Al Golden going to Happy Valley after all?

Well according to NBC Philadelphia (Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia) last night, they're reporting that Al Golden is back in play for the Penn State job. 

Here's my take on the AllCanes.com blog post about this today. 

Its true that each time another job from a power 6 conference comes up, Al has turned them down. However, that's not the case with Penn State, his alma mater, and a school where he was a star TE back from 1987-1991 and a team captain. 

As I said a few days ago, when this first came up, Golden's name was near the top of the list, and at that point, no one in the Hecht was talking, they went into bunker mode over there. Freet, Yandle, James weren't talking because they were in Al's inner circle. 

The statement on Sunday saying that he was staying. I've had a few days to read it, and I believe it was a forced statement by those in the Ashe Building (I suspect that order came from Donna herself), that Al was forced to give just to wield off the media and the fanbase for a little while, maybe to give PSU more time to do their due diligence, before coming back to Al to offer him the job and maybe accept. 

As for the interview with Rose on Monday, Al went on Shutdown mode. He was not going to talk about the Penn State job and then went to defend D'Onofrio and saying in his final presser later that day that there would be no changes. Simple fact, he wants to prove people wrong and do this his way. 

Now, In regards to this comment that Bello and/or The Beast posted on AllCanes, "Regarding this currently-rocky relationship between Miami and Golden—a couple somewhat on the outs—things can always take a turn for the better, barring there’s growth, change, unity and an ability to both forgive and forget."  I'll tell you this now, that paragraph tells me that if there's no trip to Charlotte next year, then, Blake is going to put his foot down on this and either force Al to make changes on the staff, or can him totally if he refuses to make any changes after next year. Golden wants to do it his way. OK, fine, but, I'm sure Blake and the higher-ups in the Ashe Building will give him this edict, if he stays, "get to Charlotte next year, or you're gone. We appreciate you staying through the dark days of the NCAA, but now that's that gone, the clock is ticking." With our biggest rival up North in Tallahassee having the Crystal Football, the pressure to get back to a Major Bowl/CFB Playoff went up 1000 fold. That clock is ticking even faster now. If we're not in Charlotte next year, it's not going to end well inside the Hecht. 

As I said a while ago, the CANES are at a crossroads and so is Al here, read Hyde's piece in Sun-Sentinel and you'll see how big this decision is for Golden going forward. What will Al do? What identity will we have on D especially? Hopefully, those questions get answered in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead. 

My take on Golden's comments to Joe Rose on QAM this morning

Here's my take on Golden's interview this morning: 

On PSU, though he declined to discuss Penn State’s reported interest in him or whether he interviewed, repeatedly saying he and the program are “moving forward.” PSU sources, as I documented yesterday, say that this was a family decision. When he was asked if he was close to taking the job, he said he hasn’t in the past discussed similar situations., though very well placed sources say otherwise. I take Al at his word, when he made the statement he made yesterday, when he said that he’s not a candidate for any other position. Here's something that shed light on where he was last week, he said he was in the office inside the Hecht Center working on ways to get us better for the 2014 season. 

Asked if he was interested in the job, he repeated the answer above. Again, sources close to the situation say otherwise. If you look at PSU's boards last night and today, they are not happy they whiffed on Golden. They went all-in and came up snake eyes. 

Now, on the matter of D, when read Al's comments, it seems to me D is going to survive all this and in that scenario, Al's time is shorter and the patience will be very thin. 

Here's his comments to Rose, verbatim: 

“I appreciate you asking the question. There’s no question, from the last game – I worked on it Monday and Tuesday of last week, and I worked on it again Thursday and Friday. I looked at everything, Joe. If you want me to really talk about it, we can talk about it. Do we have time to talk about this?”

Rose: “Oh no, we’ve got plenty of time for you, Coach. You go ahead.”

Al: “OK. What I don’t want to do is give you a half-ass answer and then it gets chopped up. I think the biggest thing is, we’re not coming from a place of 11 or 13 wins. We’re coming from, as you know, what amounted to be a train wreck two years ago, and we’re on an upward trend. So we won nine games. 

My take: That's fine, but losing to Louisville in Orlando, the way we did is unacceptable and inexcusable. 

He continues on the matter of change: “People think change is the answer. I want to get to the same place everybody else wants to get. I believe that continuity, the progress that we’re making, is really important. The recruiting that we’re making. All of that is on an upward trend. Recruiting, all of those things are on an upward trend.

