Ohio State is awesome, but that doesn’t mean that the Playoff committee is correct

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Aaron Yorke

I’m typing this at halftime of the Ohio State vs. Clemson College Football Playoff Semifinal and it’s clear that the Buckeyes are one of the top four teams in the nation. The defense that looked less than championship caliber earlier in the campaign has settled down after two early Clemson touchdowns and contained Trevor Lawrence. Meanwhile, Justin Fields is playing through injured ribs and torching the Clemson defense with help from his tight ends and Trey Sermon, who is proving to be a certified stud at tailback.

https://twitter.com/jgroc/status/1345194961420111876?s=20

That doesn’t mean that Ohio State belongs in the Playoff, though. You’ll never convince me that their six-game slate that was shortened by coronavirus concerns stands up against the fuller schedule played by teams like Texas A&M and Cincinnati, the latter of whom could have polished off a 10-0 season today if not for poor clock management and an incredibly clutch field goal by Georgia’s Jack Podlesny.

Yes, I believe Ohio State is good enough. Yes, I believe if Ryan Day’s team had played more games that it would have remained undefeated. The resume as currently constructed just doesn’t hold up, and its treatment by the committee raises major questions about our current system of selecting the top four teams.

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Penn State sneaks in a Big Ten basketball game while the Daniel Jones bandwagon comes to a screeching halt

Posted on December 15, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

Yeah, it’s a little late for a weekend recap, but I’ve been busy working remotely in the morning and making a Mike and the Mad Dog parody in the afternoon. Sports weren’t fun on Sunday, but at least there was sufganiyot.

Penn State drops Big Ten opener to Michigan

Hey it turns out that basketball games are harder to win when your shots don’t go in. Who would have thunk it? Penn State has hopefully learned its lesson after losing 62-58 to Michigan on Sunday when everyone except me was watching NFL football. Just kidding; I was also watching NFL football while streaming this game on my laptop. That didn’t make it any more easier to tolerate Penn State’s 31-percent field goal shooting, including a reverse layup in the final five seconds by Sam Sessoms that could have tied the score but did not come close to going in.

Izaiah Brockington led the Nittany Lions in scoring for the second straight game, but this time he only scored 14 points and the rest of the team struggled to create open looks. Sessoms went 4-for-15 from the field, Myreon Jones went 3-for-11, and Seth Lundy once again didn’t get the ball enough.

Penn State hung around by grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds and forcing 16 Michigan turnovers, but they were killed by Hunter Dickinson, the seven-foot tall Michigan freshman who appears to be a more aggressive version of Jon Teske who is already just as polished. He finished with 20 points and three blocked shots and hopefully he’s NBA bound, but if he doesn’t develop a three-point jumper he might just stick around and destroy the Big Ten for a few years. The Lions are now 0-1 in Big Ten play, but they don’t play their second league game until December 23.

Giants smash by reeling Cardinals

Two teams headed in different directions. That’s what the Cardinals vs. Giants looked like on Sunday morning. It looked like that again on Sunday afternoon, but that’s because the Cardinals righted their ship while Big Blue fell back into old bad habits. New York’s offense was just miserable with Daniel Jones and Colt McCoy combining to take eight sacks, including five from Arizona’s Haason Reddick, who had 12.5 sacks in his four-year career entering the game.

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New Smash Bros. fighter makes a splash at The Game Awards, Patriots finally turn into a pumpkin on Thursday Night Football

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

It was a busy Thursday night in Yolk Land with The Game Awards going on alongside Thursday Night Football and a Among Us session with the HooliganZ gang. Let’s break down the headlines.

Sephiroth appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Nintendo said before The Game Awards that it would be unveiling another new fighter, and right after the start of the show we got to see Cloud’s nemesis from Final Fantasy VII beating up a bunch of Smash Bros. veterans.

Not a good look for Mario, who almost got decapitated while taking on Big Seph. It was a little surprising to see a second FF VII character join the fray, but with Final Fantasy VII Remake being such a big hit this year, the move made sense. Does this mean that one of the most highly anticipated games in history will get a Switch release? That would sure be nice.

Rams crush Patriots 24-3

I admit it. I bought into the Patriots being back and Bill Belichick possibly leading his team to a better record this season than Tom Brady’s Buccaneers. It would have been too good to watch the Brady fans try to explain how their guy would have won anything without Belichick if the legendary coach could make the playoffs with Cam Newton at quarterback. New England had won four of five games coming into tonight, and they did that by running the ball with Damien Harris and minimizing Newton’s negative plays.

