Episode Details

This week, Penn State football made some off-field additions to their coaching staff, with a former Nittany Lion legend headlining the group. This week, the all-time leading tackler in Penn State history, Dan Connor, joined the program as an off-field analyst. Former Temple running backs coach Gabe Infante and Manny Diaz assistant at Miami, Rick Lyster round out head coach James Franklin's latest acquisition of support staff this year. 

That's where host Thomas Frank Carr and Senior Editor for Blue White Illustrated, Nate Bauer start. They examine each hire, starting with Connor. The emotional tie to the university is real, and Bauer thinks that Connor is an excellent fit after beginning his coaching career in high school in this current role. So what will he, Infante, and Lyster be doing? T-Frank lays out some of the essential functions that Penn State needs from their analysts and illuminates how they can add value in multiple ways outside of just x's and o's. 

From there, they discuss Penn State's other job openings. The university posted a job for an analytics director this week, so T-Frank and Nate discuss the merits of the position and how valuable an in-house data scientist can be. 

That conversation morphs into one about scheme, talent, and football tactics. T-Frank looks at the Penn State offense through the prism of analytics and explains football reasons why simply following the numbers doesn't work and why only relying on football information can leave you blind. Did Mike Yurcich want to run a specific type of scheme last season? Is that a helpful plan? Did he use it as much as he has in the past? T-Frank takes you through his evaluation of the Penn State offense this season and what you can find when looking at the data and applying football logic. 

Next, he asks Nate the question, "What did you learn about football this year?" They discuss what lessons they picked up from their football viewing in 2021, and their answers might surprise you. 

Finally, they wrap up discussing Penn State basketball, which takes on Michigan Tuesday night at the Bryce Jordan Center. 

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