season preview

Minnesota: We Suck, But Look At This JUCO

THE MOST ENTERTAINING SUBPLOT of the 2007 season was "will Notre Dame's offense finish as the most pathetic of the millenium?" Despite finishing a whopping 27 yards behind last year's second most impotent offense, Florida International, the answer was no. Rutgers' 2002 abomination still stands.

At first blush this seems to have little to do with Minnesota, but the Gophers were the defensive equivalent of Jimmy Clausen and the Yakety Sax Crew last year, finishing 119th -- dead last -- in total defense, well behind such luminaries as Rice, UTEP, SMU, and San Diego State. (Keep this in mind if Notre Dame RETURNS TO GLORY with an opening week offensive explosion of 14 or so points.) Think about that. Minnesota was the defensive equivalent of this:

Tim Brewster's got a lot of work to do.

Last year I predicted a brief, miserable sqeak of a head coaching career for the excitable but woefully unproven Brewster, who'd never been anything but a tight ends coach. Though this prediction is off to a stirring start, I was wrong about one thing: Brewster's recruiting. Suckered in by the lure of a stadium named after a bank or free Wild tickets or something, recruits flocked to Brewster's banner. Minnesota ended up with the #17 class according to Rivals The capture of Indiana dual-threat quarterback and Army All American Marqueis Gray was the most notable coup; there was also a healthy sprinkling of four-stars elsewhere, including a highly touted instate linebacker who, unfortunately, just had open-heart surgery. His career is in doubt.

Is it going to help this year? Eh... probably not so much. It's overrated because of its size (29 players) and JUCO-heavy. The best player in it is stuck behind a pretty decent returning starter, and there's only a few kids who will be around by the time Minnesota is rebuilt into an annoying midlevel Big Ten team.

Offense

Last Year

This was a relative bright spot, I guess, but only in the sense that it wasn't a nuclear waste site. Minnesota implemented a Tulane version of the spread 'n' shred that was moderately successful. Freshman quarterback Adam Weber ran for around 600 yards -- he was the Gophers' leading rusher -- and threw plenty, racking up 449 attempts. For the first time since Jim Wacker was crushing the spirits of Gopher fans, Minnesota threw more than it ran. By the end of the year their numbers floated into the 40s in most statistical categories.

As per usual, however, Minnesota's lame-o nonconference schedule (two MAC teams, FAU, and I-AA NDSU) distorts things. In conference the Gophers were 7th, missing two defenses (Penn State and Michigan State) that were about average when taken together. Since the Gophers' horrible defense had them in a hole so often, large sections of season were spent against second stringers or soft prevent outfits trying to run the clock down.

Overview

Weber returns and should improve significantly, as freshman quarterbacks are wont to do. He'll be pushed by the aforementioned Gray, but chances are he retains his job.

The skill positions are relatively bare without Glen Mason's remarkable ability to unearth productive NFL running backs from nowhere in particular. Eric Decker is one of the Big Ten's most underrated wide receivers, but there's not much talent backing him up. Leetle sophomore Duane Bennett returns as the nominal starter at tailback; Michigan fans may remember him as the least impressive running back to crack 100 yards against Michigan's disappointing run defense. He's prickly about being pigeonholed, rejecting the terms "power back" and "spread back," and preferring "coachable." Which sounds like faint praise indeed, especially when you're the one saying it. Last year he averaged a pedestrian 4.1 YPC. He's small, not particularly fast, and was recruited for Glen Mason's system. Meh.

The last vestiges of Glen Mason's surprisingly prolific offensive linemen are exiting stage right, as Steve Shidell and Tony Brinkhaus graduate. Their replacements are thin on experience, especially since so many of them are getting bounced around, and talent, though one of them is the spectacularly named Nedward Tavale. Minnesota line coach Phil Meyer:

"It's a little makeshift, a little tough," Meyer said. "But there's not much you can do about it."

Yipe?

DEFENSE

Last Year

Awful, awful, awful. Awful. Also: awful. Worst in total defense, 114th in rushing, 116th in pass efficiency, 109th in scoring. Gave up fewer than 30 points twice, once against Iowa and once against a I-AA NDSU team that put up incredible numbers: 394 yards rushing and nearly 600 total yards. No North Dakota State drive was shorter than 31 yards. The Horror was bad. This was worse

Overview

The gravitational pull of average should see Minnesota float back towards the middle, but rebuilding this thing is going to be a multi-year project. Five starters return on the front seven, but only Steve Davis and Willie Van De Steeg can be seen as anything other than liabilities; a flood of JUCO prospects reinforce. Cedric McKinley, originally a Troy Trojan of Troy (We're From Troy!), was specifically called out by Brewster in his ten-minute monologue at Big Ten Media Days as a promising player.

That's the theme most places on the defense: "we suck, but look at this JUCO!" This will probably work for a player or three; most of the others will flame out uselessly, and Minnesota's defense will flail about. Pressure should get better with Van De Steeg entering his senior year healthy, and the defensive tackles should resemble Mario Cart speed pads less with a year of experience and time in the weight room. The secondary is going to be awful, as it has always been and always will be, peace be upon it.

Considerable improvement here still equals something like 90th nationally; this is a reasonable expectation.

THE TURNOVER THING

Minnesota is the platonic ideal in this category. In 2006 the country's best turnover margin obscured how far the talent level had slipped in the closing act of the Glen Mason regime. Minnesota racked up an astounding 32 takeaways and lost only three fumbles. In 2007, takeaways more than halved, Weber threw a bunch of interceptions (as freshmen quarterbacks are wont to do) and the fumbles skyrocketed to ten. Minnesota fell to 114th and watched their season implode. Turnovers are a harsh mistress indeed.

AN EMBARRASSING PREDICTION, NO DOUBT

BEST CASE

Minnesota is going to be bad. Their best hope is that Weber improves dramatically and they unearth a whole bevy of Big Ten quality fill-ins from the JUCO parade, and even that will only get them to 6-6 because of the reliably nummy nonconference schedule.

WORST CASE

This is team that gave up nearly 400 rushing yards to a I-AA school... and let that team's quarterback complete 80% of his passes! (And, miraculously, only gave up 27 points doing so.) They can't be nearly as bad as they were last year, except they can. 1-11.

FINAL VERDICT

It's not a stretch to predict improvement from a 1-11 team with the country's worst defense and a freshman quarterback. This is what I am doing, but Minnesota was so resoundingly terrible last year that there is a long way to go before that improvement shows up in the record. Big Ten fans may remember a similar situation in Ron Zook's first two years at Illinois: 2005 was an irredeemable debacle, so bad that even though the team returned something like 20 starters the improvement they turned in was only enough to turn the Illini from a traveling bye week into a team you kind of sort of had to be careful around until the second half. Illinois went from two wins to... two wins.

Minnesota wasn't quite as dire as that 2005 Illinois team and should see some of the tight games it lost last year swing its way. The problem is the number of tight games: there were six decided by a touchdown or less, of which Minnesota won one, and six blowouts, of which Minnesota was always on the wrong end. The Gophers were nowhere close to anyone in the Big Ten save Northwestern and Iowa, and the Iowa game ended on an unrecovered onside kick. Iron law of MGoBlog: if you didn't recover the onside kick the game wasn't that close.

The Gophers will probably swing an extra nonconference victory or two and may pick off an unwary, bad Big Ten foe, but bowl eligibility, or anything close to it, is not in the offing.