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Penn State Basketball completely redeems itself by Ferry-racing Virginia Tech

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

Wow. That Penn State Basketball result last night was unexpected… and exhilarating… and just the most wonderful thing that I could have imagined. In case you missed it because you were watching football or the Duke game or The Bachelorette, here’s what happened: Penn State went into Blacksburg and ran the No. 15 Virginia Tech Hokies out of the gym. It was a clobbering that you expect to see in an exhibition game against a Division II team, not in the ACC / Big Ten Challenge. The Nittany Lions shot 12-for-23 from deep and won 75-55.

The game wasn’t even that close, though. Penn State led 42-23 at half and by as many as 28 in the second half. Seth Lundy didn’t even need to score any points because Izaiah Brockington could not be stopped. His 10 field goals were twice as many as anyone else on the court last night, and his 24 points led all scorers. Penn State didn’t turn the ball over until after halftime.

That Keve Aluma that we were so afraid of grabbed 12 rebounds, but only scored eight points, his lowest total of the season. Penn State’s defense wasn’t quite as good as its offense, but it did force 14 turnovers, and it helped that Virginia Tech had a bad shooting night. Most importantly, the Lions did step off the gas pedal like they did against Seton Hall and ended up cruising to a road win over a ranked opponent that has a win over national title contender Villanova on its resume. It’s safe to say that Seton Hall is in the rearview mirror. Bring on the conference slate.

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Penn State Basketball is back in action just two days after the Seton Hall loss, but is that a good thing?

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

Can Penn State bounce back from Sunday’s demoralizing defeat against Seton Hall and get a crucial resume-building win in the Big Ten / ACC Challenge tonight? I might be the only one asking that question. For the second straight game, the Nittany Lions are playing during a primetime NFL game, and they don’t have many supporters to begin with.

Still, those who tune into ESPNU at 9:00 p.m. ET tonight should get treated to an exciting game of basketball. Penn State showed against Seton Hall that it still has plenty of scoring talent on the roster after Lamar Stevens signed an NBA contract in November. Seth Lundy will have to continue his rise to stardom if Penn State is going to keep pace with Virginia Tech, while Sam Sessoms and Myreon Jones have also shown an eagerness to score from the perimeter.

What I’m looking for from the Nittany Lions in this one is better selectiveness in the half-court offense. They don’t need to be jacking up the first shot available when there are so many options on the floor. Too often against Seton Hall they failed to cycle the ball through Lundy, who is clearly the team’s most gifted player with the ability to score as a shooter and with his back to the basket as well. He should be touching the ball on almost every possession.

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Ohio State’s Playoff resume is in question after Michigan game gets canceled

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

The University of Michigan announced today that it was canceling its football game against Ohio State due to COVID-19 concerns inside Wolverines program. This means that Ohio State is stuck at just five games played for the season, which the Big Ten had previously said would not be enough to qualify for the conference title game.

That leaves Indiana as the next team up to represent the East Division. At 6-1, the Hoosiers have had a great season, but they’ve also already lost to Ohio State and are on the outside of the College Football Playoff picture without a resume that matches up to SEC hopefuls Florida and Texas A&M. Indiana’s big win over Penn State to start the campaign doesn’t look that great anymore, and its two quality wins over Maryland and Wisconsin are suspect because those two programs have only been able to play four games a piece.

The Hoosiers don’t give the Big Ten a good chance at a College Football Playoff participant, so what gives? Well, it looks like the Big Ten is going to bend the rules it made up at the start of the season and let Ohio State play West Division champ Northwestern despite its smaller-than-expected schedule.

I’m in favor of letting Ohio State play in the Big Ten Championship Game for a couple of reasons. 1) The six-game thing was just made up anyway and Ohio State got in a victory over its top competitor. 2) Any college football fan who watched the Buckeyes play this season can tell that they are the top team in the Big Ten. Just let them in. I might think differently if they hadn’t defeated Indiana, but the Hoosiers were clearly the only Big Ten member with a prayer of stopping Ohio State in 2020, and that game happened.

The real question is whether or not the College Football Playoff committee should keep Ohio State in its top four when the SEC teams mentioned earlier have both played at least three more games than the Buckeyes. The committee concerns itself with quality of victory all the time, but never before have they seen such a difference in QUANTITY of victory, and that’s where Ohio State can get into trouble. Even if it secures a sixth win over Northwestern, is that enough to keep it above a Texas A&M team that has defeated Florida, LSU, and Auburn?

