Ep. 224 | Thundering Start

0:00Welcome in to Hardcore Penn State Football. Penn State takes care of Marshall blanks them. 45 nothing and prepares to travel east to Lincoln Financial Field to take on the temple owls in their week to match up Sean Keenan, Corey Lestoki will be breaking down the game and preparing you for the game this Saturday. All that and much much more in just one second. See you then. iera He's gonna get the tickets to win on the way out.

1:09And happy family. That's the very early. And when he's got it, he's gonna jump it. He gets the most. He's second to the game. And Penn State will win the national championship. Welcome in the hardcore Penn State football. I'm Corey Lestoki with me as always. The Great. Sean Kane. How are we doing today, Sean? I'm doing great, Corey. So some big things happened. Penn State defeated Marshall.

2:10Most notably. LSU almost got kicked out of the SEC. Yes. And it takes up that else happened, Corey. Michigan cheated again. Yes. That there's turns out there's a secret other clock that nobody knows about. Nobody knows operates. That we that nobody knew about. No, they sort of won on Saturday. And they also sort of lost. So I think they won the battle lost the wars. How I would frame that one for Michigan. Ultimate Piric victory. Yes. Is that what you are looting to Sean? No, there's something else that happened. But Corey's news to share. So go ahead, Corey. Yeah, no, we honestly worked out perfectly. So for those that had not heard yet. My son was born on last Tuesday morning. So just eight days now. So yeah, Thomas Howard Lestoki.

3:11Sean, as soon as we finish recording the podcast on Monday night, I walk upstairs and Maddie started on like counter contractions and whatnot. And I'm like, oh, so literally as soon as we finish, I hadn't even put the podcast up to the platform yet. So I don't want to say that this boy is a huge college football fan. Or at least a hardcore Penn State football fan. But the fact that a let us finish recording of the last week's episode. And then B had enough time to even get the episode uploaded before we went to the hospital. Right around two in the morning. So perfect timing, I would say in all regards. And working, we didn't have the way to the induction on Wednesday was, you know, obviously. Not necessarily bad to be induced, but it got to be more natural. And it all worked out. So yeah, kept kept another human being alive for over a week now, which. That's pretty cool. That is the goal. That's literally a bad age. Yeah, if you get through at everybody's alive, you're good.

4:13Just trying to go one and oh each week. Is that trying to go one and only that's the story of the first month for sure. So congratulations, Corey. Thanks, man. Very happy for you and Maddie. And most notably, that's why I'm about 12 minutes late because he was pissed before we are about to start the show today. One of the one of the least so show Sean. But he was not in the happy he's not happy camper when we were getting started. But that's all right. Okay, Sean Penn State, one and oh. And that's not a one and only tweet thing there literally just one and only season so far. Shut out Marshall 45 zero. Some success with the honor. Some success with honor as well. And really just. I'm going to say one day I'm let you kind of take it from here. But to me, Sean, and I think someone else said this better. This felt like a different 45 nothing win blow out win.

5:13Then say some of the last handful of ones under the James Franklin era were like, yes, they got there from a score perspective. But they seem like they struggled this game. First of all, Marshall was down 17 nothing as soon as they got off the bus team came out playing with their hair on fire. Mark Brandon, I think somebody up pretty well. A lot of those IOC guys hadn't played in Bver Stadium. So there's probably some of that juice. I think there's more to it though. These guys came out like they wanted to prove something. I don't know if the Iowa State guys are offended by the Iowa State East comments. I don't know, but they came out fired up and there was no doubt in this one. Sean from start to finish on who's in a witness football game. There was an inflection point there where they decided to go for it and fourth and one. But even if they wouldn't have converted that, Marshall wasn't going to win this football game. And that did seem different than not all the James Franklin non conference games. But definitely like, you know, last year come to the FIU game, especially kind of comes to my mind. There was no doubt in this one, Sean.

6:15Yeah, they came out and they really took care of business. Nothing looked hard, which is good. It was it was the perfect form to know. There's some things to get better with that we'll get into, but yeah, they looked ready. There wasn't a lot of because when we did the preview, I expected them to look a little more disjointed, especially dealing with a more mobile quarterback on defense. I thought that Danton Linden did a very, very good job of preparing his guys on defense, passing game. Barack go back. He didn't look hurt. I could tell you that. And he looked very confident, looked very comfortable with guys outside of his eye was steak guys too. Eskilton had the big touchdown grab. But outside of that, so I'll had a few had a couple grabs, but it was Kobe Howard, the soul of the show. With having over 160 yards receiving and for you, PFF people out there.

7:18I think he rated the second highest in the country, only behind Malachi Tony and Miami, who's the best receiver in America. So yeah, a lot to be happy and excited about. Also, it's week one. It's one game against team that I know how good they are. So I have to take it in a perspective, have to have some perspective on it. That will nine people. Penn State looked alright. Not as good as they did on Saturday, but they looked pretty good against Nevada after week one last, if we want to, you know, in bite, hate, hate, hate, talking about last season all the time. But kind, you know, it is a bit of a reference point. And we know how the next couple weeks went. So they're going to have to try to avoid, avoid that. And yeah, that's kind of my general thoughts is they looked prepared and there is a lot of good things, but also some things to build off of. Sean, just remind me, when do we usually see the most improvement between for a team, between what weeks again?

8:20Week one week two, according to Joe paternal. There we go. Kobe Howard just to kind of, I agree with you on a lot of the sense of maybe that, you know, it's only one game, but in Kobe Howard's sense, he had seven catches in 2025 for 133 yards. He had six catches for 161 in the touchdown just in week one. So that's notable regardless of everything else that, of course, we're going to be talking about today. Sean, we have some fan questions I think we'll get to one thing that I want to know that I listen a lot of the podcasts so far this week, and I don't think anyone's hit on this yet. And I mentioned it to you, Sean, I think on Sunday, and our group chat, but obviously people are talking about Matt Campbell and not him not wanting to be obviously the focal point, not having his name and outs and the starting lineup.

9:21And running off the field as soon as the alma mater was done. In that case was to get to the locker room before anyone else good so he could literally shake everyone's hand as they came into the locker room. All those things, that's been kind of rung out extensively across Penn State media. But one thing I have not seen anyone mentioned yet that I think goes to the attention of detail and the little things that make a difference in a football team. Penn State only had four penalties for 45 yards, which I think is pretty good for a whole new team kind of coming together. But what I noticed was after the game for the alma mater, under Franklin's regime, it was just everyone kind of joining hands wherever and just kind of find somebody and sing the song and get out of there. They were like properly spaced every five yards in a straight line for the alma mater. It was very clean. It was very organized. And again, is it a huge deal? Absolutely not.

10:21But it continues to paint a picture to me that the little things are going to matter and we are going to be disciplined in the small things. And it doesn't matter who you are, you are all going to kind of follow the same rules. And that seemed very evident by even how they lined up for the alma mater at a post game. So I just wanted to make a note of that because I hadn't seen anyone else kind of bring that up yet. And I think that again, we're not going to try to make comparisons to James Franklin all year long. However, I do think people need to relax in a sense that James Franklin was a head football coach for a very long time here. And I think there are times where it's important to contrast and compare the two coaching staffs and what's working. And I think Mark Brennan said the best. It's not a necessarily like Franklin didn't wrong and Matt Campbell is doing it better. It's just different. And whether or not Matt Campbell is going to be successful not because they line up better for the alma mater. We'll find out here in the next couple of years.

