As a kid, (1st remember late 60s) I loved that the team always came out prepared and disciplined. The other teams always said thats one tough team. I think PSU played better tonight than we all expected, but holy crap! I’m sick of seeing bone headed mistakes. 2 freaking WR come in from OB to catch the ball in one game??? No one can chase down a 300+ lb guy and leave it to a great red zone D??? Late hits OB ??? I guess I’m getting old!
Wish for the old days
- Thread starter Berkstater
- Start date
Also, the old days mean no Herbstreit, Fowler or ESPN. Keith Jackson, Joe and executing the basics. Sign me up.
Joe had the mindset of come here, get your degree…we’ll do as good as we can in football. They did it better than anyone! Nowadays, it’s win a championship or you’re a loser… I’m sick of it!!! But I still watch and listen and pull for PENN STATE because of how I was raised listening to Penn State football!!!
Agree. There seem to be too many times when players are unsure what they're supposed to do. That stuff should have been worked out on the practice field.
Also, nobody seems to have the mindset of trying to be the person who makes the big play. For example, how many potentially game changing interceptions have been dropped?? Everyone should have the attitude that every play is their opportunity to come through in a big way.
My ‘old days’ may not be that old. My earliest memory is the 94 team. So forgive me if I’m out of my era but I remember how mean and nasty guys like Jeff Hartings, James Boyd, Curtis Enis, LaVar and Courtney Brown were. There was a level of reckless abandon there.
Agree to a point our Defense played 60-80's D, hit hard covered well.
Offense different matter, RB's not breaking one, and O-line not opening holes.
The current playoff situation, portal transfers, TV favorites makes a bad soup.
PSU has had more than their shares of misfortune with injuries and big ones too not Ohio St, Alabama, ND, MSU , Oklahoma etc. and it just sucks the air out of a promising season.
Offense different matter, RB's not breaking one, and O-line not opening holes.
The current playoff situation, portal transfers, TV favorites makes a bad soup.
PSU has had more than their shares of misfortune with injuries and big ones too not Ohio St, Alabama, ND, MSU , Oklahoma etc. and it just sucks the air out of a promising season.
Like it or not, if you played today with the reckless abandon of those guys you’d be watching from the sidelines after getting a Targeting penalty.
Without trash talking and taunting. Hit 'em hard and get ready to do it again.
Very true. The Penn State teams of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s had a special aura about them. Other teams didn't want to play them because they knew they were going to be punished. In the 1980s I did a lot of engineer recruiting at PSU. I visited Penn State twice a year for 3 day stints each time and interviewed 42 engineers on each trip. It was great fun. Anyway, once I got to interview a senior in engineering who was on the football team. To make conversation I asked him, "What is a fact about the team that most people wouldn't know?" He told me that they practice different techniques to punish the opposing players -- all within the rules. For instance, before they played Georgia for the 1983 national championship, they practiced over and over how to punish Herschel Walker. The used a technique where the defensive lineman would grab Herschel and hold his arms down while a linebacker would stick him with a helmet to the center of the chest. They practiced gang tackling where every tackle was punishing. When they were practicing these techniques the practice squad players wore flack jackets and other protective gear. This guy told me that the greatest satisfaction the defense got from the Georgia game was in the second half when Herschel Walker took some hand-offs and actually turned sideways as he came through the line to avoid getting pounded. Right then they knew the game was over and Georgia was done.
That was how Penn State used to play football. Maybe nobody plays that way anymore because of rule changes.
Chet Parlavecchio would never have played a minute of any second half.
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We’re saying 60s-80s but i think Poz, Connor, Bowman, Lee, etc were all fundamentally sound and tough in the 2000s. Like imagine those linebackers and even dline with our current secondary.
I do think in some part social media (e.g. brandon smith wants every play to be a highlight), new rules, etc have made it difficult to be how it once was but do think our team has also lost fundamentals and accountability. Not sure if we will ever see football like that again.
I do think in some part social media (e.g. brandon smith wants every play to be a highlight), new rules, etc have made it difficult to be how it once was but do think our team has also lost fundamentals and accountability. Not sure if we will ever see football like that again.
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The tackling has been generally terrible. At the beginning of the season I thought we had solved that problem, but they seemed to have reverted back to the same old, same old. Part of that may be due to less practice time vs. the old days, but it would never have been tolerated back then.
They weren't too successful using that technique when preparing for the 79 Sugar Bowl. What happened there, with more than a month to prepare for Bryant's wishbone variant?
Ole Bar, you really know how to win friends and influence people, don’t you?
My son and I watched the 87 Fiesta Bowl for the NC recently, and as a younger viewer of football, he was amazed at how Penn State's defense flew around that night and wondered how many of those hits/tackles would have been flagged under today's rules...The game has certainly changed.
My all-time old favorite - 1964 Ohio State at Ohio State.
Wasn't even there, but listened on my transistor radio from my dorm room, 503 Pollock C (now Mifflin)
Pure joy!
Wasn't even there, but listened on my transistor radio from my dorm room, 503 Pollock C (now Mifflin)
Pure joy!
This poster ^^^ is NOT Barry Fenchak. Interesting.
Well. It is not Barry Fenchak posting. So, who would set up an account using someone else's name? With the idea of creating ill will? For what purpose?