OOC
8/30	Northern Illinois	Probable Win
9/6	@ BGSU	Tossup
9/13	Montana State	Probable win
9/20	Florida Atlantic	Tossup
Conference
9/27	@ Ohio State	Auto-loss
10/4	Indiana	Tossup
10/11	@ Illinois	Auto-loss
10/25	@ Purdue	Probable loss
11/1	Northwestern	Tossup
11/8	Michigan	Probable loss
11/15	@ Wisconsin	Auto-loss
11/22	Iowa	Probable loss
Absent:	Penn State, Michigan State

Eh. Looks like 4-8.

Penn State: Party Like It's Nineteen-Ninety-2005

Brian •

The Story

For undoubtedly not the final time, Joe Paterno doesn't know when or if he will retire. This goes on a lengthy list of things Joe Paterno couldn't tell you about:

why his players are treating the Happy Valley criminal code like a scavenger hunt
advances in football technology since 1978
the dangers of nepotism
Jimmy Carter
where his pants are at the moment.

And so it goes for Penn State, belted into the Paterno Express with no clear idea where the ride is going or how they're going to get off.

There can be no clearer example of this than a dedicated Penn State fan's youtube pre-homage to the coming "Spread HD," the brain -- or at least limbic-system -- child of universally scorned Jay Paterno. Without any clear direction as to just what in the hell the new offense entails, the videographer picks everything:

Jay Paterno is sick of calling Some Guy Runs For Three Yards and Oh God Anthony Morelli Thinks He Can Fit That In There and has instead decided to call Fifty Yard Touchdown on a more regular basis. An excellent plan. If only we weren't talking about Jay Paterno.

We do actually have some indication as to what JayPa's devious plan entails. Lest Pat Devlin has any illusions he should not transfer immediately:

''It's a run offense,'' Jay Paterno said. ''It's really a glorified wishbone offense.''

JayPa is running the spread 'n' shred. No, seriously. When Daryll Clark came in against Youngstown State, PSU went right for the zone read:

This is a transparent attempt to recapture the Michael Robinson mojo that led to Penn State's unexpected 11-1 season in 2005. But, hey, that's not exactly the worst idea, right?

Offense

Last Year

2005	2006	2007
Passing
74	58	75
Pass Eff
53	92	74
Rushing
14	43	29
Total
33	53	55
Scoring
13	72	45
Sacks
11	47	34

Not that this is any surprise, but Penn State's passing game was somewhere between mediocre and atrocious while its ground game was steadily effective. This will be a theme we return to with the defense, but it would probably be best to check out the conference numbers since the toughest opponent on Penn State's nonconference schedule last year was probably Buffalo.

Said conference numbers are more polarized than those at left: Penn State was last in pass efficiency but second in YPC. It's worth noting that PSU's offense got the toughest draw in the Big Ten by skipping Northwestern and Minnesota, the two worst defenses in the conference.

It's just as you suspected. Anthony Morelli was horrible, the running backs surprisingly effective for having no NFL prospects to speak of, and the overall result was meh.

Quarterback

Passer Efficiency In The JayPa Era
2007	74th
2006	92nd
2005	53rd
2004	111th
2003	100th
2002	45th
2001	83rd
2000	74th
1999	N/A

Rating: 1. At right please find another edition of our handy chart that sums up at least 80% of Penn State's issues this millennium: Jay Paterno. Penn State's quarterbacks "coach" has presided over befuddled players for going on a decade now and has never once had a player crack the top 40 in passer efficiency. Blessed with a senior returning starter who was a precious five-star recruit in a past life, Penn State was a thudding 74th in passer efficiency.

This represented an above-average year for them.

Okay, yes, it was clear by the time Anthony Morelli threw consecutive pick-sixes against Ohio State in 2007 that he was a recruiting service miss, but it still takes a remarkable incompetence to crack the top 70 in passer efficiency once in the last five years, especially when you've usually got a pounding ground game and nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition(!) of a five-yard out.

This is a long way of saying the usual. Until Jay Paterno is relieved of his duties there is no reason to expect the Penn State quarterback to be even average.

This goes double for this year, when a mere two candidates will duke it out for the starting position. Sophomore Pat Devlin is highly-rated and immobile. Redshirt junior Daryll Clark was low-rated and mobile, which makes him the heavy favorite as Penn State returns to the run-heavy spread offense that blasted them to an unexpected Orange Bowl two years ago. Michigan fans may remember Clark as the second Penn State quarterback to wander off the field mumbling about pancakes in the 2006 game.

Unfortunately for Penn State, Clark is unlikely to be the same caliber of athlete as Robinson. Robinson was a huge deal recruit out of Virginia powerhouse Varina in 2001, a four-year starting quarterback named Offensive Player of the Year by the relevant newspaer in-state. Parade rated him the third-best "athlete" recruit in the nation. After his Penn State career he was drafted in the fourth round to play running back; he's currently the backup for the 49ers.

By contrast, Clark was a middling recruit out of Ohio, a low three-star with a couple nice offers (Iowa, Nebraska) but also a listed 40 time of 4.7. He was Rivals' #24 dual-threat quarterback that year; Rivals only rated 25. Scout gave him two stars and didn't bother to rank him otherwise.

This is the juncture where someone jumps in to say that recruiting rankings don't matter and it's all about heart and desire and you can't measure either of those things in a forty-yard dash. A response: Penn State is moving to a spread offense specifically to take advantage of Clark's athletic skills, and the thing recruiting sites are the absolute best at is saying "dayum, that guy is fast." Also we are talking about possibly the poorest-coached position at a BCS school; if there's anywhere a recruit's projected ability in high school is relevant it's there.

Clark is a slower, smaller, less experienced version of Michael Robinson, who you may remember was pure awful until his unexpected Heisman run in 2005. And, no, he's not Pat White, either, unless you can produce evidence that LSU wanted him as a wide receiver. The forecast, as always, is grim.

Tailback & Fullback

Rating: 4. It's a tribute to the rest of the Penn State staff that the Nittany Lion rushing game hardly blinked when much-maligned senior Austin Scott saw his career end with rape charges. (They were later dropped.) PSU plugged in little-used midget Rodney Kinlaw, who proceeded to tear off 5.5 YPC. And it wasn't just Penn State's candy-cane nonconference schedule: PSU finished second to Illinois in Big Ten YPC despite missing Northwestern (#74 in rush D) and Minnesota (#114!).

Kinlaw's gone now, leaving redshirt sophomore Evan Royster (above) the presumed starter. The Penn State blogger known as "Run Up The Score" is a levelheaded sort, so I tend to believe him when he says Royster is pretty dang good:

Personally, I'm hoping and praying that opposing defensive coordinators under-estimate Royster. He's an excellent running back with perhaps the best vision of any RB in the last ten years at Penn State. If you love the weird, little things in football, pay close attention to Royster. He doesn't waste a single step and gets the most out of every run. Two-yard runs become four-yard runs. Eight-yard runs become eleven-yard runs. It's uncanny. Very Mike Hart-ish, if you will. I understand the infatuation with speedy Stephfon Green, but Royster is the clear starter at this point.

Skill position players are the easiest for laymen to evaluate and really obsessive fans will put more time into player evaluation of their guys than any journalist; I'm on board.

