The Case for Juan Castillo

As nothing but meaningless football emerges from today's game, I began to realize how the defense is emerging, and impressing myself more and more every day.

Should we blame Juan Castillo for the early season defensive woes?  While there are examples of where the defense was in bad position, you can't ignore the strategy of sports as a whole.  Sometimes your strategy fails, even if you thought it was once perfect.  It is just the nature of a game.

You also can not ignore the successes of the defense over the last couple weeks.  On the season going into week 16, Eagles are 10th in the league in yards given up per game.  While a stat like this is certainly not comparable with some of the elite defense like Pittsburgh or San Fran, it's above average as a league.

You also can not ignore the countless red-zone turnovers, and some of the time of possession stats from certain games, where the defense spent nearly 3 quarters of football on the field.

It also takes simple observance to see just how elite this defense has been the last couple of weeks.  The highly under-skilled LB's have a role, and a lot of the early season woes have been abolished.

So why is this?  Is it because Castillo has improved as a coordinator?  Is it because of the opponents?  Have players finally started stepping up?  Did we finally learn how to tackle? Or make a big play?

Here's my take;

The lockout has an immeasurable effect on any team.  Not being able to go to work with your teammates, or even practice the game of football, is something worth mentioning.  When you also incorporate all of the changes this defense has had over the last 7 months, you must start analyzing.

A new coach.  A new Defense.  2 New Defensive Linemen starting.  New group of Linebackers. 2 new CB's. Also add the re-amped substitutes and players who were drafted.

That is a lot of changes to occur for any team, no matter what players are involved.  Even an all star team on defense looks pretty bad, since the new formations / coaching / teammates are all different that what you are used to doing every day.

On July 25th, 2011, the NFL lockout ended.
On July 29th, Eagles Traded Kevin Kolb for Domonique Rodgers-Cromartie.  Eagles also signed CB Nnamdi Asomugah.
On July 30th, Eagles signed DT Cullen Jenkins and LB Akeem Jordan
On August 11th, Eagles played their first pre-season game
On September 11th, Eagles played their first regular season game.

The Eagles had a solid 12 days between the signing of their last defensive starter to the first game, and a whole 43 days to prepare their defense.  It is border-line insanity to expect so much out of any player, regardless of a name, with 43 days to prepare under a new coach, new strategy, and all these new teammates.

Did the Eagles "turn it around" on defense between Week 1 and Week 15, or did they finally get enough practice together to gel as a defense and play great.

Is there chemistry in sports?  Is it a chemistry that's evolving for this Eagles defense.  Can you ignore all of the new players on this defense?

The opinion is yours, but I would give Castillo another year.  Playcalling on offense has been a bigger issue in my eyes.

Penn State loses in many ways with their Bowl Game

Despite all the speculation and questioning on if Penn State would be invited to a bowl game, they received and accepted an invite to the "Ticket City" Bowl, on January 2nd.  This would typically be a New Year's Day bowl, but nothing can compete with the NFL that will occupy our January 1st.

When you initially look at 9-3 Penn State matching up against 12-1 Houston, you think this could turn out to be a great game.  But looking deeper, this is two teams that are much better than their bowl designates...which leads to quite a few downfalls.

The "Ticket City Bowl" is designated as the 7th picked team out of the Big Ten.  As you probably know from the past, there are 3 bowls designated as "Big Ten vs SEC."  These bowls will be played by Mich St., Ohio St., and Nebraska.  There is also the "Insight" bowl that will feature Iowa vs Oklahoma, and the "Meinike" bowl which features Texas A&M v. Northwestern.

Penn State landed below these teams in bowl selection, despite their record.  They fell to the "Ticket City" bowl, which features a team from the C-USA, which this year will be Houston.  Houston is led by QB Case Keenum who led the nation in most passing stats this season.  They were well known for their undefeated streak, and coming up just a game shy of a perfect season...but there is a reason they are ranked #17.

However intimidating the 12-1 record, they are 0-1 against ranked teams (Southern Miss.) and won very close games to schools like UCLA, Louisiana Tech, and UTEP.  It should be a great game seeing one of the better past defense match up against Keenum...but then things start going sour.

The game itself is located at the Cotton Bowl.  For those of you wondering, (according to Mapquest) it is a 1,392 mile drive from Beaver Stadium to the Cotton Bowl.  From the University of Houston, it's less than a 250 mile drive.  Essentially, a home game for Houston, where tickets are for sale for around 70$ already.

You also have to look at the timing.  While you think it's good to have a "New Years" bowl, I beg to differ.

First off, the game will be broadcasted on ESPNU, a station that doesn't exist on basic cable.

And if you start flicking channels during a TV timeout in the Penn State game on ESPNU at Noon ET, here's what else you will find on TV:

the NHL Winter Classic, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on NBC, at 1pm
No. 20 Nebraska vs No. 9 South Carolina in the Capital One BCS bowl, on ESPN, at 1pm
No 17 Michigan State vs No. 16 Georgia on ABC in the Outback Bowl, on ABC, at 1pm
Ohio State vs. Florida in the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl, on ESPN2, at 1pm.

So it's fairly safe to say, the world will not be watching.  In fact, enough people wont be watching that ESPN wont even put it on ESPN2.

So....Penn State really didn't win out too well here.  It will be a good game...but I'll be enjoying the Winter Classic.