Translation: We're staying status quo on that. To me, that's a big issue, in a year where we had to make changes and it seems, we're not going to make any. That being the case, the clock is ticking on Al to get to Charlotte next year. 

“If we look at the defense, for instance, again, we’re not where we want to be. But what are the trends? Those are the trends that I look at every day. We moved up 17 spots in terms of points per game, we moved up 36 spots nationally in terms of giving up rushing defense. We moved up 52 spots in interceptions. We moved up 25 spots nationally in forced fumbles. We moved up 40 spots in takeaways. We moved up 74 spots in sacks. We moved up 52 spots in red-zone defense. We moved up 36 spots in red zone TDs. We moved up 21 spots in yards per rush, and again, it’s still not where it needs to be, we’ve got to get that under 4 [yards per carry]. We moved up 17 spots in yards per play. Our mental errors were down. Our tackling percentage was up.” 

Al continues: “I want to make sure when I communicate, if everybody doesn’t hear the whole philosophy or whole approach that I’m making, then it’s easy to take a little, a piece out. We’re not where we want to be. On defense we have to be better in tackles for loss. We’re not very good there, Joe. We gave up too many plays of 20 yards or more. Many of them, as I looked at it, were attributable to missed tackles. We’ve got to do a better job of that. Our third-down percentage, on both sides of the ball, is really at the end of the day what’s hurting our defense. Our third-down differential, we’re not converting enough on offense and giving up too many up on defense.” 

My take: He's right when he says we're not where we want to be here on that. Yes, we've improved statistically, the issue to me is tackling. What's not said is missed tackles, poor angles, etc. When you hear recruits like Bethel call out the defensive staff for the scheme, you know changes have to be made there. With D likely back, the D cannot regress next year, because if it does, the calls for D's ouster will get louder and louder, and there will start being calls for Al's head as well.  His top priority this off-season on D: STOP THE RUN! His goal to under 4.0 ypc allowed. The pass rush was better, but I need to see more of a presence there. 

On the offensive side, Al said the biggest issue was lack of 3rd down conversions and he wants more balance there. He wants the running game to average 200 ypg and I think we can do that with the backs we have coming in and those that are back in '14. 

On the matter of personnel and numbers, he mentions 10 players playing over 400 snaps, some as high as 1,000. in fact, here's what he told Rose: 

 “All of those things, for me, are positive trends. We definitely need to fix some things, there’s no question about it. The first thing to do is look at our personnel and what we need to do better. Everything for me, right now, as I look at it, is positive.” 

My take: Yes, they are positive, and yes we have to get those fixed. He said he was going to look at the personnel. I would move Chick to the inside with Pierre and have McCord and AQM on the outside. The main thing here is the scheme, we have to be more aggressive with it. 

Here the interview for yourselves in its entirety and you be the judge: Al's interview with Joe Rose on WQAM 1/6/14

Al Golden will remain at UM

Al Golden has announced this afternoon that he will be staying at UM. You knew this wasn't going past tomorrow with this. I'll be interested to hear his presser at 12:30 tomorrow and Rose's interview with him in the morning on WQAM.

What happened at the 11th hour that Golden decided to stay?
One clue comes from one of the PSU insiders on their Scout Board: According to someone very close to the spouse of Al's wife, Kelly, Her parents moved down to Florida this past year to be closer to her and to get away from the cold weather, as you can see the last few days, it makes perfect sense. There was serious interest from Al in the Penn State job, however, with the family not wanting to back to the cold of the Northeast, that was a major stumbling block that PSU could not overcome in the end. This same person with knowledge of this that live in Lock Haven, PA and that are close the Hanna's said that any deal was never   close and\it was 100% a family decision, which was suspected was going to be the case. 


If it turns out to be Franklin, then I have to believe either Al pulled out at the 11th hour, or PSU brass told him that they were going another direction, and PSU probably let Al know that. This is a big blow to PSU who went all-in on Al and came up snake eyes. I believe another reason why Al likely said no was because of the sanctions PSU still has because of the horrors of Sandusky and the cover-up of JoePa in Happy Valley.

With Al now staying, he's going to have to make changes on the staff, and you can better believe, that's going to be something Blake James is going to tell him, namely canning D'Onofrio, ASAP. I still believe that as long as D'Onofrio is still running the defense, we will not get to the elite level, we will be a 9 to occasionally 10 win level team.