The stats, limited though they are, back up RUTS: Royster went for 6.2 YPC last year and all but nine of those carries were against Big Ten competition or A&M. Slice out Florida International and Temple and the YPC drops to... 6.0. That's only 82 carries and therefore not definitive, but we're talking about a lightly-regarded redshirt freshman here. Chances are he drops the "lightly regarded" by year's end.

Penn State's depth at the position is sketchy, like it is everywhere on offense except the line. RUTS mentioned Stephfon Green, a redshirt freshman from the Bronx who scooted for a long touchdown in the spring game. According to Penn State's always-entertaining official site, Green "provided the Nittany Lion defense with a talented and swift tailback to try and corral as a member of the foreign team in 2007." The existence of a "foreign team" coupled with last year's revelation that one of Penn State's linebackers is named "Fritz" overloads my JoePa-is-still-reliving-WWI humor circuits.

He was a meh recruit, given two stars by Rivals and a middling three by Scout. Prognosis: bleah. Incoming freshman ~~Mike Shaw~~ Brandon Beachum is a pounding straight-ahead type who many rated as a linebacker; he could be another Tony Hunt.

Royster will (probably) be one of the surprise stars of the Big Ten, Green a change-of-pace back that muddles around offering 3 YPC but mixes in a few long runs; Beachum sees sporadic carries in short yardage.

Wide Receiver & Tight Ends

Rating: 3. We've been hearing how awesome the receiving corps of Derrick Williams, Jordan Norwood, and Deon Butler is for going on three years now... for some reason. Butler's the best of the three and he had 47 catches for 633 yards last year. Whoop de freakin' doo. Normally this would not warrant Youtube clips, but MGoBlog rule #59 ("All highlight videos set to Bon Jovi must be deployed") supersedes:

These three are the wide receiver equivalents of Jaycen Taylor and Korey Sheets at Purdue: established, competent, uninspiring, hard to tell apart. Butler is slightly faster than the other guys and more likely to get open deep; if not overthrown he can haul it in, whereupon he will immediately fall over. Williams is shiftier but has not developed into the playmaker everyone expected when he was the nation's #1 recruit a few years back; he's basically Steve Breaston. He averaged fewer than ten yards a reception last year. Norwood has no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever.

With the graduation of Terrell Golden and the Crocodile Dundee dismissal of Chris Bell, there's no help coming unless tight end Andrew Quarless can work his way out of the doghouse. After a promising freshman year Quarless was expected to break out in 2007, but a couple of minor alcohol violations landed him squarely in the doghouse. Paterno even kicked Quarless "off the team," by which he meant "not off the team," but whatever.

Quarless spent the year in onfield purgatory, catching only 14 passes (despite being wide, wide open the whole game against Michigan). He's kept his nose clean since; as Penn State's most talented offensive player he should be a larger part of the offense this year.

Offensive Line

Rating: 5. I was dead wrong about the line last year, predicting it to be in shambles after Levi Brown's departure and a lot of questionable shuffling. Instead, they paved the way for Kinlaw's impressive numbers above and kept Morelli relatively clean (Penn State was 34th in sacks allowed at about 1.5 per game).

The run game is the impressive thing. Every indicator on Kinlaw from recruiting rankings to four uninspired years at Penn State to his NFL fate (undrafted) was negative, and yet there is extremely strong statistical evidence Penn State's running game was second only to Ohio State's in conference. That's more likely to be a product of a kickin' offensive line than everyone on the planet, including Penn State's coaches, screwing up their evaluations of Kinlaw.

It is therefore definitely a plus that everyone is back. The interior of the line is excellent, featuring first-team All Big Ten center AQ Shipley and second-team guard Rich Ohrnberger; the other guard is true sophomore Stefen Wisniewski, who shoved a decent junior starter out of a job midway through last year. That's two established All Big Ten players who carried a who-dat runningback to an excellent season and a true freshman who bulled his way into a starting job. Jebus.

The tackles aren't quite as intimidating, though Gerald Cadogan did pick up honorable mention All Big Ten last year. Dennis Landolt, the right tackle, was decent as a sophomore and should improve this year.

Defense

Last Year

2005	2006	2007
Passing
50	53	39
Pass Eff
14	14	41
Rushing
7	7	7
Total
12	15	11
Scoring
10	9	7
Sacks
8	6	2

Penn State's rushing defense is officially creepy, checking in at #7 nationally for the third straight year. But we should really hop right to the conference stats since Temple, Notre Dame, FIU, and Buffalo are perhaps the worst collection of nonconference offenses in the universe. (A&M, the bowl opponent, was good enough; they're outvoted.)

There Penn State goes from outstanding to just pretty good. YPC shoots up from 2.7 to 3.4, good for second in the conference but inflated by picking up a lot of sacks and missing the conference's worst rushing attack (Northwestern) and a mediocre one (Minnesota). All things considered, PSU was probably the fourth-best rush defense in the Big Ten, behind OSU, Illinois, and Iowa but considerably in front of #5 Michigan.

Pass defense was a bit worse; PSU missed the #5 and #8 pass efficiency offenses -- about average -- and finished 7th in conference. The sacks push them up a bit, but enjoying the Ryan Mallett Experience pushes them back down.

Good, not great run defense, slightly below average pass defense. Don't let the numbers at right fool you; Penn State was just okay last year.

Defensive Line

Rating: 4. This was going to be a massive strength and almost inconceivable collection of talent and depth before Joe Paterno finally booted DTs Phillip Taylor and Chris Baker for various beatings delivered to Penn State students. Even with the departures it might be the best line in the conference.

The headliner is Maurice Evans (above), a moderately shirtless recruit who futzed around a bit as a freshman before blowing up as a true sophomore. Evans ran over, around, and through opposing offensive lines to the tune of 21.5 TFLs and 12.5 sacks last year. This would be the point where I'd break down how many of those were against serious opposition if Penn State's website worked; it does not so we just have to say "eh."

The other defensive end spot is split between mediocre Josh Gaines and edge-rushing youngster Aaron Maybin. Gaines was accurately covered last year:

Traditional MGoBlog heuristics lead one to be skeptical of a major leap forward for Gaines. He was a meh recruit in 2004 who contributed little in his first year starting despite playing next to a couple of defensive tackles who demand more attention in the passing game than most and in front of an aggressive, blitzing linebacking corps. The picture painted is one of a lot of effective single blocking of Gaines by right tackles. He was a redshirt sophomore a year ago -- less upside than a guy in his first or second year in the program -- and started largely because the situation at defensive end was so dire it required the Shaw move. If Penn State can get a mediocre season out of him, it would be a small victory.

Again, Gaines turned in 5 TFLs and 2.5 sacks despite playing opposite holy terror Evans and next to a rotating array of penetrating defensive linemen. His maximal upside is Rondell Biggs; chances are he's below average. Meanwhile, Maybin's four sacks is a good return considering his limited time last year, but they came against the confused lemming offenses of FIU, Notre Dame, and Iowa. Jury's out on him; he could waddle around for another year or make a leap to real productivity. I'm relatively bullish on him, but think he's a year away from real contributions.

At defensive tackle, only Penn State could have two major contributors axed (Taylor and Baker combined for 7.5 sacks and 14.5 TFLs last year) and still return a heap of talent. Jared Odrick is the headliner and stupendously-named Ollie Ogbu isn't far behind; both were extremely impressive when Michigan ground out a victory on 44 Mike Hart carries:

What was the deal with all the Penn State defensive tackles all up in Mike Hart's grill?

