The good, the bad and the weird - Penn State vs. Purdue edition

Sunday, 04 November 2012 20:10

Written by Mark Dent

The Good 

Penn State's best game of the year so far?: I think so. Penn State came into Saturday off its toughest loss of the season, and it thorougly dominated Purdue. You can argue that Purdue is a bad team, which is absolutely correct, but the Nittany Lions made sure Purdue would give up. They finished with 506 yards on offense and had a defense so dominant that a play over five yards for Purdue was an anomaly. The only time Purdue showed any life was on the first possession of the game, and Penn State snuffed out that drive inside the five. A heck of an effort overall for PSU that was representative of this entire season.

Brandon Moseby-Felder: A breakout game for the wide receiver. He wanted this one bad, too. He has since missing significant portions of the spring and summer with injury. Back then, it seemed like Moseby-Felder would barely get to play. He was behind Justin Brown, Allen Robinson and Shawney Kersey. Now he seems like the legit No. 2 wideout behind Robinson. Moseby-Felder finished with 129 receiving yards and his first touchdown of the season. For the year, he is Penn State's third-leading receiver, after Robinson and tight end Kyle Carter.  

The front seven: That was as good of a game as I've seen the front seven play this year, especially in the first half. Gerald Hodges especially stopped Purdue, getting eight tackles - three of them for loss - in the first two quarters. The highlight came at the end of the first half. That's when Purdue, after Hodges had one of his tackles for loss, called a timeout with 12 seconds left instead of running out the clock. This was comical. The Boilermakers weren't really in position to throw a long pass to the end zone because it would have been too far. So they had one extra play, and defensive end Sean Stanley got the sack. It exemplified the Penn State defense. 

The bad

Bill Belton: What's wrong with Bill Belton? Bill O'Brien says nothing physically. It just seems that Belton has not been practicing as hard as O'Brien would like. After a game in which Belton was in for one play, O'Brien said he would play the guys who practice the best and those guys were Zach Zwinak and Mike Zordich. Those two again put up productive numbers, by the way, finishing with 167 yards on 32 carries.

The weird

McGloin hitting Stankiewitch in the head: On one play of the second half, Matt McGloin threw the ball at the back of the head of his center, Matt Stankiewitch, after a penalty. Stankiewitch started yelling at him in what was a genuinely funny moment. The two are roommates and clearly get into small squabbles all the time. McGloin said it was a total accident. Stankiewitch joked that he had no idea how that could have been an accident. 

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