Twitter Reaction: Okay, Maybe Penn State Can Be A Rival Now

By Johnny Ginter on October 26, 2014 at 8:30 am
Ohio State rocking the all-whites in front of Penn State's white out.
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I wasn't fully convinced, as many of you were, that this game was going to be a blowout. Not because I didn't have a borderline Catholic faith in the sanctity of our lord J.T. Barrett, but more because I still have this unshakable belief that things like "anger" and "pride" and "two weeks to prepare for an opponent that you get to ambush at home and at night" matter in the game of football.

They don't, except that last one maybe, and there are most assuredly better and more logically sound explanations for Penn State running the Buckeyes right down to the wire in overtime. But I am not interested in those explanations. I am far more interested in the living embodiment of confusion and incompetence that descended on Happy Valley last night, and how that confusion manifested itself through Twitter dot com.

It didn't start that way, however. Ohio State looked semi-competent against a good defense, and the Penn State offense was getting absolutely nothing done against Joey Bosa and company (more on him in a few minutes). Smugness begets hubris and hubris begets sheer insanity. Let's get smug.

And really, the best part about the above is how the ridiculousness unfolded. Ohio State ended the first half with a 17 point lead, the Penn State offense doing nothing whatsoever, and the team as a whole sitting pretty for the second half. Maybe less Audrey Hepburn-petting-a-kitten-and-giggling-in-a-clover-patch pretty and more Miley Cyrus-suggestively-eating-a-popsicle-while-straddling-a-Harley pretty, but a three score lead is a three score lead.

Then this happened.

Darren Rovell and Family Guy, twin harbingers of incompetence, began to infect the Buckeyes with their bacterium, and J.T. Barrett began the second half with a pick six.

A few words about Barrett: I'm still super hyped on the kid. He's still pretty clearly a guy starting his first year of college ball, but he never stops competing and trying to make things happen. That gets him in trouble when his arm can't back up his moxie, but overall I think he's on the way toward being an All-American at some point.

Those INTs were really, really dumb though. One could be reasonably blamed on his knee being sprained (and huge props to him for playing through it and nailing the winning TD despite being gimpy as hell), but the other was just stupid as hell and a result of not being able to read a defense. That will come in time, but ideally that time will come before November 8th.

With that said, it's not like Penn State was getting much done on offense either.

Time to give the defense some love. Penn State's offense is a dumpster fire, sure, but the effort given by pretty much everyone on defense (on both teams) should be noted. The teams combined for 18 tackles for loss by my admittedly probably flawed count, and Penn State shut down the Buckeye passing game (12 completions, 74 yards total, 2 INTs) just as much as Ohio State shut down the Nittany Lion rushing game (31 total carries for 16 yards, which includes Hackenberg getting sacked 500 times. He's probably still in the process of getting sacked as you read this).

Psychic? Perhaps, especially if you consider the arcane overtime rules of college football to be the big time equivalent of Midwestern folkstyle wresting, but I think this point might be more accurate.

And so it was. Penn State scored 17 unanswered points in the second half, including the tying field goal with nine seconds left, sending the game and the wider Twitter world at large into a state of confusion and anger and sleepyness. The harrowing account is as follows:

Actually, I kind of get it. Especially when you factor in some truly baffling reffing decisions that probably changed the course of the game. The officials would later beg "tech problem!" but we all know that it's far more likely that a massive conspiracy exists that is relentless in it's effort to frame Joe Paterno for covering up for a rapist and also make bad judgement calls about interceptions.

To put it bluntly, the third and fourth quarters were a rough time for all of us. But then, a clarion call, from a man known only as TPeezy:

I could write several thousand words about that single, beautiful tweet, but I'll spare you and instead point out that there's a neat lil' 11W logo in the bottom of that picture. We're big time, mom, WE FINALLY MADE IT!

Anyway, come overtime, J.T. did exactly as he was commanded to by the whispers from the void. Ohio State did not attempt a single pass in overtime, instead opting to run the ball six times for 37 yards. Ezekiel Elliott had two of those rushes for five yards. Barrett had the other four, pounding in both touchdowns and accounting for the other 32 yards while balling hard on a bum knee and probably a little bit of wounded pride due to the earlier interceptions. So this is very true:

And to me, he shares game MVP honors with

Not in the least because of two and a half sacks to go along with generally being a giant, fleshy wrecking ball that has zero regard for your petty human morals. He also, you know, won the game and stuff, which you can relive here with the sweet dulcet tones of one Paul Keels (ps you should download the Soundcloud app so you can better listen to the Eleven Dubcast!).

The whole defense deserves the lion's share (hah!) of credit for this win. The defensive line was excellent, the linebackers played a great game (Joshua Perry had 18 freaking tackles), and the secondary had few hiccups against a quarterback that can be deadly when he's on. As it was Hackenberg was picked once and was also victimized by some kind of shared fever dream by the officials, while needing 49 passing attempts to get to 224 yards of passing.

This game ended at approximately Way Too Damn Late O'Clock, and had Ohio State lost this stupid game I would probably have frozen solid on my couch like Han Solo being dipped into a frothing tub of carbonite. We won, maybe not fair and square but you know, close enough. And Penn State? You won, too. By putting us through a huge amount of mental stress and anguish, you can now officially count yourselves as one of our rivals. Maybe not THE rival, but a rival.

So well-ish done, everyone. Now let's relax in C-Bus and spend a week making fun of Tim Beckman.

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