Penn St. opens Season with a Loss
In the opening game of the season in which Coach Jeff was hoping this would be the 1st to bring back the luster to Penn St., the Nittany Lions fall short with a 21-17 loss to Syracuse at Met-Life.
In the post game conference Coach Jeff said " We just didn't come out fundle mentally sound football. We started off the game on the right note with Eugene Lewis returning the opening Ko 99 yd's for a TD, after that though it was us just trying to stay a float. The Coaching staff and I decided to go with True Freshman Christian Hackenberg and he created mistakes. He had 3 Int's. Now anyone knows when a QB throws 3 Int's, it's setting their team up for doom. We tried staying with them and just couldn't hold up. Syracuse HB Jerome Smith was a 1 man wrecking crew tallying up 126 yd's on 15 carries. We just need to go back to the drawing board and hopefully we will have a better performance from Christian next week against Boise at the Big Blue. He has his work cut out for him."
On offense minus the 3 Int's Hackenberg had, he threw for 270 yd's, on a 29/49 day. HB Zach Zwinek added 75 yd's on the ground with 1 TD. On the receiving end of things Penn St. didn't have a bad day at all, as Penn St. saw 3 WR's near or pass 100 yd's receiving.
On defense the Nittany Lions totaled 6 sacks and 10 t/l's showing they were getting the pressure on the Orange.
As Coach Jeff said, Hackenberg has a big game next week as the Lions visit the Broncos on their home turf in the Big Blue which is never easy especially starting a true freshman.
Key Player Stats
Penn St
QB - Christian Hackenberg - 93 QBR, 29\49, 270 yd's, 3 int's
HB - Zach Zwinek - 18 att's, 75 yd's, 1 TD, 4 rec's, 23 yd's
WR - Eugene Lewis - 3 KR's, 147 yd's, 1 TD
WR - Alex Kenney - 10 rec's, 100 yd's
WR - Allen Robinson - 10 rec's, 97 yd's
TE - Kyle Carter - 9 rec's, 104 yd's
FS - Ryan Keiser - 7 tkl's, 1 tfl
ROLB - Nyeem Wartman - 2 tkl's, 2 sk's
Syracuse
QB - Terrel Hunt - 182 QBR, 6\15, 175 yd's, 2 TD's
HB -
*Jerome Smith - 15 att's, 126 yd's, 2 rec's, 119 yd's, 2 TD's
MLB - Marquis Spruill - 12 tkl's, 2 Int's, 5 yd's
CB - Keon Lyn - 5 tkl's, 1 tfl, 2 Int's, 40 yd's
LE - Micah Robinson - 1 tkl, 1 tfl, 1 sk
* - Denotes Player of the Game
Side Note - 1st game I have played in years on this where it wasn't Coach Mode. Took some time to get used to for me. I liked how the game was close, as I am used to blowing teams out with my other school in my other Coach Mode OD. I am expecting a real blow out against jHogan. Doubt I will even challenge the guy. This being my 1st OD with rules, I did catch myself a couple times having to correct myself. J if I do against you I do honestly apologize and it wasn't meant to be done, and I except any punishment by you Tarheel for my actions. Caught myself a few times doing the switch to WR to catch.
03-19-2014, 12:10 PM
