I hate being right

Friday I had 5 reasons that I was nervous about playing in Happy Valley (and actually, funny enough, playing in Happy Valley wasn't even one of them)... boy do I hate being right. 

Daryll Clark: 21-32, 65.6% completion, 287 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT.  Clark was effective, efficient, accurate, and generous, spreading the ball around to seven different receivers.  He found holes in our zone defense all day long and did exactly what you would expect the best QB in the Big Ten to do.


Penn State Rush Defense: gave up just 37 yards.  Need I say more?

Gopher Offense: rushed for just 37 yards and managed a whopping 138 yards total offense on the day.  Oh yeah, they also didn't score any points.  When I wrote that post on Friday, I struggled with whether or not to write that I was nervous about the Gopher offense in general, or Adam Weber particularly.  I would not have been wrong either way... but I'm sure we'll get to Weber later.

Penn State Rush Offense: coming into this game the Gophers were giving up 168 yards/game on the ground, and they continued that disturbing trend by giving up 177 yards in this game.  Penn State's numbers (177 yards rushing) were also right in line with their season average of 188.

Something to prove: although I'm still not 100% sure how good Penn State is (as the Gopher offense didn't do... well, anything, leading to the defense being on the field for most of the game), the Gophers didn't put up much of a fight (sigh), and Penn State had enough penalties that they let us think we were in the game for most of the day.  Having said all of that, I think Penn State proved that they are a good team.  However, if they play like they played against us when they face Iowa, OSU and Michigan, they might be in for a surprise.


Perhaps the most telling stat of the game, once again, is time of possession.
Penn State: 41:59
Minnesota: 18:01

I will be re-watching the game at some point this week, so I plan to dig into more specifics, but this loss is a bad one.  Our offense was once again exposed for what it is, and I am very concerned about what this game does for the psyche of our squad.