One: Penn State appears to have an outstanding DT rotation. Though Michigan had played three very sketchy defenses to start the year, they were moving guys like Trevor Laws around like they were on skates. The Lions had guys overpowering Michigan players time and again. They're young but Penn State's defensive line was extremely impressive in the run game.

(Michigan crushing Trevor Laws, who ended up a second round draft pick, remains one of the great mysteries of 2007. That performance was a severe aberration). Ogbu had 3 TFLs in a starting role in that game. Ogbu got replaced later and Odrick broke his ankle; I assume these guys will be fine. Top backup Abe Koroma was supposed to start last year before a broken foot knocked him out of the first half of the season. When he returned the guys in front of him were already playing very well.

Linebackers

Rating: 3. Linebacker U returned with a vengeance over the past few years as Penn State executed a seamless transition from outstanding white guy middle linebacker to outstanding white guy middle linebacker. Posluszny begat Connor who begat Lee who is in the process of begetting Colasanti. Problem: Lee's ACL exploded, knocking out Connor's heir apparent. Between the two losses Penn State is down an astounding 283 tackles, 25.5 behind the line of scrimmage. Suddenly the Penn State linebackers look a little wobbly.

True sophomore Chris Colasanti steps into the middle now. It's not necessarily that Colasanti won't be good. Lee himself was a breakout star as a sophomore, drawing attention in that year's Penn State UFR despite being flanked by both Connor and Posuszny. Whatever crazy mojo Penn State has working isn't going to stop because Sean Lee's ACL isn't cooperating. They're probably good for one unexpectedly excellent linebacker a year. Colasanti may be it; it may be someone else.

The problem comes in options 2 and 3. The past couple years I've documented a slight softening in the Penn State run defense. In 2006, Connor, Posuszny, and Lee were all awesome but the defensive line was devoid of playmakers and big, tough running attacks found success. In 2007, starting weakside linebaker Tyrell Sales had limited production (50 tackles, 5.5 TFL, 3 sacks -- not bad but not Lee) and the run defense slipped to merely above average. Now you're stripping out two good options at defensive tackle and trying to find two new guys to slot in. Touchy.

Fortunately for Penn State fans, at least one player seems likely to suceed. Redshirt sophomore Bani Gbadyu was well-regarded by the recruiting services and initially chose LSU before switching to Penn State; he held offers from 40 schools including Georgia, Ohio State, and Oklahoma. He was going to step into Lee's vacated OLB spot as Lee shifted inside.

The slot vacated by Lee's injury, however, looks dicey. Sophomore MLB Chris Colasanti competes with junior walk-on Josh Hull. Michigan fans will recognize this as the exact same scenario confronting Michigan's much-discussed quarterback search, down to the experience levels and rankings of the recruits involved. (Colasanti saw a total of 48 snaps last year.) At least Colasanti wasn't recruited to be a pocket linebacker, whatever that would mean.

Bowman hasn't been productive and there are two sophomores stepping in to starting roles. Even if they're highly touted they should be a significant step down from the usual terrors. The bet is Bowman remains okay but only that and the newcomers struggle early with one emerging into a potential star late in the year.

Defensive Backs

Rating: 3. Justin King is off to the middle rounds of the NFL draft; the other five members of the secondary who saw significant time return. This would normally be an excellent sign, but as noted above the Penn State secondary was deceptively mediocre when not allowed to tee off on Jimmah(!) Clausen.

AJ Wallace (right; don't get excited, he's just returning a kick) and Lydell Sargeant return at the corners. Tony Davis joins them after an unproductive season at safety. Sargeant and Wallace fought a pitched battle opposite King last year to see who would be the frequent target of opponents, with Sargeant starting out the year poorly (70 tackles -- most in the secondary -- without a full year of playing time) before being replaced by Wallace.

At safety, Anthony Scirotto returns. He's not as good as everyone thought he was after a six-interception sophomore year, but he did get at least one All Big Ten vote from the coaches last year and that was with an idiotic seven cornerbacks in the eight slots provided for defensive backs. Insert default white guy stuff here: steady, not going to wow you with his athleticism, etc. Ten interceptions in his career is pretty impressive, though, and if the Big Ten named all-confeence teams that made a damn bit of sense he'd probably make it.

Mark Rubin, who's bounced from receiver to safety to receiver and is finally back at safety, replaced Davis late last year when Davis required an emergency appendectomy. He returns and will start opposite Scirotto.

This is probably not good. Rubin started five games, one a nothing game against Temple, another against aerially useless Stephen McGee and A&M. There was one decent performance against Purdue where Curtis Painter threw a bunch but managed only 5.3 YPA. Then this:

OSU QB Todd Boeckman had 253 yards on just 26 attempts, throwing three touchdowns and one interception.
MSU QB Brian Hoyer had 257 yards on 21 attempts, four touchdowns, and two interceptions.

Neither of those guys were exactly world-beaters late last year. Powerful anecdotal evidence from Penn State's official site:

Perhaps no Nittany Lion better defines the term "team player" than fifth-year senior Mark Rubin.

Perhaps no backhanded compliment better says "I can't believe this guy is starting" than overused cliche Team Player. Also: two time academic All Big Ten, an award inversely correlated with being Actual All Big Ten.

So. One good safety, one very probably bad safety. Three experienced cornerbacks, but none who have played particularly well. One should emerge into a star or star-ish player -- probably Wallace, who's younger, was better than Sargeant at the end of last year, and had better guru ratings -- and the others will be okay.

Special Teams

Rating: 4. Last year this preview described Kevin Kelly as "a version of Garrett Rivas with delusions of grandeur." This proved accurate. Kelly was perfect on 17 attempts shorter than 40 yards and 2/7 on attempts further out. Expect more of the same.

Penn State lost a good punter in Jeremy Kapinos last year, but then-junior Jeremy Boone improved significantly on Kapinos' Ray Guy finalist season, averaging 43 yards a kick. Only a third of his punts were even returned, which equals awesome when combined with the gross yardage. Penn State was third in net punting last year. Boone was first-team All Big Ten. A couple anomalous boomers helped out the cause, so expect a small backslide; Penn State should still be top 20 (top 10?) here.

Despite the presence of the universe's fastest man, Penn State returns were mediocre a year ago. AJ Wallace did have a kick return touchdown.

Heuristicland

Turnover Margin

The theory of turnover margin: it is nearly random. Teams that find themselves at one end or the other at the end of the year are highly likely to rebound towards the average. So teams towards the top will tend to be overrated and vice versa. Nonrandom factors to evaluate: quarterback experience, quarterback pressure applied and received, and odd running backs like Mike Hart who just don't fumble.

2006	Int +	Fumb +	Sacks +	Int -	Fumb -	Sacks -
0.15 (41st)	11	17	3.54 (2nd)	10	16	1.54 (34th)

Not much to see here; close to even is close to even.

Position Switch Starters

Theory of position switches: if you are starting or considering starting a guy who was playing somewhere else a year ago, that position is in trouble. There are degrees of this. When Notre Dame moved Travis Thomas, a useful backup at tailback, to linebacker and then declared him a starter, there was no way that could end well. Wisconsin's flip of LB Travis Beckum to tight end was less ominous because Wisconsin had a solid linebacking corps and Beckum hadn't established himself on that side of the ball. Michigan flipping Prescott Burgess from SLB to WLB or PSU moving Dan Connor inside don't register here: we're talking major moves that indicate a serious lack somewhere.

