The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State’s important 17-12 road win over Iowa

Penn State TE Pat Freiermuth can admit this now: It took him a while to fully appreciate the talents of true freshman running back Noah Cain.

It wasn’t Cain’s 206-pound frame that gave Freiermuth pause. Or his No. 98 overall national ranking as a recruit. It was just that it was difficult for teammates to gauge Cain’s talent since he’s a physical runner — and there’s not a lot of contact in practice.

“In spring ball, we didn’t really know what he could do because we didn’t really tackle,” Freiermuth said. “And, in the spring game, he kind of balled out and we’re like, ‘Oh, where’s this kid coming from?’

“And in camp we’re like, all right, we didn’t do much live. So we got to the Idaho game, and he balled out. And in the Pitt game, he balled out. He just continued to ball out throughout games.”

Count Saturday night’s 17-12 win against Iowa as Exhibit C in Cain’s ability to ball out. The rookie finished with a game-high 22 carries for a game-high 102 yards and a touchdown. He was the most consistent part of an inconsistent offense, averaging 4.6 yards per carry despite no run going over 12 yards.

Cain even single-handedly ended the game. With 2:31 left in the contest, and with Penn State nursing a five-point lead, James Franklin’s squad just needed to milk the clock. Cain carried five straight times for 17 yards — including converting a critical third-and-3 play — to prevent the Hawkeyes from another scoring opportunity.

“Very little indecision,” Franklin said, referring to Cain. “He sticks his foot in the ground, he gets downhill. He’s always falling forward.”

Added quarterback Sean Clifford: “He’s a hard-nosed runner. We needed him today.”

Cain did most of his damage in the second half, carrying 15 times for 67 yards. Franklin knew Penn State would use him as the main ball-carrier with 4 minutes left in the game, and Cain did not disappoint.

Cain out-carried the other three combined backs by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. So odds are the true freshman will be a force for the Nittany Lions moving forward.

“Noah is a great running back,” Freiermuth added. “He really hits the hole and breaks tackles, and he bounces off them. And he makes great reads.”

Good

Defense, defense, defense: The Nittany Lions allowed a single touchdown and a pair of field goals against the Hawkeyes. What else is there left to say?

Well, how about this: Penn State registered two turnovers (and got 10 points from them), Iowa averaged just 2.3 yards per rush, and the team racked up seven tackles for loss (five of which came from the line). The front-seven really set the tone Saturday night, and they put the game on the shoulders of Iowa quarterback Nate Stanley ... which was a really good idea.

When the Nittany Lions needed momentum, the defense was there to help. When PSU was nursing a 10-6 lead in the final quarter, DT Robert Windsor pressured Stanley — and safety Jaquan Brisker came away with the pick. Or, in the second period, when Iowa reached the PSU 25, the defense stood tall, picked up a TFL on second down and a QB hurry on third down to force a field-goal attempt — which Iowa missed.

James Franklin said last week this defense was playing at a championship level. That held true again Saturday night.

How about the offensive line? This was the hardest test Penn State’s offensive line faced this season, which is why we labeled it one of the key matchups entering this game. And it didn’t look good early: On the first drive, quarterback Sean Clifford held on to the ball too long and suffered back-to-back sacks.

But after that? For the final 57 minutes, the Nittany Lions’ line allowed a single sack. With redshirt freshman Rasheed Walker at left tackle and Will Fries on the right, this line stood up to the likes of future first-round DE AJ Epenesa and criminally underrated DE Chauncey Golston.

Give RB Noah Cain a lot of credit, too. But the line was also a big reason he was able to average 4.6 yards per carry and milk the clock at the end. “Noah played amazing,” wideout KJ Hamler added, “but I think it was that O-line. The big boys in the trenches, I think they did a tremendous job.”

Ball security/staying calm under pressure: Maybe we can fold this all under the umbrella of “intangibles” or the “little things.” Either way, Penn State shined here and made few mistakes.

While Iowa fumbled three times (one lost, two recovered) and threw an interception, the Penn State offense didn’t surrender a single turnover. QB Sean Clifford came close once, when one of Iowa’s defensive linemen sneaked up from behind and nearly stripped it, but he held on.

And when adversity reared its head — when the officiating got a little, uh, “rough” (more on that later) — Penn State was able to keep its head, remain poised and fight through it. Credit senior leaders like DT Robert Windsor and the coaching staff for the latter.

Windsor turned to his fellow “wild dogs” after the second TD was called back during the odd third-quarter series and told them it didn’t even matter if Penn State scored at all. They were going to continue doing their jobs. And they did. That’s, in part, why Penn State won.

KJ’s leaping TD: Wideout KJ Hamler told reporters earlier this month that he hates when his plays are compared to famous alum and Pro Bowl running back Saquon Barkley. But, when you make an incredibly athletic leap over some defenders, well, that’s usually the first thing that springs to mind.

In the second quarter, on the Nittany Lions’ longest play of the day (yes, seriously), Hamler completed a 22-yard receiving touchdown by taking off jumping from the 4-yard line. He landed on his neck in the end zone and was somehow OK. It was a play that will surely find a spot in his end-of-year highlights. And it gave Penn State the early lead in a low-scoring affair.