With Al now staying, its back to work. GO CANES!

Final Report Card and MVPs for 2013 Season

Here are the final grades for the 2013 season.

Offense: C-
Defense: D+
Special Teams: C

Now for my team MVPs

On offense, it's gotta be Duke Johnson. Before getting hurt in the FSU game, this guy was our big play threat and one that opponents feared. He was well on his way to a possible 1,500 yard season before getting hurt @FSU. Next year, a healthy Duke, could be a darkhorse Heisman contender.

On Defense, its tri-MVPs, Denzel Perryman. 106 tackles, 5 of them for a total loss of 15 yards. Shayon Green with 68 tackles, a team 10.5 of those for a total loss of 30 yards. Tracy Howard with a team leading 4 INTs.

Well, in the end, it was a rollercoaster ride of ups (7-0 start, #7 in the country), and downs (2-4 down the stretch). 

Report Card vs Louisville (Russell Athletic Bowl - Orlando)

When the matchup first came out, we knew going in that this was a very good Louisville Team we would be facing in the Citrus Bowl. Defensively, this was a Top 10 Defense in the country we were going to be facing here. They won't beat themselves. I thought one of the keys going in was to try and force some mistakes

For all the storylines going in: Teddy vs UM. The QB we have in Morris vs the one we could have had if Golden had not told him to take a hike when he told he wasn't being promised the starting job like Randy did. We could have had Teddy, Eli, and a couple of others we let get away to Louisville.

What I saw last night was nothing like the Miami Hurricanes I used to know. What I saw in Louisville was the CANES of yesteryear when we would dominate every opponent and beat every opponent down.

The performance Teddy had last night was a microcosm of how this Defense has been a failure on Mark D'Onofrio's watch and why many people believe that Teddy will be possibly the #1 pick in May's NFL Draft. He went 35-45 447 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs. He surgically picked apart our secondary. If there was a bright spot with the D, its the fact that we held their running game to 107 yards total. The bad news was that we once again allowed over 500 yards total offense (551 to be exact). They scored on 8 of their 11 possessions. They were 8-14 on 3rd Downs, including 6-8 in the 2nd half (75%).

As for Louisville's D, they are the real deal. They swarmed, they pressured Stephen all night, they sacked him 4 times for a total loss of 39 yards. He did go 12-27 160 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs. We went three and out 5 times. Our offense was 0-for-11 on 3rd Downs,

I was very disappointed in the Offensive Line's lack of protection for Stephen. They looked lost, confused, and not knowing who to block at times. It was like a Chinese Fire Drill. Utterly disappointed in the O-Line, and that's on Kehoe, whom I've been one of his biggest supporters, but not last night.

Now to the Report Card:
Offense - F (174 yards total offense the whole night, and only 14 yards rushing)
Defense - F (554 yards total offense allowed, could not get stops on 3rd Downs, allowed Teddy to pick it apart all night).
Special Teams - D (Really, one of the few bright spots from Last night, our first points of the game was on Patty O's Punt downed at the 1, which leads to Deon's safety a few plays later. We only had their punter punt just once the whole night).

If you listen to Golden after the game, you can tell how disappointed he was on last night's performance. Listen to Golden's answer at the 6:14 mark. Here's what I take from it, there are going to be changes made in the off-season, make no mistake about it. Also, listen to his answer at the 10:50 mark on that.


He also mentioned there is no timetable for us to be back as a National Power. That to me is a little disturbing. As I said the other night, the #CANES are at a crossroads. Which way do we go from here? That's going to be one of the questions that MUST get answered between now and Spring Practice in March.

Win or Lose, I still stand behind the U.

CANE Bowl Opponent: Louisville

Its official, we will be facing the Louisville Cardinals in the Russell Athletic Bowl in Orlando on December 28th.