Mark Rubin doesn't quite count since his position switch happened last year, but I'm still leery of him.

An Embarrassing Prediction, No Doubt

Best Case

Chris Colasanti and Daryll Clark are the hinge players this year for Penn State. If Clark is even reasonably good the Penn State offense will be one of their best in the last decade. Best of the 50-cent prizes and all that, but it would be a step up. If the defense manages to hang together despite the unexpected losses, 11-1 could be in the offing.

Worst Case

If Clark is Troy Smith in 2005 and Penn State's defense cracks seriously, they could be .500 in conference -- not an uncommon occurrence of late for them -- and lose their actual nonconference game against Oregon State, leaving them at 7-5.

Final Verdict

I am hugely surprised to come to this conclusion, but here it is: I think Jay Paterno is on to something with his "Spread HD" thing. He's a horrible quarterbacks coach and can't organize a passing game for crap. He's got a dual-threat quarterback sort of reminiscent of Michael Robinson, a number of little slot receivers who aren't much use downfield, and a decent-to-good running back or two. His entire offensive line is back. So why not adopt an offense that can bang out 6 YPC even when you're using the passing game as a glorified decoy?

I do think that to be great a spread offense has to have a great quarterback -- any offense, really -- and though the system might minimize Daryll Clark's deficiencies, it's not going to turn him into Michael Vick or even Michael Robinson. But I also think that the crushing offensive line is well suited for an offense that wants to run 60 or even 7o percent of the time, that Evan Royster is likely to be at least good, and that Derrick Williams is best deployed on fruity little screens. Penn State's personnel is an excellent fit for the spread 'n' shred and this could be an offense as effective as the 2005 offense was. Which wasn't great by any means, but it was good enough.

One potential caveat: maybe the big burlies up front aren't actually a good fit in a scheme that wants nimble guys to wall off defensive linemen.

Defensively, I think this is the year Penn State takes a noticable step back. They haven't been quite as good the last couple years, but lousy nonconference opponents helped cover that up and Penn State's crappy offense -- which gave opponents every motivation to get 20 points and go home -- did the rest. This year Penn State has a real OOC test in Oregon State and might have an offense that requires opponents to go full-bore.

This is a recipe for some minor unpleasantness when combined with the shaky secondary, somewhat depleted defensive line, and Shawn Lee's ACL tear. If you can get Maurice Evans blocked and get out to the young, confused MLB you'll be able to move the ball some.

OOC
8/30	Coastal Carolina	Functional DNP
9/6	Oregon State	Probable win
9/13	@ Syracuse	Auto-win
9/20	@ Temple	Functional DNP
Conference
9/27	Illinois	Tossup
10/4	@ Purdue	Probable win
10/11	@ Wisconsin	Tossup
10/18	Michigan	Tossup
10/25	@ Ohio State	Probable loss
11/8	@ Iowa	Auto-win
11/15	Indiana	Auto-win
11/22	MSU	Probable win
Absent:	Minnesota, Northwestern

Again with the caveat that I haven't looked too hard at many Big Ten teams, but I think Penn State goes into the year the most plausible challenger to Ohio State hegemony. They'll probably get submarined a few times along the way due to quarterback struggles or linebacker issues or the general decay of the Paterno era; they're still my tentative pick for #2 in the Big Ten. I'm torn between 9-3 and 10-2 here; I think we'll go with the more conservative estimate: 9-3 it is.

Purdue 2008: Tiller On A Treadmill

Brian •

The Story

If you had told Joe Tiller in 1997 that he would be shuffling off this Big Ten coil before the conference's other patriarch named Joe, he probably would have been surprised. "You traveled back in time to tell me that?" he'd ask. "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you have family members to warn or large New York buildings to save or something?" And then I'd ask "wait just a second, how do you know about the World Trade Center?" and he would go "uhhhhhh..." and I'd rip his face off, Mission Impossible style, and be confronted with the horrible truth:

So, yeah. Joe Tiller isn't going to coach football anymore and it's just as well because he's a time-traveling diabeetus alien. Also he throws hissy fits when Michigan hijacks his recruits at the last second.

Purdue's going with a peaceful transition of power, naming Eastern Kentucky head coach and former Boiler assistant Danny Hope as Tiller's heir apparent. But Danny Hope is another show. The current show is the meh end of the Tiller era. After a 9-4 2003 which saw the Boilers finish second in conference, Purdue has been locked into a cycle of mediocrity:

Year	Record	Conf	Place	Bowl Result
2004	7-5	4-4	T-5th	L 23-27 Sun Bowl
2005	5-6	3-5	8th
2006	8-6	5-3	T-4th	L 7-24 Champs Sports Bowl
2007	8-5	3-5	T-7th	W 51-48 Motor City Bowl

Please note than in 2005 and 2006, Michigan and Ohio State were off the schedule. This is not a team headed in the right direction, or any direction at all, really. Only a steady stream of puffball nonconference opponents has kept Purdue in the 7-9 win territory that has seemingly been their birthright since Tiller's arrival. (Even when they went to the Rose Bowl, Purdue finished 8-4.)

It's clear that off-field progress has stalled, but the canary in the coal mine for Purdue fans has to be the increasingly shaky recruiting of the Tiller regime as it skids to its unremarkable end. This is an excerpt from an SMQ table ordering all teams in order of average recruiting rankings over the past seven years. The leftmost year is 2002, the rightmost 2007. Interesting nearby teams are included:

42	Mich. State	32	66	16	35	33	42	37.3
43	Purdue	38	31	20	29	50	59	37.8
44	West Virginia	37	46	47	31	52	23	39.3
45	Wisconsin	50	40	39	33	42	34	39.7

Wisconsin and West Virginia certainly prove that recruiting is not the be-all and end-all, but USC, Georgia, and Oklahoma are at the top of this chart and Vandy, Indiana, and Kentucky are towards the bottom: it's an important factor in your team's success.

And what does it tell us about Purdue? Joe Tiller probably should have retired a couple years ago. The Boilers had a brief window in which they could snatch top-100 talent like Selwyn Lymon and Doug Van Dyke -- to name two highly-touted-if-star-crossed examples -- away from Michigan, but in 2006 recruiting dropped off a cliff and stayed there. Purdue's 2008 class checks in at #63, slightly ahead of Middle Tennessee and well behind Baylor. The post-cliff classes are the freshmen, sophomore, and juniors now, the large bulk of the team. Aside from the one or two guys even Indiana plucks out from underneath the big guys' noses, help is not coming. What you see returning will be what you get.

As you'll see, I see dead average people.

Offense

Last Year

2005	2006	2007
Passing
36	7	12
Pass Eff
89	46	48
Rushing
31	76	89
Total
25	13	27
Scoring
36	46	24
Sacks
2	22	51

The numbers at right are impressive until you take a cursory look at the opponents they were run up against. Purdue missed two of the Big Ten's tougher defenses in Wisconsin and Illinois and put up big numbers against a soft candy fluffy hooray nonconference schedule: Toledo, Eastern Illinois, Central Michigan (twice!), and Notre Dame.