11:27But it's just a different approach. And that's all I'm trying to get out of this game on Saturday did not feel from start to finish. And even after and even a little bit before did not feel like a Penn State Saturday under James Franklin. Yeah, I would also say we had a lot of successful Saturdays under James Franklin as well. Well, we did look really good from the start. And yeah, the alma mater point is a good one. I would also say it's a little easier game one where we just kicked the teams ass in. Like how are they going to look if we lose? Oh, that's kind of when your character gets tested right. And I think, you know, if we want to use last year as a reference and really previous years as well. There were a lot of times where we didn't look good off of losses. So I think there's a I.

12:27And I'm kind of guilty of not wanting to really look back at the previous regime as much. But it is a reference point that we can ignore. And I think in one of my buddies in another group chat that I'm in, brought up that James Franklin is the first coach in at least 70 years that got fired for performance. So Penn State fans are in a weird spot because I'm it kind of drives me a little nuts about Penn State fans that were very obsessed with the past. You're kind of seeing that with the stuff going on with Joe that and you know, we're constantly talk about Franklin. But we never really had that happen before. And we had Franklin fired after being with him for so long. And I think a lot of us don't really know how to process that were in the process of processing that.

13:30So it's a very interesting thing to witness. Yeah. But regardless of all that, it's still a reference point. So it's going to come up inevitably. Well, here's some previous history for you. This came up on the TV broadcast for people that walk were at the game live. The first shut out by a Penn State head coach in their debut game, since Dick Harlow, one 26 zero against Westminster in 1915. I think Westminster had a pretty good team that year. So I'm pretty impressive win from what I'm able to gather. We could forget that Westminster went back in 1915. Yes, absolutely. Just just miss the college football playoff that year from what I'm telling gathered there about 100 years away. Yes. Sean, I there's obviously a ton to talk about in the game. I think the best way to go about it is honestly just to start with the fan questions and see where that kind of leads us that we've done that in the past.

14:32And I think that's taken us down a good start at least. And so we can we can start with that. We only have a handful of them. So the first one, I don't know how much we want to add to it. But Dorito Bandit says, are you ready to put Kobe Howard in the Blondakoff conversation? So Sean, are you ready to put Kobe Howard into the national wide receiver of the year conversation? You mentioned Tony. I don't know how anyone's going to be that dude. That guy is just an absolute stud. But all jokes aside, Kobe Howard obviously very good game. But more importantly, the question is probably more about, is this what we should be expecting from Kobe Howard the rest of the year is probably a better question. I I would say that we have three receivers that they feel really good about and it could really be any of them. I do think Kobe Howard is the most upside to his game. He's just a really complete package.

15:33And one thing that what think about him that and keep mind to Marshall. So they're not world class athletes, but he burned a lot of guys like on some of those deep runs. And I was a little even out of high school that one of the reasons he wasn't more heavily recruited was a speed. But think it looks plenty fast enough. So I guess to answer the question, maybe pump the brakes a little bit on the bullet and the cough, but he's going to be very, very good for us. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. And I agree with that. I think the thing that was impressive to me about Kobe Howard was obviously, and you can say the same thing about Chase so well as well as Brad Eskelson yards after the catch and the elusivity really stuck out to me. And the fact that we just got to get the ball in these guys hands. And I don't mean the ball in their hands. Two yards behind a line of scrimmage, although that works for Brad Eskelson's touchdown. But getting Kobe Howard the ball. He had that one really nice catch on the when he wasn't covered and they got the often are the defensive pass of appearance as well.

16:39But besides that, he was pretty wide open and that was because he ran good routes and that was because Rock go back through the ball where it needed to be and on time. But when you give a playmaker like Kobe Howard that amount of space, he can be very lethal. And we I think knew he had that ability and we just never really gave him a chance to do that very much last year. And so to me, sure, you know, we joke about the blocking and a consistency on all those things. I thought he actually blocked really well as what I wouldn't call it upon to do so. But they're not going to necessarily require him to do that. I will say this schematically. What do they plan to do? Say later in the year against somebody else, they ran a lot more 11 personnel than I thought they were going to. They still ran some 12. And we'll talk about some injury news of gay Berkel coming back and how that may change things. But we thought they would have to run 12 personnel because we thought the third best wide receiver was going to be a tight end.

17:44What does that mean now if you can run three wide receivers that you feel great about? And then how does that change? And also that they can do a good enough job blocking. How does that change where you get Rappoli A and versus where you get Ben Braemer in? And then obviously when they did go to a larger tight end set where they did have three tight ends on the field, they chased so well was one wide receiver that was still out there. So Sean, to me, it's going to be more interesting to see how they balance that because it's a good problem. But it seems that they maybe have more weapons than at least we had heard whisperings, but now we can kind of confirm that they may actually have some good problems that they're going to have to solve as far as when they want to go with another wide receiver versus another tight end. Yeah, and they could be teams different ways, right? More ways than we may have thought. And I know it's been a common refrain among Penn State fans that, oh, this is the guy that was kept on the bench, which is sort of true. But he did play a lot more when Terry became the coach and he still only had seven catches last year.

18:49So part of it too is he got better. And Matt Campbell talked about in the spring that they need more consistency for Kobe Howard. So I think this is something that Kobe has put together recently. And we saw flashes of it last year. We saw flashes of it last summer too from all the reporting from camp. But he is having good day after good day now. And Matt Campbell talks a lot about trust and he is earning that trust. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Drew, to bend it for that question. Next one here is from Landis. Do you think they will roll just one running back at some point or keep rotating throughout the season? This is a question that I think we wanted to get into. I think we had another question about this relatively somewhere else. Let's just talk about the running game and more depth. So box score wise, Sean, not in fatic when you look at the numbers. Penn State overall ran for a buck 63 and the average 3.6 yards per rush. That includes any sex, which there was one.

19:59But here were the running backs. Carson Hanson 11 carries 48 yards 4.4 yards per carry along of 10. James Peoples 8 carries for 31 yards 3.9 yards per carry long of 9. Quentin Martin Jr. 10 carries 38 yards 3.8 yards per carry. I touched down on long of 9. Then Cam Wallace first time playing since Kent State when he got injured. He had 11 carries for 42 yards 3.8 yards per carry one touchdown along of 16. Now, before I go in anything or let Sean go in anything, I think we can agree Sean. It was a lot easier sledding in the second half for Cam Wallace and Quentin Martin Jr. I know they had some obviously like Donnie Harbor got in, Chimney O'Neal got in, like some of the backup offense element did get into the game. But even so, Marshall had at that point, I think I think Teapranx summed it up the best. Like it turned into a practice at that point. And so the numbers were it was easier sledding for Cam Wallace and Quentin Martin Jr.

21:04But that being said Sean, not an overly impressive day. What are your thoughts on the Penn State running game? And then obviously we'll get to land this as question here. Yeah, I... You have to look at what Marshall was doing and Teapranx does a really good job of this. And just watching the game live as Axe Koehr or Paul from Lockdown, Netany Lions actually tweeted out a steering game. Because I was like, you know, we do have to paraphrase my own tweet a little bit that, you know, everything looks good. Running game needs some work. But the good thing is we have we're able to work on it. And he did point out that they're crowding the box, which is true. Now I would also say it's Marshall. So, you know, find a way. But it's not like the run game was a troche. We were not getting caught in the backfield very much. There were only a few times that I remember, you know, some blown block assignment here and there. But it was very few and far between. And I think a lot of you are concerned about Carson Hanson and what his high end potential is.