The redshirt sophomore finished with seven catches for 61 yards and a score in the game. QB Sean Clifford finished with 12 completions for 117 yards and a single TD.

“I basically took flight,” Hamler said after the game. “I wasn’t thinking at all. I was just trying to help out the team.”

Bad

Slow start on offense: The stats pretty much tell the story here. After the first two drives, Penn State had negative yardage. After the first quarter, PSU ran 11 plays for 10 yards.

The offense was completely shut down early on. Iowa bottled up the big play and, by halftime, QB Sean Clifford was 5-of-15 passing. Penn State’s start wasn’t unlike its end against Purdue. It just wasn’t good; it was downright “Bad.”

Against top-tier teams like Ohio State, that kind of start is going to be virtually impossible to overcome. Penn State needs to maintain its consistency and intensity for 60 minutes. So, although it did a lot right Saturday night, this is one department it needs to get better at. Pronto.

Lapses in the secondary: Iowa quarterback Nate Stanley has played in 22 career Big Ten games. Only twice did he throw for more yards than he did Saturday night against Penn State (286) — when he had 314 yards last season against Minnesota and 320 against Indiana.

Overall, the defense played solid. And maybe this even borders on nit-picking. But there were several lapses during this game when the secondary made mistakes that it needs to eliminate.

In the second quarter, for example, cornerback John Reid was called for holding — which wiped out a Jayson Oweh sack and led to back-to-back completions of 25 yards and 11 yards, respectively. On that same drive, Stanley also hit a 36-yard completion. (PSU was fortunate to allow just a field goal on that possession.) In the third quarter, Reid was again called for holding — but it was declined after Iowa completed an 18-yard pass on third-and-long anyway. And, in the final quarter, Iowa also scored on a 33-yard touchdown pass that should’ve been deflected.

In some cases, the defensive backs didn’t get their heads turned around quickly enough. In other cases, Iowa’s wideouts just made good plays. But this passing offense won’t be the most challenging Penn State faces this season — so it needs to get its house in complete order.

How the pregame T-shirts were handled: This was a positive thing that made negative headlines because of the way it was handled. All-around.

During warm-ups Saturday night, many Penn State players wore white T-shirts — from the State College bar Champs — that read, “Chains, Tattoos, Dreads, & WE ARE.” The shirts were a nice show of support for safety Jonathan Sutherland and for the team’s culture, after an out-of-touch 78-year-old alum made what many deemed “racist” remarks in a letter calling Sutherland’s hairstyle “disgusting” and “awful.”

That show of support was a positive. Let’s put that over in the “Good.” But what happened next? Not so “Good.” Penn State soon confiscated the T-shirts. Was it because they sported the Champs logo? Well, Penn State declined to answer when asked. But it did release a statement, saying it asked students to remove the shirts “out of an abundance of caution for NCAA compliance.”

Apparently, the student-athletes didn’t let Penn State know about the move beforehand, which would’ve been smart. “Bad” move, guys. Penn State was put in an unenviable position. But it also would’ve been nice if a quick compromise was reached. Would covering up the Champs logo have helped at all? Could plans be made next week for a similar T-shirt the players make themselves? Ordering the players to remove the shirt wasn’t a “Good” look — and it didn’t play well nationally. News of the T-shirt confiscation was one of the top stories on ESPN during the game.

Again, the act itself was “Good.” The end result? “Bad.”

Ugly

Officiating: Come on, you knew this was coming. There’s no way around it, and there’s no sense in trying to soften it: Saturday night’s officiating was downright atrocious. Downright pathetic. And downright embarrassing.

We probably don’t need to describe this once more. But maybe it’ll help you reach some sort of closure. (Doubtful.) In the third quarter, tight end Pat Freiermuth appeared to score a 16-yard touchdown after reaching for the goal line with the football. The play was initially ruled a touchdown and, on the review, it sure looked like a TD. At worst, there certainly didn’t appear to be enough evidence to overturn the score and rule Freiermuth’s knee was down.

Well, referee John O’Neill and the officiating crew apparently disagreed. They reversed the call, drawing the ire of seemingly every college football fan in America, and put the ball at the 1-yard line instead. Penn State scored ... but then another holding call on the possession moved the ball back. The Nittany Lions settled for a field goal.

Franklin declined to go into too much detail about the curious move.

“I’d love to do it. Trust; trust me,” Franklin said. “I’d love to have a lengthy conversation about it — and our fans want me to have a lengthy conversation about it. It’s not going to do any good.”

O’Neill is no stranger to officiating controversies with Penn State. Fans have a legitimate gripe here, and the Big Ten needs to have a talk with this crew. Outside of the fact that Penn State had three holding calls during a five-play span in the red zone, the Freiermuth call was egregious.

“I was surprised,” Freiermuth said. “I saw the replay.”

Everyone was surprised. That should have never happened.

This story was originally published October 13, 2019 at 9:30 PM.