The entire college football world loudly and repeatedly proclaimed its verdict of Penn State’s 4th down call last Saturday night: guilty, by way of insanity. Of course they’re right, because the play failed to gain 5 yards. Such is the brutal calculus of football. If it works, it’s smart. If it doesn’t work, then it’s stupid. It didn’t, so it was dumb, case closed.
But we’re not very bright ourselves, here at Film Room. Plus we appreciate the 6th amendment of the US Constitution. So we’re firing up the projector.
A common critique post game was that the called run - specifically, runs with RB Miles Sanders - “hadn’t worked all evening”.