22:09And look, he is a solid back. He is a starting level back at the power for level. Now, if you're trying to win a national championship, do you really want Carson Hanson? You're probably not. But can he rotate in? Yeah. So to answer the question directly, I think this is going to be a variation of what you see every year. Now, who has the most carries at the end of the year? I think that's still out for debate. I thought went Martin looked very good. Not very good, but pretty good when he got in. But I thought Cam also, like the best, but like you said, he was playing against weaker talent. And I think he's going to be there's a reason why that he's the fourth guy in the depth chart. So I think I could really go any which direction with who's going to have the most. But I think they're, I think those top three guys are all going to have about about the same amount of carries. Yeah, I would say this, like I think people need to slow down, obviously, on, I agree with Carson Hanson.

23:13I mean, he had the best average, first of all, I do think all the running backs press a little bit. And I think that was just the sake of they all wanted to do really well and kind of reminded me back when we had Kiva and Lee and Devon Ford never was just trying at the same time to like earn the role. And they kind of were just pressing a little too much. People's, for example, you know, miss the couple holes. Hanson missed a couple holes as well. I thought Quid and Martin Jr. actually the best vision. And I thought Cam Wallace actually had the best call it shakeability. Of all of them. Yeah, I think he's quicker than all those guys. Yeah. And that being said though, I think everyone was trying to settle into a certain degree. And so I don't think there's a systemic problem. We got a couple questions like the running game is just, you know, that Corey and Shawn, you guys talked so much about a red flag during the non-conference games. I have nowhere near ready to even call this an orange flag.

24:14Now part for a couple of versus one go watch the Tanglaugh football networks break down on the run game. The offense align was moving people all day long and there were holes. And the running backs do need to make some people miss. However, Marshall was also putting like eight guys in the box and like, yes, Carson Hanson needs to make the safety of this. But usually that safety is not two yards off the ball when he has to make a miss. So there's a little bit of a, I'm willing to excuse a the running backs not making as many people miss. They should maybe not seeing and hitting the holes exactly how they should. Yes, sometimes the offense line did miss somebody. But for the most part, Marshall was like, we're going to stack the box. And we're going to like hope that you don't just try to throw it all day. And I think Rocco backed only through it 18 times. I think it'll put up 60 points. I think that they really wanted to. But Taylor Malzer and company decided to run against a heavy box anyway.

25:16So I'm not to the point of being concerned about the run game. And it's nice to be able to throw when the defense is daring into throw. And you take with the defense is giving you. And yeah, I think Malzer was trying to work on running it. And then drive where we went three and out. And I think you, I don't want to say you for sure. But our group chat was kind of like, why are we trying? Why are we forcing the run? I was actually okay with that. Because again, we know we could throw. Like we were at that point in the game. We were going to beat this team. So if we go three and out, what are you going to do? We're going to do the ball back in three plays anyway. So I was. I was in an episode of the running. I was more upset. That we were a little conservative on third downs as far as running. In general, in general. Okay. Yeah. I had no problem with it. It was boring. I always want people to score more. More points.

26:17But no, I wasn't generally upset about it. I just thought that sometimes a play call was a little. I was kind of uninspiring. I know some of those third downs. Yeah. And I do. Yeah. And I could see that. And I do think they're working on trying to run the ball. But yeah, I think a couple of them. Like the one run up the middle on the first and the first drive. Like that's when you can kind of get a little bit creative. And I do think Mouser. I know what that means. And I mean, I know you're not going to be the top of it for the more conservative approach. Maybe we're hiding things. You think we got some stuff over our sleeves? I think we do. Okay. To answer the questions straight up, though. We actually technically answered. Yeah. Well, it's I forgive with the original question was the question from land. This was more in the lines of.

27:18that the rep running back by committee? Like what's the rotation gonna look like? Yeah, here it is. Let me read it again. So the question is, do you think they will roll with just one RB at some point or keep the rotation throughout the season? Yeah, I think I said rotation. But yeah, I think rotation little up in the air. To be honest with you, I thought Jane's people looked really good at times. But man, Carson Hanson looked good at sometimes as well. Look, against the big boys, if you're looking for a big play, I still think Quentin Martin, Jr. and Campbell are your best bets. Now, if you're just looking for consistency, someone to hold on to the football and pass protect very well, and you're gonna make your money elsewhere, and you don't necessarily need an explosive play, because we didn't really talk about that, but they had no problem generating

28:18explosive plays on Saturday. And so if that's not something where we need to find any shape or form to just do something, they may be Carson Hanson is your answer. And it just, hey, I take the consistency over anything else and we'll figure it out. And then maybe it is more of a rotation by committee. Sean, I still think, one thing my bold prediction one of them was, like I still think Quentin Martin, Jr. could be the starter by the end of this year. But we'll see. It's only a weak one. We'll see how this game goes to Temple. And I have a feeling for people that are worried about the running game. The running game travels. So we'll see on the road at Temple, even though it's just Temple, how well they're able to run the football. All right. All right. Another question here from Brennan, Melanovic. Thought the old line struggled at times, run blocking. Marshall's defense line was supposed to be their number here. Did you see the same thing? And is that something we should keep an eye on?

29:18So as far as the offensive line goes, I thought they played really well. One thing to note, two players that we talked about in the preview did not play. Both the defensive back as well as Brad and Ward the defensive end. Those are big losses for Marshall, just to be very honest with it. Brad and Ward was probably their best player on the defensive line last year. That being said, Sean, I thought the entire offense line played really well. I thought Brock Riker played extremely well. I thought Malachite Goodman played extremely well. I actually think if I were to go down the line, I thought Anthony Duncan maybe had it. If I had to go one through five of those guys, he may have been in the fifth or the fourth best on the offensive line yesterday. I really was impressed by, again, I thought they all did well, but I thought that even Trevor Burr, a left guard spot did extremely well too. So one other thing I'll just note,

30:22Andrew Rapplyay is just a lightning rod for so many different reasons for this team. But his blocking is just phenomenal. Yes, on the blocking for the Kobe Hour touchdown, he blocked a corner, but then he drove the duty of the ground. Yes, on the bread escalation touchdown him, James Peoples, who was split out wide as a wide receiver, and Malachite Goodman had good blocks. But then there was another play that only went if like two or three yards that Rapply also just destroyed somebody in the run game. So including him in that conversation as far as run blocking goes, and he lined up at full back too. So did Finn Firmannack for that, for that's worth. I thought that they were aggressive and they were punching people in the mouth, which is all I really wanna see on week one. I think we should keep an eye on him, but I'm not concerned with it. Yeah, overall I thought they played well. I thought that deficiency, any kind of deficiency we had in the run game is more in the backs

31:23that we talked about than the line, and also just the way Marshall was playing us. I thought they did a good job protecting Rocco. There was a one time, I think there was a stunt and Cherubur kind of got, you know, he just got beat. Pents they getting beat on a stunt. Some things never change. But that's really the own, like from the offensive line specifically, it's the only thing that I could really remember that was bad in the past blocking. It was bad with past blocking. And you could also kind of put that in Rocco. I thought you should have got rid of the ball a little bit earlier. But yeah, I thought they did a good job protecting him. And really I don't really put the struggles in the run game on them too much. I agree, I agree with that. Okay, last question from Devano Blakely. With the stadium Renault and CETXMentioner,

32:24you can turn about the attendance drop off for these non-prime time games. It seems in recent years that upper sessions are large and for a lot of these games, I was surprised for Campbell's first game, CETXMentioner to see the same. A couple of things here, Devano. Overall, the attendance will be about the same once they're done. However, I was wrong on Twitter if someone saw the tweet, everything's done. So originally they wanted it all done before the USC game. It's all done. However, it was done like literally Monday or Tuesday before Marshall. And according to Audrey Snyder, Penn State was literally emailing faculty. Like we will sell you tickets for cheap if you wanna go sit in the new seats because they're literally just now finished. So some of the emptiness in that section was due to literally they finished them on like Tuesday and they were trying to sell seats for Saturday. Didn't I know that? Wow. And so there's some of that there.

