Reality is, we lack the personnel to be competitive with the better teams, but for the first time this season I thought we looked like an actual football team.
Given our personnel, we can't protect our quarterback but at least the gameplay today took that into consideration and made adjustments with that in mind.
We haven't been able to run the ball at all but today, with the addition of some runs by our QB, we did run the ball some and gained some yards doing so.
The defense played a solid game against that offense - no, they're a better team but Oladejo made a difference in our defense today and we got beaten by a top ten opponent on the road a long way from home, but we were a four TD + four extra point underdog - that's a wipe out - and that's what I expected - a Penn State romp getting up by 31 or so points in the first half with Penn State pulling their starters and still winding up beating us with more than 40 points to our fewer than 10. What we got was a solid defeat but at least we played like a real football team and the coaching calls seemed like they had seen games before.
Martin did an excellent job for his first game - and to me that means Foster had Bieniemy coming up with a scheme and play calls that gave the rookie QB a chance to be successful. Not sure about his accuracy but with our OL to consider, I can see a good deal of his inaccuracy coming from not being able to be comfortable back there. An encouraging effort.
The post below about being an OL and a DL short of being competitive (I'd say a pass rush and an OL and a DB or two short myself but not to quibble about it) is how I see it also. I think that's simply a reality.
But up until now our poor OL was completely lost trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing and - against D1 opposition - we simply had no pass rush at all, not even the threat of one. We couldn't run the ball at all. Our QB was getting rushed to death and our offense didn't seem to have any aspects to help the QB with that reality.
At least the coaches have now dialed into reality and the players haven't quit/ Lousy year but given the situation and talent at least we were beaten by a superior opponent rather than not having a clue how to play a football game and just embarrassing ourselves.
Just my reaction to today's game which most of us - certainly myself included - expected to be another embarrassment in which we did nothing but run around completely lost. Figure many will be much more critical and maybe my reaction reflects how little I've come to expect from this eeason - full respect to those opinions but this was my take on today's game.