Look at the "devolvement" of the offense throughout the year.
Go back and look at the tape of the Auburn game - three games into Yurcich's tenure.
Did everything work - certainly not - but the varied pace, the diversity of sets and interesting combinations of play calls and formations. It was all very intelligently designed, and clearly showed a high degree of preparation and attention to detail.
By November? It looked like the most Pop Warner level offensive scheme in the country (much like the KirK C offense devolved into "Let's run QB power with Levis 25 times a game" by the end of 2020). The 2020 season, maybe, one can sort of excuse due to the distraction of COVID (though every other team in the country had to deal with that as well).
This year, no excuses. It was a complete mailing-it-in, for the second year in a row, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Each Saturday the offense took the field looking as if they had simply packed up the gear from the previous week, taken a week off, and trotting back out there the following Saturday - unprepared, un-schemed, zero attention to detail or improvement. After the Iowa game - when there were several glaring concerns raised (including how to deal with Clifford's status), the staff spent the off week jetting (and helicoptering) around "recruiting". That was very telling - and the results were predictable. Maybe the most embarrassing loss in the last 50 years of Penn State football - to an awful Illinois team (on homecoming). Really sad to see, truly.
Mike Yurcich - like Kirk C before him - had both shown throughout their careers the ability to compose offenses that at least approached maximizing the output of their available talent. But something, something very systemic and pervasive, has dry-rotted the squad. That can only start from the top. How is that going to change?
It would be much easier to feel the program just needed a talent infusion or some such (relatively) easily addressable issue. But that is not the case, obviously. I get it.
Go back and look at the tape of the Auburn game - three games into Yurcich's tenure.
Did everything work - certainly not - but the varied pace, the diversity of sets and interesting combinations of play calls and formations. It was all very intelligently designed, and clearly showed a high degree of preparation and attention to detail.
By November? It looked like the most Pop Warner level offensive scheme in the country (much like the KirK C offense devolved into "Let's run QB power with Levis 25 times a game" by the end of 2020). The 2020 season, maybe, one can sort of excuse due to the distraction of COVID (though every other team in the country had to deal with that as well).
This year, no excuses. It was a complete mailing-it-in, for the second year in a row, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Each Saturday the offense took the field looking as if they had simply packed up the gear from the previous week, taken a week off, and trotting back out there the following Saturday - unprepared, un-schemed, zero attention to detail or improvement. After the Iowa game - when there were several glaring concerns raised (including how to deal with Clifford's status), the staff spent the off week jetting (and helicoptering) around "recruiting". That was very telling - and the results were predictable. Maybe the most embarrassing loss in the last 50 years of Penn State football - to an awful Illinois team (on homecoming). Really sad to see, truly.
Mike Yurcich - like Kirk C before him - had both shown throughout their careers the ability to compose offenses that at least approached maximizing the output of their available talent. But something, something very systemic and pervasive, has dry-rotted the squad. That can only start from the top. How is that going to change?
It would be much easier to feel the program just needed a talent infusion or some such (relatively) easily addressable issue. But that is not the case, obviously. I get it.
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