Week 11 Prediction

It’s week 11 in the college football world and the end of the season is in sight, especially for teams like Penn State that have no possibility for a bowl game.  That’s why these final few weeks are so precious.  This week the Nittany Lions play in their second to last away game against the Golden Gophers of Minnesota at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.  The game kicks off at noon, which is actually 11am in Minnesota (sucks to be you guys), and will air on ESPN2.  This will be a very interesting matchup, so let’s just get right to the break down:

The Good

Despite everything you may have heard to the contrary, this is still Minnesota.  I know I said that about Indiana (and to a lesser extent Illinois), but seriously, there are traditional powers in the Big Ten like Penn State, and then there are teams like Minnesota.  They can be very good, even dangerous for small stretches, but they’re rarely good on a consistent basis.  This team also has very little in the way of true star power and tends to win games with grittiness and teamwork.  The Gophers’ head coach, Jerry Kill will be up in the press box again, continuing to focus on health problems steaming from his epilepsy.  Teams without their head coach tend to be distracted, so this could definitely work in Penn State's favor (I’ll discuss the other side of this in a moment).  Finally, Minnesota is a classic run-first team.  Their primary running back is deceptively good and, along with their mobile backup quarterback Mitch Leidner, will try to run it early and often.  Thankfully, Penn State’s defense has defended the run significantly better than they've defended the pass, so even if we do lose, we shouldn't get blown out like we did against throwing teams like Indiana and Ohio State.

The Bad

I'm not going to lie, there’s more here than there was in the good section.  First of all, it’s a road game.  The Lions haven’t fared very well this season away from the friendly confines of Beaver Stadium.  In fact, they haven’t won a single true road game yet, and heaven forbid they get roped into another OT without the student section there to do what it does.  Despite the aforementioned loss of their head coach, Minnesota has inexplicably gone on a 3-game winning streak against some of the best teams in their division.  The usually porous defense has definitely picked up as of late behind stud defensive lineman Ra’Shede Hageman, who has a similar story to Michael Oher of the Blind Side.  He'll try to get in Hackenberg's face all afternoon.  The defense doesn't exactly get a lot of turnovers, but that doesn't mean they’re not dangerous.  On the other side of the ball, the Gophers’ offense seems to have finally found an identity.  Quarterback Phillip Nelson has gotten much better as a passer the last few weeks after some early struggles and he has talented running back David Cobb to help bail him out of trouble. Lastly, I've mentioned the W/L pattern that I've noticed emerging all season.  This week happens to fall on the losing side of that pattern.  Just saying.

The Story

These two teams are practically friends.  Anything that may resemble a rivalry between them is a fading illusion.  If Penn State thinks it can rely on emotion to win like they did against Michigan, they've got another thing coming.  As a program, Minnesota hasn't been a national story since the 50s.  Occasionally they’ll have a star player emerge such as RB Laurence Maroney of the Patriots, but generally speaking they just can’t pull in the kind of talent that programs like Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State can.  Being in the state of Minnesota doesn't exactly help either.  After some particularly terrible years, Jerry Kill has begun turning things around and appears to be a good fit in the Twin Cities.  Still, he’s had at least 4 in-game seizures during his brief time on campus and his health always seems to loom large over the program’s long term stability.  As for Penn State, the big story is whether or not the team can finally win one on the road.  They’ll have to clean up the penalties and mental errors if they hope to have a chance against a very strong opponent.  The good news is that Allen Robinson is still on the team and is only 40 yards away from breaking the single season record for receiving yards, and at the pace he’s going, he could potentially break his own record for single season receptions by more than 20!  Basically, he’s going to shatter every receiving record there is at Penn State and that will be fun to watch.

The Prediction

Christian Hackenberg throws for more than 200 yds and 2 TDs, but he also throws at least 1 costly interception.  Allen Robinson gets another 100 yds easily on at least 10 catches, while Bill Belton continues to prove why he’s the starter, netting another 100 yd performance of his own.  Even though Minnesota is surging right now, make no mistake, Penn State SHOULD win this game, however, I predict that they won’t.  Yet another mistake laden game leads to Penn State’s 3^rd straight road loss as they fall 35 – 28.