Penn State White Out recruiting and game preview: BWI Daily
Penn State will host over 100 college football prospects for the annual White Out game this weekend. It is one of the biggest games of the year on the field and has significant implications for the program’s future in recruiting. The BWI Daily Edition will discuss both on today’s show. Subscribe to the BWI Daily on YouTube so you don’t miss it!
Penn State White Out list preview
One of the most important players attending on Saturday is a four-star receiver from Roman Catholic high school, Tyseer Denmark. Denmark is one of the top players in Pennsylvania next cycle and announced that he will end his recruitment soon. His top schools include Penn State, Ohio State and others but Snyder says that the list really ends with those two programs.
So, where does Penn State stand in that order? Snyder discusses that to start the show. After he sets that up, T-Frank wants to know how good of an opportunity this is for Penn State to make an impression. With so many players and prospects on the sideline, can Penn State give its best effort this weekend? Snyder weighs the pros and cons of that situation.
After discussing Denmark, T-Frank and Snyder run through important names that Snyder has added to the list since the recruiting show on Tuesday. Those players include Ellis Robinson IV, Kaveion Keys, and more. Check out the show to learn about who those players are and why they’re important.
Ryan Snyder’s Best Bets
Finally, they get to Ryan Snyder’s best bets of the week. Here’s this week’s group of games.
Ole Miss (+2.5) vs. LSU
Purdue (+2.5) at Wisconsin
Minnesota (+5) at Penn State
Snyder also sneaks in a bonus play of the week too.
Lastly, they spend the show’s final section breaking down Penn State’s matchup with Minnesota. What matchups can go in Penn State’s favor? Which ones will hurt them? T-Frank broke down the Gophers this week and shares his thoughts.
He also comments on his concerns with the Penn State offense as it’s been presented this season. If you want more of his thoughts on those articles, check them out below.
Penn State offensive duality and crisis explained
The Penn State offense isn’t clicking. That much is clear for all to see through the last month of the 2022 season. After the defense set the offense up to score 33 points against Central Michigan, the Penn State offense has produced 17 and 10 points in the last two games. Yes, one game was in the remnants of a hurricane, but teams had played in the rain before and still scored points. So what’s the issue?
Despite some stagnation and frustration at times, the Nittany Lions came out hot, scoring 35, 46, and 41 points in the first three games. It might have something to do with how opponents have adjusted to Penn State’s new identity this year.
“I think when it really becomes legitimate is probably by game four because most people are doing a four-game breakdown of who they’re playing. That’s when you have enough of a sample size to say, ‘okay they have a legitimate tendency’. And again, tendencies aren’t always a bad thing. That means you’re usually pretty good at something,” Franklin said before the game against Northwestern.
Northwestern played Penn State in week five.
So the book is out on Penn State’s ‘balanced’ approach this year, and so far, the Lions haven’t been able to adjust to how teams have defended them. So let’s dive a bit deeper and look at the underlying issues philosophically that the staff has finally admitted are a challenge this season.
Mike Yurcich and scheme vs plays
Every offensive coordinator has a ‘system’ that they run in a loose sense. At its most basic, a system is a collection of plays and concepts that a team runs.
But a true system is a connected threat of playcalling consciousness that spans from play to play and game to game. If it were music, instead of jazz improvisation, it would be a fully formed song with lyrics, melody, and chord progressions. Improv is based on a set of understood rules by the ensemble that keep a structure to the music but the soloist is free to embellish and create on the spot. It’s free to change and morph. Neither is more correct than the other, but they are distinct.
For most of his career, Yurcich has been a songwriter. He’s used cornerstone philosophies of outside and inside zone, paired with quick passes and a heavy dose of deep passing to create an offense that challenges the defense laterally and vertically. The result was explosive plays on the ground and through the air.
Related: Penn State-Minnesota matchups – Who will have the edge on Saturday?
At the height of his offensive playcalling, he had a trio of Mason Rudolph at quarterback throwing deep bombs to James Washington, with Chuba Hubbard providing a dangerous threat on the ground as an excellent zone runner.
What is he doing now? Something very different than that.
“I think the change is the use of our tight ends and formations and running the ball and things like that is a change,” Franklin said. “It’s an adjustment that puts us in the best position to play to our strengths. Obviously, we’ve got to go out and execute consistently. But I think [the difference has] been over his career and who we are right now based on our personnel. “
In our autopsy of the 2021 season and the running game’s struggles, we noted this shift based on what the Nittany Lions ran versus what we just described. Using so much gap blocking was outside the normal parameters of Yurich’s system. The team has doubled down on the shift this season, going to two tight end sets.
Check out the rest of this article here.
