Buffalo lost 27-14 today to Penn State. You know that. Click through on the sidebar for the more traditional recap, and wait til tomorrow morning for John's closer look, and maybe another day for Conrad's blog tradition The Postgame Meal. This right here is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
The Good
The defense. It fell apart a bit late, but six months ago I would have been happy with the prospect of holding any 2014 bowl team to 27 points. They kept the game close into the fourth quarter, which if you'll remember, was Albany's strategy last week when the Great Danes knew they were outmatched.
Especially in the first half, you had to happy with the D, who only surrendered points after a big punt return and a Joe Licata interception. They got some help from the runoff rule at the end of the half, but kept Penn State off the board then. The line had no sacks, but was generally strong against the run.
The first TD drive. Adjustments out of halftime, a couple passing plays, a fourth down conversion. You had to like everything about this.
Anthone Taylor. Was he a world beater? Not really, but had the defense held one more series I think you see Taylor over a 100 against a bigger, stronger front seven.
Tyler Grassman's first punt. Magic.
The Bad
Must Reads
Must Reads
The Weather. When Licata's first pass missed Matt Weiser by three yards spinning over the wrong axis, you knew UB had just lost a big part of its offense. UB surrendered some yards on punt returns by avoiding the slick ball, but otherwise it seemed to affect both teams equally.
Knee Jerk UB Fans. Always some names we see here and on Twitter only when there's something negative to say. That's bad. We want to hear from you always. I'm sure you're nice people.
Beth Mowins. She gets a bad rap, but wasn't good today. I eagerly await the day when all games have an ESPN3 SkyCam feed and I can watch without commentary.
The Ugly
Probably more belongs in The Bad, but The Ugly was really ugly, and is summarized pretty succinctly.
Penalties. Yikes. I hardly need to go into detail, but Buffalo committed 10 penalties on offense in 30:26 with the ball. Only one came in the 9:06 that constituted UB's two touchdown drives. Over those two drives, Licata was 12-13 for 129 yards and two touchdowns and Taylor ran for 42 yards. That's what UB was able to do when not shooting themselves in the foot.
Third and long. Licata could only find two productive drives because UB was so often pushed into predictable situations, where Penn State's defensive line - easily the best unit on the team - was able to rush without consequence.
