Calling on Webster's

We live in a civilization that is completely dependent on communication. It's what we do every day, it's what we're doing right now. Much of the exponential increases in technology has been driven by the desire to make communicating easier and faster and it's worked. Still, when people communicate with each other, they work on the rather large assumption that the other person they are speaking with understands what the words they are using actually mean. One could even argue that without this mutual understanding, communicating does not exist.

Keeping this property of communication in mind, today we are going to try and define a word that I have thrown around when describing this year's Penn State offense - unstoppable. What does that really mean and how did we get to that conclusion?

First of all, let's look at this team compared to the other offenses in the country after five weeks of football. The Lions rank 8th in the nation in total offense and are in the top 15 in rushing, pass efficiency and scoring - but you knew all of that already. It's easy to see just by watching this team that it knows how to move the football. But what specifically makes this squad so potent and so difficult to stop?

The problem with so many other teams' attacks is that they are one-dimensional. That is to say that when they really need a play, they must either rush OR pass and the team on the other side can usually predict which one that is going to be. For instance, look at some of the teams ranked ahead of Penn State in rushing this season and take note of where they rank in passing.

Team	Rushing Rank	Passing Rank
Oklahoma St.	1	53
Navy	2	117
Nevada	3	67
Oregon	4	51
Georgia Tech	5	115
Air Force	6	119
La. Lafayette	7	86

Avg Rushing Rank: 4th
Average Passing Rank: 87th

These seven teams combine for an overall record of 20-10 and only one of them is below .500, but you'll notice that none of them is a serious national title contender. That's because unless they have a tremendous defense that can offset the imbalance on offense, they will eventually run into a team that can slow down their rushing attack and leave their struggling passing game holding the bag.

How about the teams that are in front of Penn State in total offense overall?

Team		Rushing Rank	Passing Rank
Tulsa		20	4
Missouri		31	2
Texas Tech		66	1
Oklahoma State		1	53
Houston		69	3
Oregon		4	51
Oklahoma		46	5
Nevada		3	7

Average Net Difference in Rushing Rank and Passing Rank: 47.5

Here are Penn State's ranks and a net difference: 8th in Rushing, 38th in Passing, Net Difference of 30.

As you can see by comparing the Nittany Lions to some of the other top-producing offenses, Penn State is one of the most balanced offensive units in the country, able to burn you equally on the ground or through the air. That makes it difficult for defenses to gameplan against them, and closer to unstoppable. But what good is having all this potential if you don't put it to good use? That brings us to the next point - playcalling. It's been in vogue, and for very good reason, to bash Jay Paterno for the last few seasons. The younger Paterno has continually underperformed in the task of developing quarterbacks and helping to call a balanced, inventive and effective gameplan. Not this year.

This may be premature, but Jay is doing a phenomenal job of running his Spread HD this season. Don't take my word for it, let's look at the evidence.

**For our intents and purposes, we will separate Penn State's offensive plays into two categories: Plays run when the point spread was 14 or less, and plays run when the point spread was greater than 14. This is to help offset any distortion that may occur from Penn State simply trying to run the clock out by handing off.

In Penn State's five games so far, it has scored on 39 of 63 drives, or 62% of the time it gets the football. In our exhaustive quest to find out why it has been so efficient, let's take a closer look at the playcalling that resulted in these touchdowns and field goals.

	OVERALL	1st DOWN	3rd DOWN	POINT SPREAD LESS/EQUAL 14
OPPONENT	RUN / PASS	RUN / PASS	RUN / PASS	RUN / PASS
vs. Coastal Carolina	43 / 26	25 / 11	6 / 11	9 / 10
vs. Oregon State	38 / 27	21 / 10	6 / 7	12 / 9
vs. Syracuse	42 / 40	19 / 16	5 / 12	13 / 11
vs. Temple	43 / 33	19 / 18	5 / 6	14 / 13
vs. Illinois	43 / 21	4 / 9	4 / 6	43 / 21
TOTALS	209 / 147	108 / 64	26 / 42	91 / 64

These numbers backup the above assertion that Penn State is one of the most balanced attacks in the nation. But they also show that Penn State and the Spread HD is a run-first offense, or at least has been in the first half of the season. If you look closely, you'll see that the closest game of the season, the Illinois game, showed the biggest disparity between run and pass all year. Penn State had a more than 2:1 run/pass ratio, despite the fact that Daryll Clark completed 70% of his passes and tossed two touchdowns when he was allowed to throw. Let's keep an eye on the run/pass ratio as Penn State starts to face tougher and tougher competition, to see if JayPa can maintain the integrity of playcalling he's begun the season with.

The final piece of the puzzle is how the offense translates these yards and this playcalling into points on the board. We've already seen that the team scores on 62% of its possessions, but how about in the red zone?

Deadly.

This team is as ruthless as a cold-blooded assassin that has you in his crosshairs. Get this. Penn State ranks 15th in the country in Red-Zone efficiency (a misleading stat) but is second only to Oregon in both trips to the Red Zone (29) and Red Zone scores (27). The real way to measure red zone efficiency would be to account for total points (lets not forget touchdowns are worth twice as much as field goals) and nobody is better than Penn State in that category, racking up 173 points in five games.

So there you have it, Penn State's offense is unstoppable. That is to say, it is a balanced attack that piles up yardage both on the ground and through the air through the employment of sensible, proportional play-calling, and scores more than 60% of the time including a deadly efficient red zone assault.

Now, let's go communicate to Purdue just how good this team is and pick up a win in our first Big Ten road game for only the third time since 1999.