33:25I think the larger question, Devano, I don't know, this is probably a better off season episode to talk about this is, and I don't know Sean, maybe we should figure out someone that we can get on the podcast that would be able to talk about this more, I don't know, intelligently, is are you pricing out Penn State fans from attending football games? And is that what you're trying to do, right? The West Side of the Stadium, my Gramps has four seats over there and those are going to now be obviously two to four times more expensive and I could be off on that margin. And that's what they are moving towards. And sure, that's great, but can the common person attend them? And to Devano's point, sure, for the big games, maybe people are able to do that, but are people going to pay to more money

34:29than they say they would right now to go see Marshall? I don't know. And that's something that, general obviously that you get your thoughts out on that, but probably a discussion we should have with somebody that is looking at those numbers, not just from a marketing perspective but from a financial perspective on what is their goal? And it's not just a, be very clear on the Sean, it's not a Penn State thing. This is pretty much what everyone is doing across the country. Texas is doing this, a high state did this. This is where a lot of people are moving towards whether it's right or wrong. And I think that's maybe a conversation we should have deeper and maybe the off season. Yeah, your mind went right where mine was. That the bigger thing will be in the next couple seasons when those prices do go up. And I think you're going to see a lot of people give up their season tickets that they might have had in their family for decades. And I think that's really sad, but it's not just a Penn State thing. It's something that a lot of people are talking,

35:31it's something that politicians talk about now, the price to get into games. So I think it's more of a societal thing. If you just look at the World Cup, it was really kind of have so much money just to be able to go to a World Cup game in the United States. And it is not like that all over the world. This is an American problem. So I think the bigger concern will be how do we prevent fans from being priced out? I don't think there's a good answer for it to be completely honest with you because Penn State tickets are actually cheaper than Ohio States right now. Now in the next couple of years, I think you're going to start catching up with them because that's just the way the world is going. But the good thing is we have that rollback sponsor. That's true. I kid rollback, but I just want to. They are comfy for what it's worth. I was gifted this and it is extremely comfy,

36:33but they are not a sponsor. They are not. Okay, those are all the fan questions we had. We talked about the ethical syntax down. I just want to know. I think that's all I really have as far as the offense goes. Then most of my notes are in defense. So then we can give you a chance to the two things. They went a lot of quick tempo right off the bat, which I thought was interesting. They had no problem doing that. And then the other thing on offense, they did go six offensive lines of time. They also went in balance. They were like center guard tight end. They did some of that as well. And then I had like I said, Rappliya Nfin Fermanakian at full back. And they straight up, ran, just straight up, off tackled runs. I made the joke on Twitter that like the first run was up the middle and I was an honor of Joe. But those are my offensive thoughts, Sean. We didn't even talk about Rocco back. I don't know if you want to say anything on him before we talked about the defense.

37:33Yeah, I thought Rocco looked really comfortable. He wasn't afraid to rip the ball down the field. If anything, he might have been a tad too aggressive at times. If that's okay, like I'd rather a quarterback be a little too aggressive because those big throws, they tend to make up for some mistakes. I can't be too reckless with the ball. That's the balance of being a quarterback, right? But I'd rather a guy be a bit of a gunslayer. Also, we didn't see him run that much. There's only one scramble that I could remember where he picked up yards. I don't think he took a hit. He went to the sidelines. So maybe they're going to try to, because I was state he was a runner. Now he also got injured last year. And it might be a concert effort like, hey, let's not get hurt against Marshall's temple or Buffalo. But I think you're going to see him run more during the season when conference play starts. Yeah, I think so too. And I think you actually might see him run a little bit more against temple.

38:36Rhode Island had some success in that as well. I don't think he necessarily will have to. But I think they're definitely trying to not run in unless they have to. But they didn't need to and take care of business otherwise. Alex Manskey did get in. Sean's gonna mention him. Were you okay with when they went? Because Mark Brennan, who 24-7 sports obviously didn't have a long time. Mark Brennan's been doing it for a long time. He's, I think, on just the podcast like once we go over there in 24-7 sports, but Lions 24-7, I always enjoy his insights. I think they're always a little bit, there's some wisdom involved with that. But he really harbbed on the fact that when they decided to bring in Manskey and how early it was, he was impressed by that. Because I think it was literally a touchdown in Morocco back to the third quarter

39:36and then boom, they went right to Manskey for the rest of the game. And he got some, he had more reps in the martial game than he did all of last year at Iowa State to give you an idea how much he got to play. Were you okay with when he went in and then obviously how did you think he did? I was told by Taylor Mouser, he'd be getting in no matter what. So I don't know what the deal was. I didn't know why we didn't see him in the third drive. I can't. But yes, I'm always fine with the quarterback getting in, the back up quarterback getting in, especially younger guy. Really the earlier, the better. I think there's a rule out there, unofficial rule. Don't put him in like in the middle in the first half, which I could respect. But I thought, yeah, get him in, play him with a lot of the starters and Kobe Howard had that Moss catch. With Al Khmatsky, that's the quarterback. So I think that's good, especially since there's a better,

40:42probably a better 50, better than 50% chance that he's the quarterback next year. In the past, it'd be a hundred percent chance but in the modern world of college football, you never know. So yes, very happy with getting him in as soon as possible because why have, and also why have Rocco out there longer than we have though. Yeah. No, and I, Greg, I was happy with it, but I was just curious how everyone else kind of felt. And it was, the game was, was over, but man, was it a snooze fest in the second half? Even, and like it was good for me, I got to continue to learn more of the numbers and Sean, I'm not gonna quiz you again today because I still don't have them down, especially the offensive line numbers. But I do think it's good as just, it completely took the air out of the game at that point, which is fine. The game was over, but I'm always down for like another couple of touchdowns. And to be fair, they ran the ball, I think eight straight times at one point.

41:43And so it wasn't like a James Franklin, like yeah, I'm putting in Bobo Puyla but then I'm gonna score to cover at the end of the football game anyway. Like they were literally trying to burn the clock. Yes, sure work on things. I think, you know, Manskey didn't have thrown a couple of times, but first in 10, they were running and I think every single time. And they were making a point of emphasis more than say, hey, just because Manskey comes in, it's me we're not gonna throw the football. Yeah, in the early part, like in the third quarter, we were running the offense. Like you said, in the fourth quarter, they give very boring. And let's be real, if it's close, you're gonna want Campbell to try to cover. Of course, obviously. Which by the way, I had Marshall covering or I'd been state covering. And of course, I had Virginia Tech covering in VMI, which I think they won 73 to three. And I have a feeling that Virginia Tech will be a very easy bet most games this year to cover

42:48because that's usually how Frank Hamlais to take care of things. So let's talk defense Sean. Because this is where I think, at least me, I got the most excited about it. We didn't know what to expect. We had probably the most question marks on the defensive side of things. Obviously, in the secondary, there's some question marks from the safeties on how health they are. At linebacker, we weren't exactly sure who's gonna step up besides Tony Rojas. And then we had no idea, new look defensive line, how the big hog Molly's in the middle we're gonna do versus how the edge players we're gonna line up. And obviously, out dance on Lynn was gonna be able to take care of things. We got a lot of answers, Sean. Right up the bat, kind of surprised, but Dan Lynn ended up coaching from the box. And he will be doing that, at least for a week two against Temple as well. And he spoke a little bit about that on Tuesday. But that was something that we weren't sure of. And he had done a scrimmage from up there.

