Darryl Clark engineered a long 4th quarter drive with his team down by one point to lead his team to a 19-17 victory in the Capitol One Bowl in Orlando. The win hopefully helped Clark exorcise those 'can't-win-big-ones demons' that the media put in his head. Good talent eventually comes forth however.
Of course to help him out was that Penn State D from linebacker U. As much as I like and adore my silver bullets, you have to admire the sure tackling one sees from Penn State day in and day out. Its creditable. They kept everything in front of them for the most part and made decisive tackles to get off the field quick.
The only thing that could have been the undoing of Penn State was their inability to punch the abll in from close quarters. On numerous occasions they had 1st and goal from inside the LSU 5 yard line and settled for FGs each time.
Big 10 teams always set themselves up to run the football to survive those cold late October and November games. And that helped Penn State big. Both Royster and Green ran the ball effectively to chew clock on a field that looked as if it had just seen the battle of Gettysburg fought on it. It had rained a lot in Orlando all day prior to kickoff and a field that was coming apart in the Wisconsin game was a wreck during kickoff of the Capitol One Bowl. And Penn State was ready for it - LSU was not.
This will again lead to a lot of water cooler discussion in Big 10 fans that Bowl games ought to be also played in the frozen Tundra up North to see how teams from the South fare.
And good ol JoePa ... what can you say...twice during the game he caught the refs napping. Take this ... the refs called a play as 4th down when it was actually 2nd down. And JoePa was the only one who noticed. Amazing isnt it what his football acumen is.
In the end the Penn State had 4 things LSU did not: 1) A solid between the tackles run game 2) A senior QB who took what the defense gave him 3) Consistent and solid defense - LSU did have some great goal line stands but also gave up big plays 4) A wily, seasoned coach in JoePa. - Les Miles clock management was again a disaster
Good win for Darryl Calrk, for Penn State in search of that quality OOC win and for the Big 10 both monetarily as well as for reputation.
I should not forget - the biggest weapons LSU had on the field were 1) The threat of Trindon Holliday and 2) Trindon Holliday Out of fear of his speed, Penn State tried all kinds of short and squibble kicks letting LSU start from great field position. When they did punt or kick to him, he killed em consistently with good returns. What a weapon he is.
