Quick note from M-Will: Hi, I’m a new columnist here. I won’t post as often as Ali, and I probably won’t provide as in-depth an analysis as Matt S. or Ali, but from time to time I’ll be dropping by to offer some big-picture perspective and a change of pace. I had originally told Ali I’d be submitting a guest column today, but in a minor oversight I forgot to inform him of the topic. Imagine our surprise when yesterday Ali posted on the very same topic I had been intending to. Despite some similarities, Ali and I both agreed that I should go ahead and post my column anyway as I offered a slightly different perspective on perspective. So without further ado…
Ah, perspective. It's a beautiful thing. Perspective can keep us from making dumb statements; like the people behind me at the Temple game who were shouting, “Go for it! I need to see a TD!” when PSU was 4th and 1 on its own 30 yard line early in the 3rd quarter. It can keep a 23 year old blogger from claiming that he can outcoach someone who's been doing it professionally for the last sixty years (and had a moderate amount of success during that time), or from making sweeping statements about the PSU program based on an early road game where PSU was fielding a true freshman quarterback against the #1 team in the country. (OK, this may actually be the first and last time Ali lets me post on his blog.) Or, to turn the perspective on myself, when PSU falls behind to a horrible RichRod-coached Michigan team in the first half of the game, perspective can even keep you from yelling things you later regret in a way you later regret while friends and strangers all around you wonder, “Is that guy on Prozac? (Cause if not he should be...)” Yes my friends, perspective is a beautiful thing.
I'm Blue & White Kool-Aid Man, and I'm here to get you so drunk that you think that Rob Bolden looks like 1994 Kerry Collins.
If one had read much on the PSU football team during the off-season, the general perspective on the team was that this was a rebuilding year and to keep expectations low. Pretty much anyone who hadn't gotten drunk on Blue & White Kool-Aid was predicting at least a 3 loss season, with losses to Alabama, Iowa, and Ohio State. Everyone's perspective was more or less in check with reality: this would be the first team in history to face three BCS winners from the previous year – all on the road – and the team had to replace a ton of starters, including Penn State legends-in-their-own-time: Jared Odrick, Sean Lee, and Navorro Bowman as well as two time All-Big Ten QB Daryll Clark. Penn State would have a young team (83 of the 118 players on the PSU roster are freshmen or sophomores) and it would take some time for them to mature to the level of their best competition.
This being the interwebs though, perspective flies out the window when the team is sitting at 3-2 with both losses coming to “the only real teams” that PSU has played. “Joe must go.” “Replace Bolden with Newsome.” “Fire Jay and Galen.” “Bench the starters.” “Hide in the basement of Geary Hall with a chamber pot, a stockpile of MREs, and a shotgun and wait for George Atherton to return! It's the PSU apocalypse!” (OK, I didn't actually see that last one, but it wouldn't surprise me.) Different ideas are flying around but the gist is the same: A catastrophe has occurred that calls for drastic action.
I'm Rob Bolden, I'm your QB, and I'm gonna be awesome. Just give me some time (and a complete O line would be nice too).
But is it a catastrophe? So far, nothing has happened that was drastically different from preseason predictions. Aside from the fact that everyone hates to lose, the only explanation I can think of is that when people saw Rob Bolden in the game against Youngstown State, they started to get excited. Everyone had pretty low expectations, so it was easy to exceed them. And when Bolden stepped up looking poised (that word has been beaten to death re: Bolden; but for good reason), and started throwing passes with the most beautiful mechanics anyone had seen from a PSU quarterback in over a decade, people started drinking the Kool-Aid. And didn't stop. Even after the loss to Alabama, most fans and analysts were looking up - “an upset over Iowa is possible now!” I'll even give that it was possible. But not likely. People forgot that Bolden was a freshman. A great freshman who will very likely do great things, but still a freshman. And that's OK.
I don't want to retread what Ali has already said any more, so I won't. But I do want to offer one further thought. Many people have pointed out that in both losses, this team has been a lot closer to pulling out the win than the final score has indicated. If the team had made a few plays that fell apart due to nothing more than a failure to execute, or they hadn't made so many dumb mistakes, they could very possibly be a one – or, even, with some luck – a no loss team right now. In short, if the team makes a couple more plays, they're not so far away from being able to pull off a win against just about anyone.
Don't tell me when to go or I'll use my mind control on you.
This sticks out to me, because it's exactly how I felt so many years ago watching what was one of the statistically worst teams in PSU history go 4-7 during my freshman year. The year was 2004, and it was an incredibly frustrating season because in almost every loss, it felt like Penn State was just a couple plays away from coming out on top. With the losses piling up, just about everyone had lost faith in JoePa. The story goes that even ol' G-Span himself had paid a visit to Joe's humble McKee St. residence and asked him to consider stepping down. Joe reportedly told Spanier something along the lines of “Screw you boss man.” “We're just a few plays away from being a really good team. Give me one more year. If I can just recruit a few more players, make a few more plays, we'll be a totally different team.” Joe was staking his career on the next season.
JoePa went on to recruit the consensus #1 athlete in the country in Derrick Williams and that, along with leadership from senior QB Michael Robinson provided the spark that the team needed to execute those “few plays” and then some. The team went on to go 11-1, winning the Big Ten title and the Orange Bowl. The football team's success created a feeling of pure energy on campus that was undeniable, probably unrepeatable, and undoubtedly a factor in Penn State going 49-1 against Big Ten competition in all fall sports that year. Anyone who witnessed the 2005 season can tell you that there was nothing like the pride, anticipation, and pure electricity that surrounded the football program that year.
Fast-forward to this week's press conference with Joe, and those who read the transcript or watched the video may have noticed this nugget: “They're young. We've got to make some plays. That's the biggest problem we have right now. We can't make some plays.” Joe knows this team is only a few plays away from being a great team. There is so much talent on this team, and once they have the experience and maturity to go with it, they're going to do something really special.
Those who know the full story of the 2004/2005 seasons know that even before Derrick Williams, the momentum that carried the 2005 team to the heights they ultimately achieved started with a game-saving goal-line stand against Indiana in the penultimate contest of the 2004 season. It was the moment when the team proved that it was capable of responding to adversity in a hostile environment, and the next week the team came back home to finish the season with an uncharacteristic trouncing of Michigan State.
I would be a fool to pretend that I know when it will happen, but someday, this team is going to have its Indiana goal-line moment. Someday, this team is going to surprise the doubters and the naysayers. Someday, this team will prove to the critics that Joe hasn't lost it, that the coaches know what they're doing, that Bolden is the leader this team needs, that Penn State can and will once again dominate the Big Ten. Someday. That's the perspective that has me anticipating rather than criticizing. When that day comes, I can't wait to say “I told you so.”
Believe deep down in your heart that you're destined to do great things. - Joseph V. Paterno
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