43:49And I think it worked really well. Sean, where do you wanna start with the defense? Um, let's go with the front, with the front seven. I thought the linebackers looked really good. Evil made his presence known really. Also, you know, I'll kind of start the eye mistake guys. Caleb Bacon, there are a lot of questions like, well, how's this gonna look at edge? Oh, he's good. He'll be fine. You know, and because he was seen as what their most athletic linebacker coming over. Because so then you're like, well, we're gonna move our most athletic linebacker to edge. How's that gonna look? And Evil looked like he could really move. And Bacon was in the backfield often. I thought Brezina looked good when he got in as well. And Rojas was good. But it wasn't like a dominating performance

44:50that it didn't have to be. It was a really cohesive unit. Nobody looked like they were freelancing out there. And everybody looked really bought in. So I think just the buy in from the defensive side of the ball was very apparent. Yeah, especially in that front seven. I agree with that. And Cuba Evil, I think to me, was the one that stood out the most. I thought Caleb, Brezina played really well. I thought Caleb Bacon played really well. Just in general, those three linebackers, Sean, we talked about them when they made the transfer. And we were like, okay, that's good. But let's just be honest, it's three white dudes from Iowa state. Like, we don't know how they're gonna fit in. I mean, demographically, central Pennsylvania, they're gonna be fine. But as far as playing defense in the big 10. And we will still see what big 10 play. Yes, you're absolutely right. Putting the card before the horse a little bit here. But, Cuba Evil, I think is gonna be fine.

45:54He was faster than I expected. And again, I don't think he's over, I don't think he has top end speed, but he diagnoses and reads and reacts quickly. And so even though he isn't the fastest guy there, he is making his mind up and going the right direction faster than other people are, which you can argue is almost more important. And he does have exceptional closing speed. And when he gets there, he lets you know that he's there and that he has arrived. I was very impressed with Cuba Evil. And to me, Sean, I don't know, I'm gonna put you on a spot. I couldn't even tell you right now, the other linebackers or linebackers that would play next to like Lavarierrington back in the day. But to me, you have this opportunity, and if you think of who I'm thinking of Sean, please let me know and interrupt me. Brandon Short. Yeah, but I'm gonna Brandon Short see the example I want. What I'm trying to get out here is like,

46:57maybe Brandon Short fits it. But Tony Rojas can almost be more Lavarierrington like in the sense of just go be a freak athlete. And Cuba Evil can do the X's and O's, your reads and play the position the way you're supposed to and kind of be there to clean things up. But let Rojas go be a freak athlete and go do things. There were a couple of times, I don't think Rojas was supposed to be blitzing and he just jumped onto a counter play and just blew up the play where I'm like, I don't know if that was really when he was supposed to do there and he did it anyway. And that's great. And that's why you have athletes like that. Like a Parsons, you know, I'd go Carter, et cetera, et cetera. Cuba Evil being dependable allows Rojas to kind of flow more freely. And when I think of Rojas, I've been thinking more and more of him like Lavar in a sense of just go let him

47:59be the best player on the defense. And maybe it's the Lavarier to Brandon Short comparison. I just honestly don't remember a ton as far as like the day and play in and play out of how those two you know works together. But I think that's what I'm trying to go at as far as how those two I think are going to play off each other this year. Well, Brandon Short was the Mike in that defense. And you know, one critique people had a Lavar was he was a bit of a free-lancer and Joe would go crazy on the bar. But it's like you have Lavarierring, but that's Joe. And that's really any culture. They don't want anybody free-lancing. So yeah, I think it's pretty good comp. You know, we're not saying Tony Rojas is the Lavarier and ten either people, please. But even though I did pick on the one the Buck is the word. So yeah, I think I was pleasantly impressed by the linebackers

48:59as a whole. We did not register a sack, which I know Corey said in the pre-season show that we want to see sacks and everything. But I was still fine with our past. I think we did have a sack. I think Cooper, Caleb Bacon, one of his did count as a sack, or at least it originally did. OK, yeah. Yeah, because I was still fine with the past rush. They were in the backfield the whole game. And I think Max Rambo was really close a couple times. He looks fine coming off of an injury. So I was impressed by him. And then, like you said, the defense tackles, they swallowed up a lot. They're not going to register a ton on the stat sheet. None of them are going to be zander ant. But they weren't brought in to be zander ant either. See, I like Tupacchi has been playing college football for eight years. He is like, as old as Corey.

50:03We want to talk about him a little bit. Yeah, his story is really cool. Yeah, first of all, Island guys are the best. But he was at the press conference, and he talked a lot about how he got his parents' Wi-Fi. So they could watch the games, and they're just a little bit older, and getting them to come visit. And it would be difficult for a football game. But also, the fact that when he goes back, he's just a son. And he's not a Penn State football player. He's poor. He's got like 22 people live in his house at one point. And it was just a really good reminder, Sean, to me, in the sense of we get so lost in the NIL world on what LSU is doing right now. And all the playoff expansion, all these terrible things that are happening to our beloved sport, that sucks so much. Seeker clocks, secret clocks, all that stuff.

51:04His story is why we love college football, and why it is so powerful, and why we fall in love with it. And that's why we've been podcasting for as long as we've been doing this. That is the shit that is just so. It tugs at your heart, and that it's just very cool to see. And it's very easy to root for someone like that. And for him to then go and shake every media member's hands and shame on some of those that didn't stand up to shake another individual's hand. That's like etiquette 101, in my opinion, maybe I'm just an old man now at this point. I have a kid a week ago now, I'm yelling at clouds. But I just think that it was a good reminder of why there are good things with NIL. And why we do want to take this massive stupid amount of money that is the TV contracts and all this stuff. And the kids do deserve to get a slice of that pie.

52:07And yes, it's been blown away out of proportion. It's been handled terribly and managed terribly. And there's no oversight whatsoever, et cetera, et cetera. But that is why it's powerful. And if he can help his parents with some money here and there, that's why this should continue to exist just a little bit better. So if you haven't seen his press conference, I highly recommend you go check it out. He spoke for about five, eight minutes or so. Yeah, do you remember when the Laramie tonsil thing happened? And I'm going to land the plane here. Remember the gas mask and everything? The other thing that I think that same night was he was texting with the coach that he needed money because his mom didn't have enough to pay for her heat in the winter. This was just a common occurrence that happened regularly in the pre-NIL world. Believe me, if you know this show,

53:08there's a lot of problems with the NIL world. But people forget about that part. People forget that these kids would come here, play football, come home to literally nothing. Like about 70% of them. So that was the reality. And it's a little less of one now. And that is one of the positive things. So we got off on a little bit of a tangent there. It's a good tangent. It's a really, really good story overall. The defensive tackles, by the way, you're not going to hear a bunch about them getting a bunch of tackles. Not a defensive tackle, but Jackson Ford by the way, getting a foam recovery good for him. Again, one of the two guys that committed back the early signing period, I wanted to shout him out because that to me is literally a higher power of whether it's a football god or a Christian god, a Jewish god or just Tom Hanks up there. Somebody that's like, you deserve to have a moment

54:10for the first football game because you committed early. Paying fouls zone also got out there, I think, as well, for what it's worth. The defensive tackles, I think, did their job. They ate so well that Rojas, Rosina, Ebull, and I'm about my boy, Cam Smith, getting out there and being a part of a lot of snaps. That was great to see. So I think the defensive tackles did great. Sean, you mentioned like only one sack. I thought they did a good job of getting pressure at the quarterback. One thing I made a note of when I rewatched the game. In the second quarter at seven minutes and 30 seconds, Penn State already had seven tackles for loss. That to me, yes, you're right, we didn't have a ton of sacks. Marshall was getting the ball out quick, they were running it and they were in a whole second half. They had turned into like, let's just get this game over with and let's get out of there.