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I almost had a perfect sports weekend, but Penn State Basketball ruins everything

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

I was about two minutes of game time away from having a perfect sports weekend, but Penn State Basketball made sure that didn’t happen. The least favorite child of the athletic department blew an 84-76 lead to Seton Hall and eventually lost in overtime. There has been a lot of good to take away from Penn State’s first three games, but the departures of Lamar Stevens and Mike Watkins leave the team very shallow in the frontcourt, and that allowed a quality big man like Seton Hall’s Sandro Mamukelashvili to score 30 points. Meanwhile, John Harrar still struggles with the basic fundamentals of post play, but at least Seth Lundy is looking like a legit superstar.

Penn State has talent. Now it’s up to interim head coach Jim Ferry to figure out how it all works together so we’re not stuck with Myreon Jones taking an insane three-point shot with the game on the line.

Figuring out how it all works together is exactly what the Giants have done under Joe Judge in the past month. They didn’t even need a starting quarterback to beat the Seahawks in Seattle on Sunday despite being double-digit underdogs. And it’s not like Colt McCoy was slinging it around like he was back in the Red River Shootout. New York pounded the rock with Wayne Gallman behind an offensive line that has improved since Judge showed Marc Colombo the door.

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Penn State’s basketball players are saddened and confused by the resignation of Pat Chambers

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

For the first time since head basketball coach Pat Chambers was forced to resign, Penn State basketball players were able to meet with the media via Zoom on Wednesday. The focus of the press conference was the start of the 2020-21 season, but several players spoke about Chambers and the impact he had on the program.

A month ago, Chambers was shockingly let go by Penn State as a result of an internal investigation that was prompted by the coach making “noose” comments to former player Rasir Bolton, who transferred to Iowa State after the 2018-19 campaign. The controversial conversation between Chambers and Bolton was revealed by The Undefeated and Bolton in July of this year.

In the announcement of Chambers’s resignation, Penn State said that the investigation was based on “new allegations of inappropriate conduct” that came to light following Bolton going public. However, we have let to learn what these new allegations are that apparently cost Penn State its basketball coach.

That’s frustrating because athletic director Sandy Barbour effectively nuked the hoops program with this decision. The Nittany Lions have already lost all three commitments for the 2021 class, and we probably won’t find out about the next full-time head coach until the spring.

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Giants slam door on Eagles this time, draw within reach of NFC East title

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

In any other year, the New York Football Giants’ 27-17 win over Philadelphia on Sunday would be something to build on. It would be a sign that the team is growing under first-year head coach Joe Judge and learning how to win against teams other than Washington. In 2020, the victory is those things, but it is also a key win in the NFC East race because of how terrible everyone is.

The difference between the Giants and their flailing rivals is that the Giants are improving, and that can make all the difference in a division that it seems no one wants to win. In fact, New York would be the clear front-runner by now if it hadn’t let that 11-point fourth quarter lead slip away in Philadelphia last month.

Sunday could have been another rough day for Giants fans, but this time around Daniel Jones completed his critical pass that kept the Eagles from getting the ball back late in a one-possession game.

https://twitter.com/jgroc/status/1328078486469271553?s=20

That play set up a Graham Gano field goal to put the game out of reach. I love that Judge and the Giants were willing to take a risk with the lead instead of just relying on the defense to stop Carson Wentz again. They took a similar chance in the first game against the Eagles, but Jones’s ball bounced off of Evan Engram’s fingertips and Wentz threw a game-winning touchdown pass to Boston Scott. This time around, Darius Slayton came up big.

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Sean Clifford’s turnovers lead to Penn State’s fourth straight loss and a surprisingly decent outing by backup Will Levis

Posted on November 15, 2020 by Aaron Yorke

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Penn State goes on the road, commits a couple of dumb turnovers in the first half, falls behind, then loses at the last second despite an exciting comeback attempt and an advantage of about 200 in the yardage department.

Yes, the 30-23 loss to Nebraska felt like deja vu after PSU fans sat through many of the same scenes that made the defeat at Indiana such a torture rack. The two key differences against the Cornhuskers were that the Nittany Lions never had the lead in Lincoln and that Will Levis replaced Sean Clifford in the second quarter.

That’s it. That’s the play that prompted James Franklin to finally pull Clifford and take his chances with the unproven Levis. Clifford has now fumbled into an opponent touchdown for the second week in a row and has generally been a turnover machine in 2020. Earlier in the game he killed a Penn State drive with a critically misplaced throw. He also threw a pair of interceptions against both Maryland and Indiana.

I thought the Ohio State game was a sign of good thing to come for Clifford, as he connected with Jahan Dotson for three touchdowns and didn’t turn the ball over until very late, but he fell hard back to old habits in these last two painful losses. Enter Levis, who clumsily filled in for Clifford when he got hurt in Columbus last season and barely led Penn State to a win over Rutgers.

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