When the big boys came calling, Purdue's offense went and hid in a corner: seven points and under 300 yards against Ohio State. Seven meaningful points and about 150 yards of offense against Michigan before the second string came in up 48-7. Twelve points and no touchdowns against Penn State (Dorien Bryant returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown).

Unsurprisingly, these were all losses. Now, a lot of teams had trouble against the three defenses listed above. Few could muster only two meaningful touchdowns across three games. There seems to be something in the Purdue offense of late that prevents it from performing against top-notch defenses. Last year the Boilers scored three points total against Wisconsin and Penn State.

What are those things? Erratic QB play combined with an offense that requires a machine-like precision to jerk its way down the field, and that was with two bonafide playmakers in Bryant and Dustin Keller. This year a lot of field goal drives are in the offing.

Quarterback

Rating: 3. It's rare when an ESPN pundit causes me to re-evaluate what universe I might be in, but when Mel Kiper named Curtis Painter one of the top ten prospects for the 2009 NFL draft, I reacted... poorly:

The same cannot be said for Mel Kiper's top-rated senior quarterback for the 2009 NFL draft, Missouri's Chase Dan-- wait... what? CURTIS PAINTER?

I even had me some reasons:

Painter does have one thing in common with Ryan: an underwhelming passer efficiency rating (46th last year in Joe Tiller's QB-friendly system) against a wretched schedule. Outside of the Big Ten, Purdue went up against Notre Dame, Toledo, Eastern Illinois, and Central Michigan... twice.

Indeed, Painter's rates and ratios improved only marginally as a junior:

Year	Comp %	YPA	TD:Int	Comp %	YPA	TD:Int
	Overall			Conference
2007	62.5	6.8	29:11	61	5.8	11:7
2006	59	7.5	22:19	58	6.8	9:11

Okay, some nominal improvement in completion percentage and a significant leap in TD-Int when the nummy soft nonconference schedule is taken into account. But it came at the expense of a full yard per attempt in conference play. Purdue finished last in the conference in YPA, with only moribund Iowa coming anywhere close.

Two major caveats to the above analysis:

Michigan and Ohio State rotated back onto the schedule.
Purdue was the pass-wackiest team in the league, calling 380 passes (most in conference) to 235 rushes (least in conference); many of Purdue's passes are designed to be short gains that substitute for the running game. The year before Tiller experimented with a relatively (for Purdue) run-heavy option game based on Nevada's weird "Pistol" formation that saw Purdue run almost exactly as much as they passed.

When you pass more your YPA goes down. Nash Equilibrium and all that. And when Michigan and Ohio State -- 1-2 in conference pass efficiency D last year -- show up on the schedule, your YPA goes down. Still, the picture painted is of a quarterback striving for adequacy and safety. To cut interceptions, make short, easy throws. This made for progress of a sort but was totally ineffective at moving the ball against defenses that don't run into each other on crossing routes and the like.

I think Purdue fans are at least partially with me on this. Boiled Sports took the baton handed to them when ESPN rated Curtis Painter the best quarterback in the Big Ten and jogged for a bit before slowing down and replying "what, seriously?"

In his Purdue preview, Pete Fuitak over at CFN thinks aloud that Painter's not as good as Brees, but is better than Orton. Honestly at this point in his career, I'd say Painter isn't as good as Brees or KO coming into his Senior year. But, he has one more season in black and gold to become one of the best QBs in the Cradle and definitely under Tiller. For that to happen, he has to learn how to look off of the first and second receivers and definitely NEEDS to beat some teams that are real contenders for the Big Ten title. I'm not saying he can't do it, but you might be dreaming if you think he definitely will.

I'm no dreamer. A realistic goal for Painter this year: don't backslide on his junior-year numbers against a much tougher schedule that replaces some random MACrifice with Oregon and features a Notre Dame team that doesn't figure to be the worst in school history. Be okay, and leave the Heisman to someone with moxie.

Tailback & Fullback

Rating: 3. Returning seniors Korey Sheets and Jaycen Taylor weren't touted recruits and aren't likely to be first-day NFL draft picks, but they've been productive platoon-mates the past two years. JUCO transfer Taylor is the nominal starter since Sheets has a nasty tendency to put the ball on the ground. Taylor is slightly shiftier and more likely to break a tackle and head into the open field; Sheets is slightly bigger and more likely to fall forward on third and short. As you can see at right, Taylor's headshot is way more awesome and nearly J Leman-worthy.

Off The Tracks notes Purdue's long history of tailback tandems and something else that may be of note going into the season: Sheets is the only player on the roster other than Greg Orton to feature regularly in the passing game last year. He had 30 receptions; Taylor chipped in with another eleven. With massive attrition in the receiving corps and few attractive options to replace the departed production, look for those numbers to increase significantly.

Other than that, there's no reason to expect anything other than more of the same here. Running backs rarely change much over their careers; variation in performance is usually due more to circumstance than anything else. Taylor and Sheets will split carries about evenly, average a shade under 5 YPC (they both did better than this last year, but injuries held them out of some of their tougher games and the schedule ramps up considerably this year), and be wholly average.

Wide Receiver & Tight Ends

Rating: 2. Painter's top targets are mostly gone. The zippy and productive Dorien Bryant, winner of last year's Brooks Bollinger Award for excellence in eighth-year seniority, has finally shuffled off to the end of an NFL roster. Tight end Dustin Keller went to the Jets at the end of the first round of the NFL draft. Promising sophomore Selwyn Lymon was booted after picking up his second DUI in under a year. Possession receiver Jake Standeford (who, yes, is a white guy) graduated. With them they take 230 of Purdue's 369 receptions elsewhere.

The bulk of the returning catches come from two sources: running backs and senior Greg Orton (right). Orton is a 6'2" leaper with mediocre speed in the mold of former Michigan wideout Marquise Walker, not quite fast enough to be a true vertical threat but still plenty dangerous on downfield jump balls. Last year he had 67 catches for 752 yards. That's a pedestrian 11.2 YPC, and that against an extremely forgiving schedule. Something else indicative of a lack of speed: Orton's three touchdowns came against Toledo, Eastern Illinois, and Central Michigan. He'll undoubtedly be Painter's main target and catch a ton of balls; he's unlikely to provide much after the catch.

Past him it's really dicey. Joe Whitest sounds like the perfect Purdue wide receiver, but 1) he's a black guy with dreads and 2) he's a redshirt senior JUCO transfer with one catch to his name. Senior Brandon Whittington also has one catch to his name and spent his redshirt freshman year at safety, making 15 tackles. By comparison, senior Desmond Tardy's 17 catches is a mountain of experience, but it's not good when the first comment on an Indy Star fluff piece on Tardy is this:

Man this dude fell off the map! I didn't even think he was playing anymore. But anyways, its good to hear he still there. Good luck this year!

Ouch. These are the three guys Painter cited as reasons the WR shortage was "no worry" for him.

Reinforcements are coming but they've been significantly whittled before they even reach campus. Rich Rodriguez infamously lifted Trotwood-Madison wide receiver Roy Roundtree -- according to Rivals, one of only two four-star recruits acquired by Purdue in 2008 -- from Tiller's clutches on Signing Day. Tiller would go on to rant about wizard hats and snake oil, Penn State fans would cluck disapprovingly in the face of a mountain of evidence that Penn State had no use for "gentlemen's agreements," and the internet was greatly entertained. Curtis Painter? Not so much. Adding injury to insult: leviathan (6'6") WR/TE combo Jordan Brewer failed to qualify.