55:11Which is fine. They still affected the passer many, many times. Max Granville did a great job, Camazza did a great job and obviously Bacon did a great job. But they still had seven TFLs. That to me is very important. We're getting penetration, whether it's tagging for loss a sack, I don't care what you label it. I was happy if we're going back to like, great that performance as far as like, did they check that box in week one? I would say yes, they checked that box. Yeah, yeah. And I think PFF had Penn State secondary rate of the highest in the country. Now that's because Marshall couldn't throw the ball. Like, we kind of said going in that their quarterbacks really is dangerous runner, not that great of a passer. And the reason that he couldn't was because we were on his ass the whole game. So that helps make the secondary look up. But we still don't, even though I think the secondary is going to be fine,

56:12we still don't fully know how good they are yet. So, but they will get tested. I think they'll get tested more this week. Maybe we'll pal. Maybe we'll see. John, I have a couple other notes I wanted to get to. We didn't mention Zay Robinson, but kick return punt returning. Zay Robinson was the guy he had a nice touchdown as well. But I wanted to mention he was out there for kick return. He almost had a punt return for a touchdown. That close. And I think after the game he said he probably should have been able to take one back against those guys. So I wanted to mention him. Just the fact that he's doing both kick return and punt return. I think that's notable. And I think he will be very good at it. Like another number two before him. Are you talking about Chaz Powell? Oh, I was thinking Derek Williams. I know who you're talking about. I just mess him up. But yes, Chaz Powell's also very good at all that. Chazaisaheus, we have to talk about.

57:14Because I think that was somebody I had kind of mentioned a couple of times during the preview. And he's name kept coming up up. Zion Trace, he's still dealing with, we should talk about injuries in a second. Still dealing with a hand injury. But Zayas had a really good day. And both, he had one penalty, but otherwise good TFL was making some plays in the backfield and looks to be the real deal. I can't believe a guy from Jersey was able to escape Rutgers, but just another embarrassment of riches now for Terry Smith and the secondary squad. Like they have just, once I'm in Trace's healthy, like they don't have enough positions to put all these guys at right now. And just another embarrassment to poverty, Rutgers losing to UMass. Yes. But Zayas is, he looks legit. And the guys, I think one of the cool things

58:16about Saturday's All is the guys you heard a lot about All Made Place. I'm Ariana Jackson had a catcher too. He's another guy that we heard a lot about camps that you talk about, say, Robins, I can't believe we talk about the offense and then mention Zay Robinson's touchdown. So like all these guys are there making plays. And that was a really cool thing to see on Saturday. It's the time to hear about guys. And then you don't, you hear go out guys and you can't then you don't see them the rest of the year. That happened a lot, a lot previously. Going back to the Edd Drusher's, Kay, like Bacon just, we talk about like needing more people that could be playmakers or difference makers in the big moments, the big teams. And he seems like he could be one of those guys just flash tremendously. Was able to play both Edge and Defense Attackle. They went to like that, whatever, I don't know if they have a new prouder package

59:17like thing where they went, Caleb Bacon and Ezio Go on the inside and then Granville and Camajju I think on the outside. Some assortment of those guys on. And I thought it was mostly on obvious passing situations. They even went to it on like third and medium. And so I really like that they already had, Dan already had something like that established. But Sean, I feel good about Bacon. I feel good about Camajju. I feel good about Granville. Ezio Go, I didn't think had a great day, but I think we'll be fine and did some good things against the run as well. But like, I did not expect to feel good about all four of those guys after one game. And yeah, it's not obviously done, but they all showed up in some capacity and within the first game, which is obviously better than the latter. Yeah, absolutely. You want to see them playing well in a game like this. So they kind of check the box and they what they're supposed to do. And hopefully that will continue on to Big Dump Play.

1:00:21And I guess that's one of the drawbacks of having a week out of conference schedule is we really won't know for a while. Reminds me on like when Penn State and Auburn played and like neither of them had played anybody until that game. And I mean, when Auburn came to Penn State, it was especially bad that year. Okay, real quick. Marcus knew I thought did okay, nothing crazy on his end, but he was out there. We mentioned Cam Smith, but I want to get to the injuries. So we did get an insane amount of injury updates from Mr. Matt Campbell, which was kind of surprising. Lovar Aarrington was hurt in camp and Campbell straight up said that he would be about four to six weeks, I think. Was that with the timeline roughly was for him? Yeah, which is crazy that we got a timeline for injury. And when he could pretend not just hashtag Bumps and Bruises. Zion Tracy also with his hand played,

1:01:24but obviously didn't start. I expect him to start once he's 100%. Also, Berkel, we mentioned that tight end. They said he could have played if they really needed him too, but they expect that he will play at Temple. So that will be interesting to see how much he's able to get in. We're talking about with run blocking and being able to help with that. And yeah, I wish I knew Gabe Berkel wasn't going to play Matt Campbell. Why is that? Because he had picked him to have the first touchdown. Oh, yeah. Is that who you had for your first touchdown? Yeah, we were both on the mountain. Yeah, that's who I had, but then Matt Campbell has to do his press conference on Tuesdays. I mean, that was your bull. Oh, yeah, he's doubtful actually. Yeah, that was your bull prediction. Yeah, I missed. Do you want to talk about that real quick? Cause I hit a mine. Yeah, it must be nice. Yeah, because Matt Campbell had his first press conference. Yeah, I got to like underline mine.

1:02:25So we can keep track of who hit more this year. So I want to keep track of bull predictions. And then Alex Tash, that linebacker will also be back for Temple, which I think is incredible. Some people are like saying that like Tash might literally like, I think Matt Campbell said he reminded Tash of reminded him of Rohos, which is I think a wild comparison that they're out there. So I don't know how much camp Smith's going to play once Alex Tash is healthy, but what the way and see you find it odd that these guys have been hurt for so long. And now they couldn't play last week, but now seven days later, they're good to play. Yeah, it's just odd. I don't really get it. But what do I know? I don't know. Tash is one, I think to me, he got injured pretty late. I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't even play until the end play.

1:03:28Yeah, that's what I mean. Like if you're not going to play him against against Marshall, why are you going to play him against Temple? Maybe they just want to get to feet wet, get clear to physically. I don't know. There was one other, I thought injury update, Sean. Do you remember anything off the top of your head? Did you mention Zion Tracy? I did. I did. Yep. Maybe that's it. Nobody had offensive line, right? No. And Jeremy, I was talking to him. I really don't really, don't really still hurt, but. Yeah. Who did you say, sir? Jeremy Clipper and I play, right? I thought he did get out there just a little bit. Yeah, he did play a little bit him in pat and started. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't play a lot, but I think Cooper was out there. Don't quote me on that. Okay, that's all I had for Marshall. And I know that's long, but I think it's because we don't have a ton to talk about with Temple.

