This year is Penn State's best chance at a national championship since when in your opinion?
- Thread starter saturdaysarebetter
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Imagine if Franklin was the coach of that game and they called the same play twice from the one and got stuffed both times. Some of our fans would spontaneously combust.
Joe almost quit coaching after that game (according to his own book). I still think Mike Guman (the ball) may have crossed the end zone plane on one of those leaps. Virtually impossible to tell in the mass of humanity and few camera angles.
It looked like Suhey may have had a better chance of being over the goal line, but no replays back then.
1 out of 9 chance is better than 95% of teams but it still isn't a great chance. NCs don't come easy.
PSU has the 3rd to 5th best odds, so better than 96 to 98% of FBS teams.
I can't even imagine what the in game threads would have looked like during some of Joe's years. I mean I remember what the "call in section" looked like in the old Penn Live paper and that was bad enough. Actually now that I think I can imagine I was here after the '99 minny game and I remember the freak outs by FrankfromAllentown and Marshcreek that continued until both were perma banned.
The fallout from the 6-4 game on here would have been epic.
Joe got way too conservative at the end of the Minnesota game.
The fluke Hail Mary 4th down tipped pass didn’t help, then the up by ten prevent defense dropping lavar into coverage instead of slaying tom Brady and then fox blown coverage. After that msu didn’t mean anything.
Imagine going for fourth-and-one on your own 15-yard line in a bowl game in your second year as head coach! This was long before analytics too. I'm glad social media didn't exist then.
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Imagine this scenario: A young college football head coach had a 5-5 record in his first season as head coach and his team did not make a bowl game. It took until his second year for that coach to …
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Putting thought into it after I answered. It has to be last year's 2024, not 2005 team.
Although, I believe the 2005 team would beat the 2024 team.
Shabbat Shalom
Although, I believe the 2005 team would beat the 2024 team.
Shabbat Shalom
'79 was a combo of injuries (e.g. Clark missed a big chunk of the season) and no big-time QB for the season (Dayle Tate! over a not-ready-for-prime-time Jeff Hostettler) meaning they had to rely on a good, not great running game all season. The D still did its part for most games. The 8-4 record was very disappointing, but there was young talent, leading to 3 straight outstanding seasons '80-'82.
'83 was interesting. Doug Strang went from 'oof' to start the season to becoming a pretty good QB. The 0-3 start was unimaginable, but the wild 8-1-1 finish was a fun ride. The offense behind Strang came alive in game 3 in a losing cause vs. Iowa. We beat Bama, ND, WVa, tied Pitt, won the Aloha over Washington. Flutie and BC gave us the 4th loss. I've always been ok with '83 given how they turned things around.
I might argue that the '84 collapse (6-5 after a 3-0 start) was stinkier than the '83 overall. Strang was strange, Shaffer was raw, the final 2 games at ND and vs. Pitt were bizarrely bad. Any thought I had that the players may have phoned it in first arose during that ND loss out there by 44-7. I turned off the TV in the 2nd half. Joe even said that he could tell the team wasn't ready to play during warm-ups, and had to address that pre-game. He of course took responsibility for that in interviews, as he should have. He then turned down a bowl bid (I forget to where) because he basically said the team didn't deserve one. Ouch. So something happened there, but I never heard what, even in talking with players from that team. Whatever it was, it certainly changed dramatically for '85, then again for '86.
1992 season fell apart after the Miami loss at home, a game we should have won. Many of us will remember that awful desperation pass thrown by John (not Tony) Sacca as he was being sacked, which went directly into the arms of a trailing DLineman who easily ran it in for a pick 6 and the difference in the game - a 14-17 loss to #2 at the time Miami.
Then BC beat us despite a crazy comeback by us. BYU spanked us out there, then the great Snow Bowl game at ND, where they came back and scored in the final minute to win. Heartbreaking loss. The team rallied to stomp all over Pitt to end at 7-4, then as you said, had no real spark for playing Stanford in the Blockbuster Bowl and finished 7-5. That game was set up by media and the bowl sponsor earlier (too early) in the season to showcase Joe vs. Bill Walsh in his return to Stanford after his 49ers career. Nice photo ops all week, a bowl trip to Florida, but that was about it. A fugly 24-3 loss. 7-4 regular season without that PR angle would have still been a bowl, but nothing too exciting.
Of course, that was the last season as an Independent, and the team spent the off-season prepping for '93 and the first season in the Big Ten.
I thought Suhey scored.
Great tackle on Scott Fitskee to start the goal line sequence of stops too.
I still scream at the Fitzkee video "TURN UP FIELD!" He took about a half step too many toward the sideline, otherwise, he very well may have scored on that play. Great play by the DB, probably as big a Krusse's hit on Guman. But on 2nd down instead of 4th.
Suhey broke the plane of the goal line on 3rd down, and I'll never be convinced otherwise!
All that angst over their goal line stand, great as it was by Bama, and yet we still had a chance to win. We held them on downs inside the 10 (I think) in the next series, then inexplicably got penalized for too many men on the field on their 4th down punt. That awful gaffe gets buried, because the 2 dives over the top failed so spectacularly in that gigantic moment. (Well, except for Suhey's dive.... ).I think the ball reached the plane of the goal line. Shame no camera angle from that side. SEC Conspiracy!
Yes the bs 15 yard penalty for too many men on the field. That was the dagger!!I still scream at the Fitzkee video "TURN UP FIELD!" He took about a half step too many toward the sideline, otherwise, he very well may have scored on that play. Great play by the DB, probably as big a Krusse's hit on Guman. But on 2nd down instead of 4th.
Suhey broke the plane of the goal line on 3rd down, and I'll never be convinced otherwise!