Here's a comparison of each opponent by the numbers: 

CANES Total O vs Louisville Total D

446.8 (39th) vs. 257.9 (2nd)

Louisville Total O vs CANES Total D

453.1 ypg (34th) vs. 415.8 (76th)

CANES Scoring O vs Louisville Scoring D

35.9 ppg (24th) vs 12.4 ppg (3rd)

Louisville Scoring O vs CANES Scoring D

35.1 ppg (29th) vs 26 ppg (58th)

CANES Rushing O vs Louisville Rushing D

172.5 ypg (63rd) vs. 86.3 ypg allowed (2nd)

Louisville Rushing O vs CANES Rushing D

150.2 ypg (80th) vs. 182.3 ypg allowed (81st)

CANES Pass O vs Louisville Pass D

274.3 ypg (29th) vs. 171.7 ypg allowed (8th)

Louisville Pass O vs CANES Pass D

302.9 ypg (18th) vs 233.4 ypg allowed (71st)

CANES 3rd Downs vs Louisville 3rd Down D

56-148 [38%](T-85th) vs. 46-161 [29%] (2nd)

Louisville 3rd Downs vs CANES 3rd Down D

90-161 [56%] (2nd) vs 75-184 [41%](75th)

CANES Pass Efficiency vs Louisville Pass Efficiency D

152.67 (20th) vs. 99.55 (5th)

Louisville Pass Efficiency vs CANES Pass Efficiency D

170.64 (4th) vs. 119.19 (34th)

CANES Sacks vs Louisville Sacks Allowed

28-173 [2.33 pg](T-39th) vs. 25-184 [2.08 pg allowed](T-67th)

Louisville Sacks vs CANES Sacks Allowed

39-271 [3.25 pg] (T-1st) vs 13-108 [1.08 pg allowed](T-14th)

CANES RZ O vs Louisville RZ D

43-52 [83%](T-59th) vs. 25-35 [71%](8th)

Louisville RZ O vs CANE RZ D

47-53 [89%](23rd) vs 20-37 [82%](T-51st)

CANES TFL vs Louisville TFL Allowed

59-243 [4.9 pg](109th) vs 70-287 [5.83 pg allowed](T-57th)

Louisville TFL vs CANES TFL Allowed

94-410 [7.8 pg](9th) vs. 57-236 [4.75 pg allowed](T-25th)

CANES KR vs Louisville KR D

51-1282 1 TD [25.14 ypr](8th) vs 59-1317 [22.32 ypr allowed](88th)

Louisville KR vs CANES KR D

26-603 1 TD [23.19 ypr](28th) vs 40-800 [20 ypr allowed](38th)

CANES PR vs Louisville PR D

27-305 1 TD [11.3 ypr](T-29th) vs. 13-15 [1.15 ypr allowed](2nd)

Louisville PR vs CANES PR D

27-206 1 TD [7.63 ypr](70th) vs. 16-196 [12.25 ypr allowed)(108th)

Net Punting

CANES 38.92 NET (24th)

Louisville 37.25 NET (52nd)

Turnovers Lost vs Turnovers Gained

CANES vs Louisville

21 TO's Lost (14 INTs, 7 Fumbles Lost)(T-68th) vs. 26 TO's Gained (16 Picks, 10 Fumbles Rec.)(T-19th)

Louisville vs CANES

10 TO's lost (4 INTs {2nd Fewest}, 6 Fumbles Lost)(2nd) vs. 27 TO's Gained (18 Picks, 9 Fumbles Rec.)(T-13th)

Turnover Margin

Louisville +16 {1.3 avg} (2nd)
CANES +6 {.5 avg} (T-29th)

1st Down O vs 1st Down D

CANES vs Louisville

233 yards total (T-88th) vs 169 yards allowed (Leads Nation)

Louisville vs CANES

276 yards total (40th) vs 259 yards allowed (T-77th)

Completion %

Louisville 276-394 (70%)(3rd)

CANES 214-357 (60%)(57th)

Time of Possession

Louisville {33:00 pg}(6th)
CANES {26:00 pg}(118th)

Bottom Line, when you break it down. This is a very very good Louisville Team we will be facing in the Citrus Bowl on December 28th. Defensively, this is a Top 10 Defense in the country we're going to be facing here. They won't beat themselves, so if we force some mistakes and looking at the numbers, they don't make many, we'd better take advantage because this is a team in Louisville that forces a lot of turnovers.

For all the storylines going in: Teddy vs UM. The QB we have in Morris vs the one we could have had if Golden had not told him to take a hike when he told he wasn't being promised the starting job like Randy did. We could have had Teddy, Eli, and a couple of others we let get away to Louisville.

Anyway, it's going to be a nice matchup here and we'll see what happens. 

