My wife and I had a Halloween thing last night, so I couldn't watch the game live. I went radio silent till we got home, and I watched in on DVR (did so in a little over an hour), not knowing a thing about the game.
Thoughts:
- I actually thought they played pretty well. PSU, despite losing a fluky @ a pretty decent IU squad, is still solid squad (they catch Nebraska and Iowa from B1G west, so 6-2 is certainly doable). They outgained PSU by 200 yards, had 2 100 yard WR and a 100 yard RB. Given that they were up 14 halfway through the first and ended up only winning by 13, I can see why there's concern.
Despite playing 'well', it was just sloppy. 9 penalties, including a few procedural penalties, which never happened last year. 9 point swing on FG shenanigans (Haubeil was hurt and whatever the end of the 1st half was). OSU was ready to down a punt on the 1 and screwed it up.
I mean, if those 2 missed FGs become TDs, we're looking at a 4td win. A lot to cleanup, but all of it is fixable.
- Fields/Wilson/Olave is just not stoppable right now. OLine gave Fields time pretty much all night, and it's too hard to cover those 2. Both are deep threats, but both can work the middle or the sidelines on intermediate route. Add that Fields was 6-7 throwing to the TEs, and that he can find Williams or JSN when he needs....that's just deadly.
- Teague and Sermon getting 166 on 36 carries against a solid D is fine. It's not JK numbers, but it's still good enough. Against a playoff caliber team, Fields will have to run some, or they will work Wilson on some gadget plays. They didn't run Fields at all, and they didn't need to. Against Clemson/Bama/whoever, he will.
- I thought the front 7 balled out. Maybe Tuf Borland's best game. Cooper was a stud, Togai and Garrett where everywhere, and Harrison had a nice game. Browning seemed to do a good job on Freiermuth a couple times. Much better showing than Nebraska.
- Secondary has some issues. I'll forgive Wade for the time Jahan Dotson made back to back one handed catches (one of which looked like a push off). But after halftime, PSU eschewed the run and just went with a quick passing game because of how well the front 7 was playing. And worked a bit too. Needs to be sured up.
It's very possible that we've played the 2 best teams we'll play all year. IU has some nice weapons and a defensive minded HC, but they're IU. Michigan lost at home to a team that lost (flukily) to Rutgers. With the covid situation at Wisconsin, really hard to predict who wins the west, but right now the only 2-0 teams are NW and Purdue. Don't get hurt, get every game played, and stay covid free!