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The Goal - See 'em all!
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Sloppy Penn State Beats Inept Golden Knights, 37-13
#33 Austin Scott picks yardage against CFU Click on photo to view. State College, PA – Don’t let this score fool you. Penn State (2-1) defeated the Golden Knights of Central Florida (0-3), 37-13, by overcoming four fumbles and two interceptions by taking advantage of the physical and mental blunders of a mistake-prone, undermanned opponent on this day. For CollegeFootballFan.com, it was the second consecutive, agonizing week of watching the 2004 version of MAC football to add team #91 toward The Goal! Central Florida and Western Michigan (who we added last week against VA Tech) will not meet this year, but there are plenty of other bad teams in the MAC this year, which should give these two a chance for some self-respect before the season is over. New Coach George O’Leary has as lot of work cut out for him to improve the talent he inherited at CFU and to recruit some new blood into the program as he goes up against the three well-established programs in the state of Florida. PSU has to improve its offense quickly if it expects to compete in any of the upcoming games with its Big Ten brethren. Otherwise, this could be the Lion’s last win for quite some time. Penn State’s first possession ended, as would others, when Mills fumbled the ball over to the Golden Knights at their 15-yard line. The next PSU drive ended almost as futilely as a partially blocked punt put the Knights in scoring position at the PSU 26. PK Matt Prater eventually converted from 33 yards out to score first and carry a CFU 3-0 lead into the second quarter.
The second period belonged to the Lions though as
they garnered three TDs within a seven-minute span. PSU first drove 80 yards
capped by RB Tony Hunt’s 4-yard TD run around right end. PK Robbie Gould
converted the PAT to give the Lions a 7-3 lead with 9:41 remaining in the firs
half. PSU’s next offensive possession was thwarted on an interception by Soph
CB Mike Williams at his own 15-yard line. The Lion D forced a three-and-out,
and return man Calvin Lowry returned the ball to the Knights’ 26-yard line. On
the first play, Tony Hunt bounced off one would-be tackler and got to the
outside for a 26-yard scoring jaunt for a 14-3 Nittany Lion lead. The 1959 Penn State Liberty Bowl team was introduced during halftime festivities. PSU’s Kickoff Program credits this team as the one that first earned PSU national recognition when it defeated 10th ranked Alabama, 7-0, in the first Liberty Bowl, played back then in cold weather Philadelphia. Unusual to recognize a 45th anniversary, CFF wonders if Alabama’s decision to postpone their game originally scheduled with PSU on this day was made before or after the 1959 celebration was announced. The Tide rescheduled the series a few years from now. West Carolina turned out to be a worthy replacement on this day as the Tide overwhelmed the 1AA opponent, 52-0. Penn State’s first possession of Q3 ended the same way as that of the first half with Mills fumbling the ball away again as he couldn’t get it tucked away into the arms of RB Austin Scott. But in the words of ‘70s rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” The Lions’ next possession ended in a punt from it’s own 44. The CFU return man muffed the ball where it ended up in the arms of alert, special-teamer Calvin Lowry on the Central Florida two-yard line. Instead of punching it in though, Mills mishandled the snap that went up in the air and over his head before being recovered by CFU. Three plays later, CFU is back in punt formation, and while one PSU fan wishes aloud, “Snap it over his head!”, the ball slips through the punter’s hands and through the back of the end zone for a two-point safety to give the Lions a 23-10 lead. The punter’s look of surprise and disbelief with his arms out and palms up as he ran toward the bench must have convinced O’Leary to decide to place kick the ball rather than punt it on the subsequent free kick. The kick looked like a punt as it went high and short to put PSU on its own 40. Mills, who took the snap cleanly this time, completed a 26-yard pass to WR Gerald Smith. Next, Tony Hunt (125 yards on 16 carries) took his hand off and burst up the middle for a 34-yard TD run, his third on the day. PSU led 30-6 at the end of the third period. Lacking a killer instinct in short yardage situations and relying on the mistakes of the competition are two shortcomings the Lions need to get over quickly to compete against better teams than CFU. JoePa inserted some second teamers in the last quarter including QB Chris Ganter, son of former, long time offensive coordinator, Fran Ganter. PSU punted away on its second possession of the final period. CFU’s Tavaris Capers dropped the ball but recovered it quickly to head down the left sideline before cutting all the way across field to pick up some key blocks for a 54-yard TD return, cutting the lead to 30-13 with 7:41 remaining. JoePa evidently got concerned with a 17-point cushion and re-inserted his first team offense to begin the next series. They went three and out before a roughing the kicker call gave the Lions the ball back on their own 32. QB of the future, Anthony Morelli who shunned Pitt at the last minute to matriculate at Happy Valley this year, trotted on to the field with obviously a more comfortable 17-point lead. Senior RB Mike Gasparato, also a last minute sub, took a Morelli hand off and ran up the middle for a 23 yard TD to close out the scoring on the day with :44 remaining. 