Week 12 Wrap Up

Now that was fun!  Penn State took it to the Purdue Boilermakers in front of a surprisingly raucous home crowd (the 2^nd largest of the season), eventually winning 45-21.  Yet even that lopsided score doesn't express just how dominant Penn State was in this game as they more than doubled Purdue’s first downs and nearly doubled their yardage.  Every star on the Penn State roster had a big game as the hapless Boilers provided a much needed confidence boost to the struggling Lions.  Hopefully that confidence carries over to next week for Senior Day, and the last home game of the season, against the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Let me preface this by saying that Purdue is truly awful.  They are just as bad as I predicted they would be, maybe worse.  Even when Penn State was playing poorly, Purdue was incapable of capitalizing on mistakes.  So the following statistics are expected.  With that said, a fun little blowout like this is always good for some stat padding.  That’s why I’ll be doing things a little bit differently today.  Here’s the numbers!

- Christian Hackenberg didn't have the superstar performance that I predicted, but he didn't do bad either.  He went a respectable 16/23 for 212 yds and a TD.  The bad news is he threw an interception.  The good news is he ran for a touchdown on a play that gave new meaning to the term “quarterback sneak.”  It appeared as if no one knew who had the ball until Hackenberg was already in the endzone, untouched.  Interestingly, Robinson was wide open on the play and seemed upset that he didn't get the ball.

- Speaking of Robinson, he also underperformed statistically (at least, compared to his usual jaw dropping numbers), but he still managed to look like he was putting up video game stats.  On paper, he had 8 catches for 98 yds and no TDs.  In reality, he was clutch whenever the offense needed him to be.  Robinson also broke his own single-season receptions record which now stands at 81 and continued to add to his single-season yardage record.

- Zach Zwinak was arguably the hero of the game as he rushed for 149 yds on 26 carries.  More importantly he scored 3 TDs for the 3^rd time this season.  He did fumble, but managed to recover it.  I guess those new gloves didn't help very much.

- Zwinak’s counterpart Bill Belton was technically the starter for the game and ran for 81 yds on 19 carries of his own in addition to scoring the first TD of the game before Zwinak decided to set up camp in the endzone.  Belton was not able to recover his fumble, but luckily it didn't lead to Purdue points.

- Adam Breneman scored his first college TD by somehow contorting his body like one of the cheerleaders.  Those body control skills are part of the reason he was the #1 ranked TE recruit coming out of high school.  Here's a picture of him celebrating the TD with Robinson and Jesse James a mere 8 rows from me!

- On the defensive side of the ball, 6 players recorded a sack including my prediction Da’Quan Jones.  Also, Mike Hull and Adrian Amos each added tackles for a loss.  I’d like to take a moment and clear something up; Deion Barnes has 2.5 sacks this season, so technically this was NOT his “2^nd sack of the year.”  He made this point very clear on Twitter, so I figured I would share.  The defense forced 3 turnovers, including 2 fumbles and an interception by Jordan Lucas that yours truly predicted.  Overall, the unit held Purdue to just 14 first downs and only 41 yds rushing.  Impressive!

- Sam Ficken hit a 29 yard field goal and all 6 of his extra points, but his finest moment was on a kickoff.  After Purdue returned one kickoff for a TD, it looked like they might do it again until Sam Ficken threw himself at the returner’s legs and took him out.  To all the kickers out there, this was textbook.

- Finally, punter Alex Butterworth worked on his tan in the bright rays of a beautiful early afternoon sun because his services were never required.  And that’s got to be a pretty nice feeling.

There are only 2 games left in the season, 1 home and 1 away.  Both are against fairly good teams, so this was possibly Penn State’s last win of the season.  It was great to see a solid performance by everyone on the team.  Hopefully they can put together a similar effort next week on Senior Day so the seniors can go out ringing the victory bell.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the grades.  Follow me on Twitter @PSUOptimus and as always, go State!