Report Card and Game Balls @Pittsburgh

Here's my report card and Game Balls to give out for yesterday's regular season finale win @Pittsburgh

Special Teams wise, we force a turnover on the opening kickoff, when Patty forces a fumble and we score 3 plays later. Of our 4 penalties yesterday, just one on this unit, (the block in the back on Walter in the 1st quarter on a Kick Return by Jamal). Matty had a solid game yesterday with 2 FGs (one from 29 in the 1st, and the other from 39 in the 4th). Another solid return game with 92 yards of total return, like last game, all on KR's. What a game from Patty overall. it was rock solid with 3 of his 4 punts being inside the 20 and zero touch-backs. On Kickoffs, he was good there. The Kick Return Defense in my opinion, regressed yesterday, allowing 176 yards of returns (all on KR's). Garrett Kidd had a very good game, recovering a fumble and making a tackle. We started drives on Average from our own 30 and Pitt started drives from their own 25, which is still ok, but we could still do better pushing the average back a little more.   Grade: B

Offensively, we were outstanding. we had 476 yards of total offense. 296 yards passing 180 yards rushing. The big games here on the ground came from Stacy and Gus the Bus with 73 and 64 yards respectively. We had contributions from Dallas and Eduardo. We had a big and historic game out of Hurns here having 173 yards on 9 catches and finished the regular season with 1,183 yards, the first since Andre Johnson in 2002 to go over the 1,000 yard mark for receiving in a season. Stacy had a big game as well with 73 yards receiving on 3 catches, and 2 TDs. Very solid game from Stephen here going 17-28 296 yards, 3 TD, but the big numbers are 0 INT and wasn't sacked at all. However, that said, we still need to be better and clean up those silly mistakes. Of the 4 penalties yesterday, 3 were on the offense (Two false starts (one on Ereck, and the other on Stacy), and the holding call on Danny). What a job by the OL, not allowing a sack in this game and giving Morris time in the pocket to throw and opening holes in the running game. Bottom line, ok, but this type of performance won't cut it in a bowl game vs a very good opponent, and especially not going 4-11 (36%) on 3rd Down conversions. Need to do a better job on 3rd down conversions. Grade: B+

Defensively, we forced a turnover (Pick). The pick was by Artie. However, we did allow 501 yards of total offense to a so-so Pitt team, and we allowed another 100 yard rushing game from an individual standpoint (Bennett with 141 yards on 21 carries and 1 TD). In the 1st half, we allowed 104 yards rushing, and 109 passing. At times we made Tom Savage look like a Heisman candidate. In the 2nd half, we allowed 116 yards rushing, and 174 yards passing (147 yards alone in the 4th Quarter). It did step up and make the plays that had to be made. I seem like a broken record here, but again, lack of a pass rush reared its ugly head as we only had 1 sack, their receivers had nice games as a team (Boyd had 98 yards on 9 receptions, and a TD). Pitt on 3rd downs were 6-14 (43%). We did better on 3rd down Defense, but we can do better there. However, we forced Pitt into 3 three and outs. The good part here was that of the 4 penalties we had in this game, none were on the D. We still allowed a little too many X-Plays yesterday (namely the 45 yarder by Bennett on Pitt's first TD). Again, against a good team that we'll face in a bowl game (likely either Louisville in Orlando, or an SEC team in Atlanta [Texas A & M or LSU], those types of errors come back to bite you. Still a work in progress here. Grade: C-

Now, to Game Balls. This week, I'm going to give out four game balls. 

1. Garrett Kidd - 2 tackles, 1 fumble recovery
2. Pat O'Donnell - 4 punts, 3 inside the 20, no touchbacks. 1 FF.  
3. Allen Hurns - 9 receptions, 173 yards (1,000 yard season, just the 4th in CANES history to do that)
4. Stacy Coley - 171 all-purpose yards, 3 TDs (73 rushing, 73 receiving, 25 KR yards).
5. Stephen Morris - 17-28 296 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, sacked 0 times. 

Overall, we got the big lead, but we again got sloppy. In the end, we again kept grinding and got it done. That being said, again there were still some ME's (Mental Errors), that still need to be fixed, namely the penalties, which are still issues that have to be fixed. We don't know when our next game is. That will depend on what happens today (Saturday 11/30) in both Chapel Hill and Charlottesville. Regardless, it'll be nice to have the 15 extra practices this year and not have our season end too soon. We'll see what happens and GO CANES!