37-13 was the final for two teams in need a lot of improvement. Though turnovers plagued the Lions to say the least, a young defense showed some promise. Soph LB Paul Posluszny was all over the CFU offense. Frosh LB Dan Connor made some solid tackles. SR CB Alan Zemaitas made some key, pass defenses and some good tackles coming up from the corner. Calvin Lowry looked much better than he did last year on special teams – he actually caught the ball on punts and returned big chunks of yardage! Austin Scott ran well ( 47 yards on 6 carries) when he got some carries much to the delight of the Blue and White faithful, and complemented Tony Hunt for a fairly effective running game. The mistake-prone Lions played the right team on this particular weekend, but will have to sharpen their claws if they want to devour Badgers, Golden Gophers and even Boilermakers over the next three weeks. CFU travels in two weeks to play fellow MAC East cellar dweller Buffalo in what will be a key game for the battle of the bottom of the barrel in that conference, or they can at least play for some self-respect. Extra Points: CFF drove to State College the night before in hard, windy, driving rains as the remnants of Hurricane Ivan made its way up the Appalachians. Surprisingly by game time, the sky was clear, blue and sunny and even got downright hot. We were prepared with rain gear and wished we had brought sun block instead. On the way back, the Susquehanna, Lehigh, Delaware and Juniata Rivers were swollen causing problems with traffic and causing people to evacuate their homes. We’d never saw these rivers so high, and they weren’t expected to crest until Sunday morning. Because of the weather the night before and the announcement that people would not be able to park in the grassy lots and should park outside the area to take shuttles, kept many people away this weekend. The announced attendance of 101,715 was evidently the paid attendance as many empty seats were seen due to the combination of the weather, the parking situation and the quality of the two teams playing on this day. Guest game analyst Alex Koreivo (PSU wannabe) tracked the positioning of cheerleaders, band members and dance team throughout the course of the game. She was impressed that there is a Nittany Mall, another reason for her to like PSU. We met up with Jim and Biffy Malayter, whose son Tyler graduates from PSU in January, after the game at their tailgate. Both of their kids and they themselves loved coming up to the State College area so much while both kids matriculated there, they now have a house there as their primary home. Calvin Lowry looked much more adept fielding and returning punts in this game than he ever had last year. Jim attended the BC game last week and insists that Lowry was told to make fair catches even when he was in the open just to focus on catching the ball. It may have helped Lowry to concentrate more on catching the ball before running with it. This was the first game we ever attended where the replay would be in use, but it was never initiated. It’s up to the discretion of someone in the TV booth to call it and not for a team to request it. Sideline calls seem to be the primary use as explained prior to the game. It’ll be in effect for all Big Ten games this year. The 3 CFU QBs were all horrible. The worst was the projected starter who came into the game third, Steven Moffet. His arm was the worst we’ve ever seen. The frosh QB, Kyle Israel, threw well but looks like work in process. The starter Brandon Sumner was only adequate. Hopefully the Penn State defense is going to be ready for some better QB play upcoming! THE CFU Golden Knight mascot looks like Marvin Martian (from Warner Bros., not Disney) with his black face framed in gold instead of green. The Program game notes mention that PSU was 8-9-1 against CFU, Miami, FSU and Florida coming into this game. For CFF, Central Florida was the first of those teams we ever was lose a game to a non-Florida team. Coming into this game for us, the other 3 Florida teams were 12-1 with the only loss coming from Florida State at the hands of Florida, 52-20, in the 1997 Sugar Bowl to determine the National Championship.
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