The reinforcing regiment's remnants: a trio of JUCO wide receivers, one with three stars and the others with two. It appears only one had an outside offer, that from Rutgers. Aaron Valentin is that fellow's name, and he's been on campus since January. Chances are he's the #2 receiver.

It doesn't take much to be an effective Purdue wideout -- find the hole in the zone and catch the damn ball, basically -- but if there's no one who can turn five yards into fifteen that's a serious blow to Boiler hopes. A dropped ball here, a slant short of the sticks there, and Purdue's suddenly relying on Curtis Painter to be surgically precise.

Offensive Line

Rating: 3. Purdue returns three starters, but all had offseason surgery and missed spring practice. Left tackle Sean Sester, one of the walking wounded, is getting mountains of hype -- Steele has him the #7 OT in the country, the Sporting News calls him an "unquestioned star and future pro". He's got a bulging disk in his back, however. If he's out there could be issues. The others returners are serviceable.

New right guard Justin Pierce started three games last year as a redshirt freshman when the starter went down and performed decently (I guess... Purdue's offense didn't roll over and die). Over the long haul he'll probably be pretty good; "adequate" is probably a good word to describe him this year. Center may be problematic, with a defensive lineman (Jared Zwilling) competing with senior Cory Benton.

I won't spin a web of words that makes it sound like I have any particular insight here. I believe Sester's pretty good and that it doesn't matter much in Purdue's quick-fire offense; I'm leery of a line with three starters who missed spring and may have issues that linger into the fall; I like guys who push into the lineup early in their careers like Pierce; I don't think center's hugely important, especially to Purdue. IMO: MOTS. Decent enough pass blocking with some leakiness at RT, good enough to crack open middleweight Big Ten defenses, mostly overrun by the big guys.

Defense

Last Year

2005	2006	2007
Passing
111	104	75
Pass Eff
91	81	31
Rushing
50	114	54
Total
100	114	63
Scoring
75	90	54
Sacks
44	56	41

Much, much better statistically after two straight years of misery but with some major warning flags. Three teams from the state of Michigan put up 48 on the Boilers. Michigan with a healthy Henne, okay. Michigan State -- surprisingly, the top-scoring team in the league last year -- okay. Central Michigan? Er. Especially after playing them earlier in the year and giving up 22.

It's hard to tease out any trends from the statistics. Michigan did whatever they wanted, passing and running with equal ease. State got an excellent day from Brian Hoyer but was mediocre on the ground, averaging 3.3 YPC even when QB sacks aren't considered. Dan "I've Got" LeFevour shredded Purdue by land and air, netting over 400 yards of total offense by himself. In other games: Purdue let Indiana's Marcus Thigpen run wild, got all kinds of torched by Minnesota and Penn State's ground games, and gave up almost 400 yards passing to Notre Dame(!).

I guess what I'm saying is this: I don't believe the stats at right much. Purdue was clearly better, but they weren't good, and there's been enough attrition that further progress is questionable.

Defensive Line

Rating: 3. Out are defensive ends Cliff Avril and Eugene Bright; back are tackles Alex Magee and Ryan Baker.

Avril capably stepped into the void created by Anthony Spencer's one-man heroics on Purdue's awful 2006 defense, racking up 6.5 sacks and 15 TFLs en route to being drafted by the Lions in the third round. (A moment of silence for his career, if you would.) Bright split time with junior Keyon Brown and had a decent season as a pass rusher.

Despite being the nominal starter, Brown -- who "enjoys sports" according to perhaps the least enlightening biographical tidbit in the history of biographical tidbits -- did nothing in particular to impress until the bowl game, when he picked up 2.5 of his 3.5 sacks on the year. As a irt sophomore stuck behind a pair of fairly productive elders there's reason to believe he'll pick his game up; "how much" is the eternally unanswerable question of season previews.

Replacing Avril will be true sophomore Ryan Kerrigan, who picked up 18 tackles as a freshman. Playing as a true freshman is usually an excellent sign for your future, but given Purdue's documented recruiting troubles he could be the best of the 50 cent prizes. A meh recruit from Muncie with mostly MAC offers (Cincinnati and Indiana were his only other BCS offers); ESPN said "he's not going to wow anyone on either side of the ball" before defaulting into platitudes about versatility and production. Even if Kerrigan is one of the guys the recruiting services overlook, he's unlikely to defy those ratings just a year after they were made. Expect him to be a major step down.

At DT, Baker (pictured) and Magee return. So does top backup Mike Neal. Baker was a highly decorated recruit and the subject of an elaborate, elongated battle between Purdue and Notre Dame. He's also a nice guy. In two years of starting, however, he hasn't made much of a difference on the field, with just 22 tackles and four TFLs last year. (He did have a good number of sacks last year.) Baker's slightly undersized at "just" 280 pounds; sometimes you can get away with that at defensive tackle but it's hard to when you're also 6'5". Leverage: Baker does not haz it.

The Sporting News claims Magee will be a "future pro"; I am not so sure. I didn't call out Purdue DTs by name in last year's UFR, but they did show up frequently. A sampling:

Kraus shoves the backside DT, then immediately releases to the second level. Long slants inside, getting in front of the DT and sort of sumo-ing him downfield. ... Kraus(+2) owns the frontside DT here, pancaking him and creating the room Hart exploits ... Boren(+1) gets control of the DT, stalemates him at the line, and seals him away from Hart ... Another cutback run for Brown keyed by the backside DT getting chopped to the ground.

There were some good plays interspersed but they mostly came when the zone scheme had Schilling attempting a tough reach block. By the time Mike Hart sprained his ankle late in the first half, he had 102 yards on 21 carries; Carlos Brown would add 64 yards on 13 more in the second half after Brandon Minor also went out with injury. And this was a decidedly poor Michigan interior line.

It's no wonder, then, that Purdue was eighth in the league in run defense, seventh in YPC. Much of the blame falls here, and the most blameless guy is off to the NFL.

Linebackers

Rating: 3. Before last season, Joe Tiller predicted that converted running back Anthony Heygood (pictured) would be the team's best linebacker; based on that prediction I predicted that Purdue's linebackers wouldn't be much good.

We were both right. Heygood turned in a good year, picking up 15 TFLs amongst 81 tackles and getting named honorable mention All Big Ten. Purdue's other linebackers had 14 TFLs amongst them and, with some assistance from the meh defensive tackles, contributed to Purdue's poor run defense. Dan Bick did chip in four sacks.

So it's either no big deal all these guys are gone or disturbing that no one on the team could push any of the three medicore seniors. There's little mystery as to who the replacements will be: Jason Werner will start at one outside position and Kevin Green will be the middle linebacker. Werner's a redshirt junior who spent his freshman year at safety, missed his sophomore year with a back injury, and finally got on the field last year, picking up 28 tackles as a reserve. A possible indicator of success: he won the defense's "most improved player" award in spring. He was a moderately touted recruit and got the most effusive praise of all Purdue players this spring; watch him for a possible breakout.

Green, meanwhile, could be dodgy. There's been talk of moving Heygood to the middle because Green may not be big enough to handle it. This was Brock Spack's take in spring:

"He's got to take another jump to be ready to be a full-time (middle) linebacker in this league," Spack said.

