That was the title of the article, I kept reading and reading, and I didn't see it, Then there it was, Oregon has been penalized 68 times, for 543 yards, Penn State, 59 yards, 532 yards. 

 

 That's it, the fatal flaw that could win the game for Penn State.

 

 

 

 

 

RipdCrowBait.

If that's all they got, Oregon has two HUGE advantages...

 

Dan Lanning, and the DUCK!!!

 

Just the discrepancy in number of penalties with similar yards tells you something. Oregon has fewer yards per penalty than PSU, implying perhaps fewer big PI and personal foul calls opposed to false starts and holding.

 

Those latter calls are mainly offensive and can be drive killers. Paradoxically they were more common early in the year and at Autzen rather than on the road. I'm sure that O-line discipline has been rigorously stressed in practice this week.

 

To call this a 'fatal flaw' is pretty short sighted.

I went through the stats too, and didn't find any blaring stat that showed how PSU was going to have an advantage. I guess I didn't look hard enough!

Looking at Oregon's penalties throughout the year it tends to be either really bad games where the refs are throwing flags for everything or very quiet games and Oregon doesn't get flagged much at all. 

 

Last week I can't recall any major flags at all for the Ducks. 

 

Against Maryland the flags were flying fast and free.

 

So it kinda depends on the officiating crew to be honest. 

Another little factoid on penalties was gleaned from Hythloday's film review this morning. PSU tends to be very aggressive on the snap count jump and gets called offsides more than any other B1G team, around twice a game.

 

That creates free play opportunities and if extrapolated over the 12 game regular season, is 23 penalties and 115 yds. Now maybe that flaw isn't 'fatal' but it's something that DL and WS can exploit.

THIS WEEK, It's fair to pick Nits. 💩