1:04:31Again, just a friendly reminder, Sean, what prediction was first such on as Gabriel. I'm as three receptions for touch on by three different wide receivers, which did hit perfectly. And we'll get into our bold predictions and stuff in a second or two. If you haven't already, the pick them is released. So go do the pick them. I have not done it yet, Sean, but make sure you go do your pick them. We're often running there. Make sure you've liked the video and you subscribe whether you're watching live here on YouTube, or if you're listening to the podcast platform. And then Sean, do you want to do predictions and then go into some of the preview and then kind of go about it that way again. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. I think you go first. All right. All right. So I think Penn State, so Penn State goes to Temple. Temple is, you know, an improved team from a couple years ago with this new regime.

1:05:33It looked pretty impressive overall against a, you know, a pretty hapless Rhode Island team. And I think Penn State gets it done. And I do think Temple has a little bit more success. Jack, the small because they're quarterback, a pretty familiar guy, Penn State. And I think Penn State wins it. I'm going to say 45 to 10. 45 to 10. The spread I think is right around 24 again. Well, I think Penn State covers that. Okay. And full prediction. I think Alex, man, it's the first touchdown pass. Just writing this down here. And you're saying, cut sound past to be clear. Cut down pass. Perfect. Okay. Yeah, I Penn State winning as well.

1:06:35We'll talk about Temple here in a second, but this is not the same Temple team that beat Penn State in 2015. No, they're not. And more importantly, this is not the same Penn State offensive line that played in 2015 either. Who was the coach of that 2015 team, Corey? For Penn State or for Temple? This is a rule. It's a rule, which Nebraska barely beat Ohio the other day. This Temple team just is very good. The Rhode Island score, by the way, like it, I think I ended up being what, 38, 10 or was it 3814? Yeah. That game was, I don't know how much of it you watched on in preparation for this. I hope you didn't waste too much time watching it. It was not that much of a blowout. Like it was close. There's a close football game per most of the game. Rhode Island down the stretch couldn't hold onto the football, but it was a closer game.

1:07:40Like they were within striking distance, the majority of the football game. This, this Temple team is, is not very good, which by the way, the spread started at 21 and a half. It's up to 23 and a half. But I'd pen and say winning 38 to 3. We'll get into some of the specifics, but I don't think this Temple offense is anywhere close to the Marshall offense. Definitely a quarterback play wise. Del Rio, Del Rio was, I think Marshall made a business decision not to run him too much so they wanted him for the rest of the season. He didn't want him to be killed. So we didn't get to see all of what he was capable of. That being said, he's still an experienced quarterback that knew how to make good or decent decisions with a football. I don't know if that's going to be the case on Saturday for either of the Temple quarterbacks that are going to be able to get some snaps.

1:08:40And then we're going to talk about that quite a bit. But I just don't see them being able to do very much and we're going to get into some of the specifics on why. So I've got pen and say 38 to 3. My bowl prediction, since everyone's talking a bunch of smack about Carson Hansen this week, I have Carson Hansen with two touchdowns. So there we have it. Sean, Temp Temple. Colin Dinkins. Colin Dinkins, Jackson Smolick. Yeah, some old friends. Love Colin Dinkins, first of all. Big Colin Dinkins fan. That being said, this Temple team is pretty bad. If I get people like, oh, it's Temple, it's on the road, it's their Super Bowl, sure, I get it. If pens they can't take care of this, this would be a massive red flag right off the bat. This is not a good Temple team.

1:09:41And maybe they were looking ahead potentially. One thing I will just note, they, one of their running backs, their star running back, did not play against Rhode Island. And so they're leading Russia, Kevin Mason. It was their backup. He's not expected to be the starter on Saturday. So that maybe gets better. I thought he did a decent job, actually. But so they might get some help in the running back department. But they lost like three offensive linemen against Rhode Island. I think they lost their left tackle, their right tackle, and someone on the interior. And they're not going to be able to have anybody that's going to be able, their backups are not going to be able to keep up with Penn State's defensive line. Not just from a size perspective, but now we know from a speed perspective with what Penn State has the bring on that side of things. And Sean to me, when looking at this team, none of that matters.

1:10:44Because Temple doesn't have a quarterback. Temple's coach knows they don't have a quarterback because they haven't made a decision on who their quarterback 100% is going to be. Because he straight up said no one is stepping up and taking the job. He's literally said that post Rhode Island game. Did he think about using Jack's smoke as a mobile QB? And I'll never forget the blue and white game where he just really struggled. But that's besides the point. In that Rhode Island game, they did go two different quarterbacks. Jackson, Smolick, and Johnny Shepherd. Smolick went four for six for 57 yards in a touchdown. Johnny Shepherd went five for 10, 85 yards and nothing else. Shepherd also ran for 23 yards. And he's the more of the mobile kind of guy. I think the offense looked better under Smolick as far as just the fluency of it all and the flow. The problem is Smolick had two fumbles, one of which he wasn't even like no one made contact

1:11:50with him, which was not good. And that is his thing here. It is limited time that he liked to put the ball on the ground. Yeah, he did quite a bit. So yeah. I don't know if there's some bet out there on Kalashy or something where you can bet on Jackson, Smolick, Fumble, but I would probably put my mortgage on it. There is not like and Smolick I think has a decent arm, smart kid, but struggles with pocket presence and obviously turning the football over Shepherd. It just looked like they had a running back or a wide receiver or a quarterback and I don't really know. He had one nice completion ever get. It might have been like the 38 yard. It was the JoJo Bermuda is the 26 yard catch that he had. It was a rainbow. Like that thing would have been picked up by like five different Penn State players to be through that against us. So yeah, that's going to be a problem for them. I do think they have some weapons.

1:12:50Like I said, a couple guys didn't play. Colin Chase is pretty good. JoJo Bermuda is okay. Like they've got some playmakers there that could cause some potential problems, but they are asked to sustain any sort of drive. I don't know how they're going to be able to do it just to be honest. I think I believe a little bit more in the owls than you do. You do. Yeah, if they have some players, some players that are probably good enough to play at the FPS level. I don't think they're very good. Like you said, I think the injuries on the offensive liner are going to hinder them a little bit. And Penn State's defense, I think, has a chance to be really good. So that's a bad combination for the owls. But they might be able to put everything. I picked them score 10 points. Is that going to be against their starters or backups? Sure. That's a good question. Maybe they could get a field goal against our starters.

1:13:51I do think they're probably going to have a trouble scoring on us. Because if they could get to the 30 yard line, they're going to be able to start running in the ball. And while they're running back mason, I'm good game against Rhode Island. That's also Rhode Island and not Penn State. And he didn't get touched until like 30 yards down the field half the time. These holes Sean Kane could have ran through. That's could I have chipped Rhode Island? I probably could chip a guy from Rhode Island. That's not going to hurt ourselves there. I might be able to handle them. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know about that Sean. And maybe maybe you're right as far as that. I just I don't know how good Rhode Island is. But I was not impressed. Like this was to me was a game where like if Temple wins this game like 63 to 3. And I'm like, oh, well, it's in Rhode Island. I'm like, yeah, but they still did a lot of good things.

1:14:52If you go watch the game and again, you must be really bored. I think there's a lot of TV shows that just release new seasons. But if you decide to watch the Temple Rhode Island game, there is a lot. I'm on paternity leave. So what else are you going to do besides watch Temple Rhode Island? There's just it wasn't a good game. And like Temple Rhode Island gash temple's defense multiple drives. In a very similar way that Kobe Howard gash Marshall. As far as in that kind of intermediate level of the second there. And like, Danston Lynn talked a little bit about this in his press conference. Like this is their Super Bowl. They're going to be up for this game. There's a lot of guys in there. Like there are a lot of good football players in Philadelphia that are quite good enough to go to Penn State. And they all remember they all remember not being able to go to Penn State. And yeah, would they have wanted to be here? Like now they'd be like, no, I have to know. Like at the time, no, they want to go to Penn State rather than Temple.