Heygood claimed Green made "lots of strides in the weight room" this offseason and all but anointed him the starter; the jury remains undecided.

Defensive Backs

Rating: 3.5. Purdue's secondary took a great leap forward from 2006, when a hodgepodge of unregarded freshmen and JUCO transfers were torched time and again. Purdue's pass efficiency defense went from 81st to 31st, and that renaissance extended to the conference schedule, where Purdue finished behind only Michigan and Ohio State.

However, the two best members of the Purdue secondary have departed. Cornerback Terrell Vinson was Purdue's leading tackler a year ago, normally a bad sign but here possibly indicative of a guy not quite good enough to handle the opponent's top receiver. Three sacks and five interceptions are good numbers to offset the tackles.

Returning at corner are David Pender, a junior baptized by fire two years ago and seven-game starter in 2007, and Royce Adams (right), another junior who's seen fire and brimstone in the sky. Though Adams appears to be moving backwards after starting 12 games as a freshman and only 5 as a sophomore, third corners still get plenty of time and he had a hand in Purdue's substantial improvement. Pender can make a similar claim.

As far as recruiting went: Pender's only other major offer was from Illinois, then in "please, God, someone come to our school" mode. Adams, on the other hand, got offers from a wide array of midlevel schools and was rumored to be on the verge of an Ohio State offer before committing to Purdue.

At safety, redshirt junior Brandon King returns. After a year of special teams and an odd sophomore year redshirt (after winning the Most Improved Player spring award, no less) he was steady and unremarkable, but that's what you want first-year starting safeties to be. Torrii Williams returns for his fourth straight year of off-field trouble and injuries. At this point projecting him to do anything between the sidelines is ludicrously optimistic, but everyone still projects him to be the starting strong safety. If it's not him it'll probably be sophomore Josh McKinley.

There's reason to be optimistic about the starting corners; lack of depth and Williams' questionable status are significant drawbacks. Though Purdue was third in the conference in pass efficiency defense last year they were closer to seventh than second, and they'll do well to hold their ground this year.

Special Teams

Rating: 4. 2007's best evidence that kickers are weird, weird people could be found in West Lafayette. Chris Summers went 18 for 22 a year after killing several people with errant 29-yard attempts in his 8-for-20 sophomore year. What will he do in his finale? Eh, who knows, but when in doubt go with the most recent performance.

Punter Jared Armstrong is gone; it's MGoBlog policy not to speculate on kickers who haven't seen the field due to their excessive weirdness.

Dorien Bryant's loss will be felt here as well. As noted above, he had a kick return touchdown and helped Purdue to 16th nationally in that statistic; as a punt returner he was decidedly average, however. Purdue will probably draft one of the receivers down the roster or a defensive back to take over and they'll be okay.

Assuming Summers maintains his level of performance, that alone is worthy of a 4 if you assume all other things will be basically okay.

Heuristicland

Turnover Margin

2006	Int +	Fumb +	Sacks +	Int -	Fumb -	Sacks -
0.08 (51st)	14	13	2.31 (41st)	13	13	1.92 (51st)

With a margin near zero and fairly average quarterback pressure, Purdue was unaffected by turnover luck. Painter's a year more experienced, but quarterback pressure will likely be harder to come by; expect a repeat in 2008.

Position Switch Starters

Anthony Heygood might move inside if Kevin Green can't handle it, and center is being contested by a defensive lineman. Nothing too serious; a couple warning flags.

Schedule Notes

Purdue is fortunate to miss the ground-and-pound offenses of Illinois and Wisconsin and will probably be a game better in the Big Ten for it.

Notre Dame 2008 figures to be considerably better than Notre Dame 2007; I don't know if anyone knows what to expect from Oregon minus Dixon, Stewart, and the host of explosive offensive players that are burned into Michigan fan retinas... but I expect they'll be considerably more talented than Purdue.

An Embarrassing Prediction, No Doubt

Best Case

The defense remains moderately stiff, with a pair of senior defensive tackles backed by a suprisingly good linebacking corps and a solid secondary. Pass rush remains hard to find, keeping Purdue at a level below "great" but the unit is reminscent of the hard-nosed units earlier this decade.

Painter, meanwhile, makes a great leap forward, finding all manner of mediocre receivers to throw to, and the offense is slightly better than it was last year. It still won't be enough against the three or four beastly defenses they'll come across, and with Notre Dame on the upswing(?) and Oregon making an unwelcome appearance, 8-4 seems to be about the ceiling.

Worst Case

Purdue's offense isn't going to implode as long as the line returns to full health; it could be sluggish, though, if the receiving corps fails to find a secondary option behind Orton. Meanwhile, if the outside linebackers and the defensive ends fail to find a player or two the run defense could revert to the horror show it was a couple years ago; this is an especially bad time to be stiff up the middle but shaky on the edges.

5-7 is a possibility; Purdue doesn't figure to be much better than they were last year and 2-2 OOC is suddenly likely.

Final Verdict

I'm done predicting offensive explosions from West Lafeyette and don't much believe in Curtis Painter, whose numbers last year were a mirage built on sheer repetition and wretched opponents. The massive attrition in the wide receiver corps should see Greg Orton fight double teams all year; chances are one guy will step up to be a decent secondary target.

However, Purdue had a couple guys last year that could take safe passes and turn them into big gains. While discussing the departed Dustin Keller, Boiler offensive coordinator Ed Zaunbrecher acknowleges this may not be the case in 2008:

Dustin was a guy that made a lot of plays after the catch. We'll have to see if anybody else can do things. You don't get too many guys with that type of physical ability at that position. That means we might have to complete a couple extra passes to move down the field, but we can still move it down the field.

I don't see where the extra YPA is going to come from even if Painter's often questionable accuracy improves.

Purude's offense should be slightly better than it was last year, capable of running up big numbers against befuddled MAC teams and Minnesota but just short of utterly ineffective against defenses with real bite.

Defensively, the Purdue secondary looks to be in its best shape in a long time. There are 3-5 veterans who greatly contributed to Purdue's considerable leap forward in pass defense. The front seven, however, looks to replace four starters and has only a few plausible players to fill in the gaps. Werner looks like a good bet; the defensive ends and Green not so much. Pressure will be hard to come by and performance should dip.

The following schedule guess comes with the extreme caveat that other than Michigan and Purdue I haven't taken a hard look at anyone on it:

OOC
9/1	Northern Colorado	Functional DNP
9/8	Oregon	Probable loss
9/15	Central Michigan	Probable win
11/10	@ Notre Dame	Tossup
Conference
9/22	Penn State	Probable loss
9/29	@ Ohio State	Auto-loss
10/6	@ Northwestern	Tossup
10/13	Minnesota	Probable win
10/20	Michigan	Probable loss
10/27	@ MSU	Tossup
11/3	@ Iowa	Probable win
11/17	Indiana	Probable win
Absent:	Wisconsin, Illinois

Looks like 4-4 in the Big Ten and 3-1 outside of it: 7-5 it is for Tiller's final season. I'm rooting for a CMU rematch in the Motor City Bowl.

Here's a bonus prediction: Painter, Orton, both RBs, both DTs, Heygood, and some other guys are gone after this year and all but the fifth-year seniors will be members of the Purdue Recruiting Cliff; Danny Hope's opening year is likely to be unpleasant.