Post-Mortem of Another Loss to scUM

I cannot stand University of Michigan athletics (football, especially). I really can’t. You might be able to say that I hate Michigan. I despise Michigan more than Ohio State, and usually more than Notre Dame (which is really saying something). Now Penn State has lost *nine* consecutive games to Michigan, this one by a score of 14-9. And the reason why this game in particular is so frustrating (as opposed to, say, last year’s game when Michigan’s defense absolutely dominated the entire game and they were without a doubt the better team), is that this game was utterly winnable. Some people blame the very conservative game-plan/play-caling that Joe Paterno and the other PSU coaches had as the primary reason we lost. While I think that certainly was a factor that led to us losing the game, I’m of the opinion that the main reason we lost was a lack of execution. First, our offensive line played very poorly almost the entire game. There just wasn’t any push off the line. Only rarely did they create holes for our running backs to go through, or provide enough protection for Morelli not to have to scramble for his life or make a hurried decision. It seemed like just about every single play the Michigan defensive line was beating them into the backfield, either stopping the runner for no gain or forcing a bad throw/decision from Morelli. The most aggressive game plan in the world can’t work if your offensive line can’t block. Second, we had two absolutely killer turnovers, both fumbles. The first of these, a fumble by Morelli when he was forced to scramble due to our porous offensive line, was deep in Penn State territory in the 1st quarter and essentially gave Michigan their first touchdown. The second fumble came in the 3rd quarter, when Penn State had finally put together a decent drive deep into Michigan territory, essentially preventing a Penn State touchdown. It was Austin Scott’s fifth lost fumble in 40-some carries this season, which is absolutely inexcusable (he should be benched for Rodney Kinlaw, who has shown better burst and better vision anyway, and actually holds onto the ball). So if you take away that Michigan touchdown and give Penn State a touchdown instead of having those two fumbles, suddenly Penn State wins 16-7, fans are praising JoePa and the coaching staff for finding a way to grind out a win against a very good Michigan team on the road, and the Nittany Lions are still in the hunt for a berth in the (Mythical) National Championship game. But Penn State just didn’t execute when it counted, and Michigan did, and so Penn State lost the game. It’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. It makes me really upset that we lost to Michigan *again* when we were just one play away from winning the entire game. No matter what happens the rest of the season, there will always be a very bitter taste in my mouth because we lost this eminently winnable game to Michigan.
While Penn State’s shot at being crowned national champions is all but gone (barring some really strange happenings), all is not lost. If the Nittany Lions run the table and win the rest of the games in the regular season, they still have a good shot at winning the Big Ten title or getting into another BcS bowl game. Basically, I’ll be cheering for Wisconsin and Ohio State both to roll into Beaver Stadium in October with undefeated records, so that they can both leave with a loss. That’s what Penn State needs to regain respect and salvage its season. And I’ll be cheering for Wisconsin and one other team to take down Michigan in the Big Ten portion of the schedule. But first things first, Penn State has to regroup and avoid the upset at Illinois next weekend. If they don’t do that, who knows how far down this season could start to spiral.
In one of my posts last week I mentioned how I’d finally gotten my car back from the shop, after being without it for over a couple weeks. Well, I very nearly wound up without a car (for all intents and purposes) again this weekend. I was coming back from worship band practice at church on Saturday night, and was only half a block from my apartment when suddenly police lights started flashing right behind me. So I turned onto Pugh and then into my apartment’s driveway, when the officer informed me that my license plate tabs were expired as of the end of August. [DOH!!] I was completely unaware that they had, and hadn’t noticed that my tabs expired in August. In my defense, I don’t recall ever getting a registration renewal notice postcard from the Wisconsin DMV, but I still should’ve noticed. So the cop wrote me a $107 ticket (ouch…) and told me I had to park my car and not drive it again until I had proof of renewing my registration. After calling home and seeing if anything from the DMV had been sent there (nothing had, to my parents’ knowledge), I was resigned to the fact that I’d be unable to drive my car for a few days or a couple weeks at least, while playing out the whole process by mail with getting my tabs renewed. I did some checking online though, and saw that I could renew my registration online, provided I had a particular number from my certificate of registration. I dug around in my room a bit, and somehow managed to find my old (August expiry) certificate of registration that I’d been sent when I got my new license plates back in May (after my old ones got stolen on April Fools Day). Success!! So that enabled me to renew it online, and to print out a receipt/proof of registration page that will suffice until my new tabs are mailed to me. If I get pulled over again in the time being, at least I’ll have that to show the cop and it’ll hopefully be all fine. And I’ll make doubly sure that I always have my proof of registration on me at all times from now on!
We won our softball game on Thursday night, 19-3 in 4 innings. The team we played was pretty bad, and was just there to have fun. After scoring 9 in the top of the 1st, we just kinda cruised the next three innings. They just gave us so many extra outs, and you can’t do that in IM softball and have a prayer of winning. I went 2-for-2 with an infield single, a walk, a single up the middle and two runs scored, so my season average is up to 7-for-11 (.636), and I also caught both fly balls that came my way in right-center (I didn’t make either of them as adventurous as I traditionally do, either!). Our final game of the regular season is this Tuesday night at 7pm, against another team that’s also 4-0. A trip to the playoffs is on the line, we’ve gotta bring our A-game!