1:15:53So they're going to remember that. And I think we're going to get I think they're going to. Not going to say they're going to play better because we're playing them. But they're going to be more up to play us than they would Rhode Island. Because they knew sure they were going to win that game. Sure. And they're probably going to be pulling out a lot of the stops too. The coaches and everything. Try to confuse us. Will it work? Who knows? I don't think very well. No, absolutely. And I would just say that if it's that close, then there's going to be obviously some bigger problems there. Yeah. So Sam Brown was the other guy that did not play that I wanted to mention. And Avery Powell, the safety for Temple also did not play. So they did have two guys that didn't play. But they're going to be without left tackle, Jacobi Hills and right tackle without Kevin

1:16:57Terry. And then the left guard didn't play against Rhode Island because he sprained his foot and practice earlier in a week. So he may be back, but he's probably going to be 100%. So yeah. There you have it, Sean. It sucks to be can't start talking about like the statistics of everything yet because we only have one game and that's probably not right to do. But I think that's that's all I really have on Temple. Last thought I had, Sean, before we kind of get out of here, punting. He thoughts on how Nathan Tyson did. I thought his performance was okay at best. And I didn't know what your thoughts were. He had that he was pretty good. Okay. Yeah, he got one inside the five once, right? You did. He did. One dribbled over.

1:17:57Okay. And then yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not throwing shade. I was just curious. I don't know why I came away with a little bit more of a not even a yellow flag, not an orange flag, anything like that. But just like a I don't know why I didn't feel like the ball launched off his foot. Maybe as the bye bye got. I think we're used to such big footed kicker punters like Gabe could just launch it. And really they all could go on back to Gilliken. Like they all had just super, super big legs. So this guy doesn't have quite as big of a leg. So I could see where you're coming from. I didn't even really think of that though. Yeah. What else do we miss on that you want to talk about before we get out of here? Just want to talk about how Matt Campbell so much better than James Wrangler in another 30 minutes. Do we want to talk about Matt Campbell's shoes? His shoes.

1:18:57He wore the same cleats as Joe except in Adidas. I did not know that. Yes he said he didn't pick them but he was he was okay with them or something. I did not hear about that. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. Um, Matt, do you know how much things? No, but some of you may. My wife was very upset with him with him wearing blue on blue. Yeah, I didn't really love to fit either. Um, for whatever. I think most of the other coaches had white on blue I think. But so maybe he was doing a thing. Maybe he was doing a thing. Do you want to talk at all about the success with honor thing? Sure. Let's do it. I mean, look. Sean, I know you're going to get on a pedestal here in a second. I don't care. But and I respect obviously.

1:19:58And I understand why he's doing some of the things he's doing. It's no different. We had this conversation similar to when Terry Smith was the interim head coach. Um, I don't necessarily want to mean to go down the whole rabbit hole like getting all the Joe bots on board to invest in a program. I think you can have that conversation another time. But just the whole like. And you would never beat a horse that's still alive. But they beat this horse. The dead horse quite a bit like. You are honoring history legacy. I get it. But like and I have no problem with the success with honor thing. I'm not trying to say that I do. But like is it getting to the point? And Sean words like. Okay, this is turning like the shoe thing to me is a red flag to like this is turning to a lot. Is it a lot? Are we at the point where it's a lot? It's it's the type of thing that's fine and everything's going well.

1:21:00Hmm. Let's put it that way. And then as soon as something goes, but I will tell you right now, I will not be one of these people. I really don't care one way or another. So if we lose if we lose a couple games in a row here, I'm not going to bring you up but people will. Some of the people cheerleading all this right now. Don't bring it up. They'll be like, oh, maybe we weren't so worried about pleasing Joe all the time. It's going to happen. Now, I think it's a bit of a cheap shot to bring that up because I think Matt Campbell's in a position where he's trying to unite the fan base and unite the alumni. There's a big chunk of the fan base that feels that Joe was treated wrong at the end. A big chunk, a very wealthy chunk feel that he was treated wrong and Campbell realizes that. So when you're trying to bring people together, you have to listen to where they're at. And that's what he is doing right now.

1:22:02And this isn't to say it's all transactional or anything. I think Matt Campbell does have some genuine love for or at least admiration for Joe paternal and what he built here. But it does seem like it's stuff that I don't really care about personally. I don't see the need to we need Don or Joe. I want to win football games. That's really what I want to do. I want to win a national championship before I die. That's what I want. And the truth of the matter is Penn State has been pretty much the same program my whole life, including the years with Joe. Like people talk about that there's there's a segment of the Penn State fan base that thinks 82 happened 85 happened 86 happened. Then nothing really happened and then 94 happened and then the scandal happened and that's

1:23:08not what happened. People really misremember things and just where the program is and has been. So I guess it's a long-winded way to say I get it. I just wish we didn't have to go and rehash the whole thing because we have to please certain people. Sure. Yeah, I just. It's a little weird, but we'll see. It's fine, but we'll see. I think you're right about if you ever seen Step Brothers when they're interviewing and they were in the Tuxedo's and that first it's going really well and Seth Rogan's like, oh yeah, you guys get this whole Tuxedo thing on and it's kind of cool. You're down great, you know, down playing the whole interview thing and it's funny and the formality of it. Sure, sure. And then the one dude Farts and it ruins the mood and he goes, now I know I think about it that Tuxedo's are pretty messed up and it's like that's kind of how it is.

1:24:10Like right now it's all cool, but as soon as someone Farts in the interview now it's like, actually that's kind of messed up now you're doing that. So that's my opinion about it. So fan base is kind of talking now like we're never going to lose again. Why would we shoot? It's just funny. And look, this isn't just a Penn State thing either. This is how fan bases get because we're fans and fans have a very hard time keeping things in perspective. Like Penn State was not the worst team that ever existed a season ago. James Franklin was not the worst coach that ever exists. That Campbell is not the best coach to ever exist. Penn State is not the best team ever. But when things are going really well, you just feel all the good things and by the way guys it's a good thing that divides your good right now. So I want you guys to have fun with this right now. So what am I saying? Don't keep anything in perspective. Just have fun everybody.

1:25:11Just have fun. Just screw it out. Because there's going to be losses in life but let's not even entertain those thoughts right now. Hopefully not against temple. Otherwise we will burn the house down. All the vibes are going to be bad then. Joey Schlaffer also at temple as well as Caleb artist. And AJ Brown got hurt. There you go. He's on my fantasy team. Okay. Welcome Sean. All right. I think that's all we have today. Appreciate you guys. I don't want to promise to be back again on Wednesday. I think we're like in Wednesday. Obviously everything is kind of weak by week right now. And we will figure it out as we go. But thank you guys so much for watching and listening. Appreciate it. Obviously the patience is we started a little bit late and we're back to just once a week for twice during the season. But glad we're able to do this. And I think we went a little longer than usually do anyway. So you got kind of a little bit more. I don't think glad of that way. Make sure you've liked the video and you've subscribed on YouTube.

1:26:14And if you're not yet, feel free to do it. And then also make sure you subscribe. I was in a podcast. Wherever your podcast pops up with choices. That's Sean Kane. I'm Corey Lestoki. You've been watching and listening to Hardcore Penn State football. Until next week. Take care. Have fun. And we'll see you next week after the visit to the Phoenix. Good night. Congratulations again. Good night.