It’s hard for me to say this because I was such a firm advocate for Rob Bolden to get the starting job at the start of the year but after seeing him on the field, let’s be honest; it’s going to take a miracle for Penn State to beat Houston in the TicketCity Bowl if Bolden is under center.
Matt McGloin is running out of time to get cleared to play and it looks like Bolden is going to have to go head-to-head with Case Keenum. I bet Curtis Drake is really second-guessing that right hook now.
The Cougars offense is good…it’s damn good. But they play against Conference USA defenses so are they really that good? Oh yea. But Houston doesn’t exactly have a great defense so putting up points is a possibility…with someone who doesn’t have Tim Tebow numbers in the pocket.
Houston started the year 12-0 before losing to Southern Mississippi in the conference championship, and Keenum helped the Cougars become the highest-scoring team in the nation, averaging more than 50 points a game on his way to breaking the NCAA record for passing yards, touchdowns and completions.
I like to think that Penn State’s defense is a tad better than what Keenum is used to; the Nittany Lions have a top-10 defense and they only give up 15.7 points per game. Seeing as how Keenum’s 50 total touchdowns this year is 24 more than Penn State’s entire offense put up, it’s hard to imagine that Keenum’s not going to put up points even against Penn State’s shutdown defense.
He’s got three receiving threats that can kill you at any level on the field; deep threat Patrick Edwards has 79 catches for 1,524 yards and 18 touchdowns; possession man Tyron Carrier has 87 catches for 914 yards and five scores; and Justin Johnson can do a little bit of everything, as his 75 catches for 1,081 yards and 11 touchdowns will tell you. That should keep Chaz Powell, D’Anton Lynn, Drew Astorino and Nick Suckay more than busy.
The only thing that tells us is what we already knew: Penn State is going to have to score to win this one.
And that’s going to be hard to accomplish is Bolden gets to play an entire game for the first time since he lost his starting duties to McGloin for the first time two seasons ago.
Bolden was named the “starter” at the beginning of the year even though he and McGloin split time through the first seven games, and then twice more after that. Bolden completed a total of 46 passes on the year (Keenum completed 41 in the conference title game alone) for a Tebow-ish 42.2 completion percentage.
He threw for 548 yards in his nine appearances and tossed just one touchdown to go along with four picks and six sacks. Numbers aside, just watching Bolden play was bad enough. Whether he was throwing an out, a fly or a fade, Bolden only had one speed on his passes – Brett-Favre fast. He had absolutely no touch at all, and his accuracy wasn’t far behind. It was rare to see Bolden actually hit a receiver in stride.
One game that sticks out is the Illinois slopfest, when Bolden attempted four passes and didn’t come close on any of them. On two of them he waited until the defense was in his face before he even tried to throw the ball away and he threw it off helmets. Oh, and he also ran into a sack, fumbled, and ran for -9 yards.
Houston’s pass defense may give up 214.2 yards per game but even if you double Bolden’s numbers, he’d still only be throwing for 122 yards per game…AND .22 TOUCHDOWNS! Factor in that Houston linebackers Sammy Brown and Marcus McGraw have 12.5 sacks and 131 tackles respectively and Bolden could end up looking like McGloin did last year in the Outback Bowl.
That’s not to say that if McGloin, or even Paul Jones for that matter, were to play, the Nittany Lions would win, but they would have a better chance of competing. He has passed for more than 1,500 yards (impressive, I know) the past two years and has thrown more touchdowns than picks both times.
And if you think the Nittany Lions can win if Bolden can just manage the game while Silas Redd goes crazy on the 78th ranked run defense, think again. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Redd go for more than 130 yards like he was doing when he was healthy but even with Curtis Dukes’ and Stephfon Green’s change of pace, with no passing threat the run game will eventually be figured out.
Against any team that’s not Indiana State, the most touchdowns the Lions have scored on the ground in a game this year is two. There’s not a chance in hell that two touchdowns is going to be enough to beat Keenum, who is pretty much playing a home game in Dallas. Even if Jack Crawford (7.5 sacks), Jordan Hill (8 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks), Gerald Hodges (97 tackles, 10 for loss) and Devon Still (if he even plays because of turf toe) are on Keenum’s ass all day long, it’s hard to think the Lions are going to keep the Cougars out of the end zone.
Who knows, maybe without McGloin there to potentially steal his starting job, Bolden will return to his freshman ways when he completed 107 passes in seven games for 1,307 yards and six total touchdowns before a concussion ruined him. Maybe.
But right now, Bolden’s a long way from playing like that, and that means the Lions are a long way from beating the Cougars.
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