-5, on a three-game losing streak) this Saturday, hosts Temple (5-3 after an upset of No. 23 East Carolina), travels to Illinois (4-5) and then finishes with MSU.
On one hand, you have to write off Michigan State as a viable upset opportunity. On the other, the same could’ve been said about Ohio State. Still, it looks as if Penn State has its next three games to win two.
The prize is not only a bowl trip, but the opportunity for Franklin’s squad to have 15 additional practices, key for development of such a young squad. Already, given the surety that otherwise Penn State would have gone to a bowl game in 2012 and ’13, those NCAA sad sacks (or, Sad Sacks, for you older comic-strip loving readers) have cost Penn State 30 of those practices – the equivalent of an entire summer preseason or two sets of spring drills.
Which brings us back to the sacks, in a roundabout way. More than perhaps any other position, offensive linemen take longer to develop – physically, technique-wise, working as a cohesive unit. This season, Hackenberg is feeling the literal impact of those missed practices to the tune of 3.75 sacks per game.
That’s a sitload of sacks.
After eight games in 2014, the 30 sacks of Hackenberg are already the fourth-most endured by a Nittany Lion quarterback in a single season since Penn State joined the Big Ten. The top three on that list are from consecutive seasons: Kevin Thompson (40 in 1999), Rashard Casey (33 in 2000) and Zack Mills (31 in 2001). Keep reading: Zack wasn’t sacked as much as you think you remember.
A SACK CHRONOLOGY
Here’s a sackful of numbers about the Nittany Lion sack history dating back to 1993. Numbers are from Penn State’s annual media guides; sacks are the number overall that season inflicted on Penn State, while the quarterback listed is the QB who had the lion’s share of starts that season:
Kerry Collins, 1993 (8): Collins, 1994, (5); Wally Richardson, 1995 (26); Richardson, 1996 (19); Mike McQueary, 1997 (25); Thompson, 1998 (26); Thompson, 1999 (40); Casey, 2000 (33); Zack Mills, 2001 (31): Mills, 2002 (18); Mills, 2003 (19); Mills, 2004 (19); Michael Robinson, 2005 (14); Anthony Morelli, 2006 (23); Morelli, 2007 (20); Daryll Clark, 2008 (13); Clark, 2009 (17); Matt McGloin/Rob Bolden, 2010 (12); McGloin/Bolden, 2011 (14); McGloin, 2012 (21); and Hackenberg, 2013 (22).
Which brings us back to Hack. Or Hack lying on his back post-sack. He’s on track for 45 sacks in 2014, even if the Nittany Lions don’t go bowling. The projections actually could be worse. Hackenberg suffered a total of 20 sacks against Northwestern, Michigan, Ohio State and Maryland – a rate, that if it continues, would give him an even 50.
Because Hackenberg has the ball so much, other record-breaking numbers are also within his reach.
Two-thirds of the way through the season, Hackenberg is on pace to throw the most passes (477) and run the most total plays (573) of any quarterback since Penn State joined the Big Ten. That would break the records of 446 and 505 set by Matt McGloin in 2012.
Not to backtrack. But that’s only if Hack doesn’t sacked.
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