The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State’s 34-27 win over Indiana
The turning point to Penn State’s 34-27 win Saturday over Indiana involved a true freshman on special teams.
Hoosiers head coach Tom Allen didn’t exactly dial up a fake punt in the third quarter, one that led to a turnover on downs and a quick Penn State touchdown. After the game, Allen explained, he wanted to punt it on fourth-and-1 at his own 44.
But the long-snapper, true freshman Sean Wracher, didn’t get the message.
“It was just a mistake. What do you say? He was frustrated with himself,” Allen said, referring to Wracher. “When he came off, he realized it. It was just unfortunate; pretty costly for sure. But he’s done a great job. He’ll learn from it, and it won’t happen again.”
Allen wanted to see what alignment Penn State came out in and, based on that, Indiana was supposed to check to a punt. But the long-snapper didn’t recognize the Nittany Lions’ front, or simply forgot to check.
So he snapped the ball to the up-back, who wasn’t expecting the ball. It was supposed to go to the punter. Instead, tight end Peyton Hendershot bobbled the ball and was quickly swallowed up for a 4-yard loss.
Two plays later, Penn State running back Journey Brown sprinted for a 35-yard touchdown to increase the Nittany Lions’ lead to 27-14. And the Hoosiers couldn’t mount the comeback, as Penn State held on — setting up an important game next weekend at Ohio State.
“We’ve worked on that a bunch,” Allen added. “We have a call, we check it, we do everything. It wasn’t there, but it’s one of those things. There was complete shock and surprise by everybody that it was snapped the way it was.
“It was just a mistake. That’s how you look at it. That’s how it was set up.”
Good
QB Sean Clifford & the 9-minute drive: This may not have been Clifford’s most impressive game when it comes to the stats. But his value in this game was immense.
Every time Indiana scored a touchdown, Clifford literally drove this offense downfield for a score of its own. When the Hoosiers opened the game with a touchdown to tie it up at 7-7, Clifford responded with a 58-yard drive that resulted in a field goal to reclaim the lead. When Indiana scored its next touchdown, Clifford bounced back with a 38-yard rushing TD. And when IU scored its final TD early in the fourth quarter, to cut the deficit to 27-24, Clifford had one of this year’s most memorable drives.
The redshirt sophomore quarterback engineered an 18-play, 75-yard drive that ate up 9:01 of the clock. That’s not a typo — 9:01. On that drive, Clifford converted a third-and-9 with a 10-yard scamper, in addition to converting a third-and-1 with a 6-yard run and scoring a 1-yard touchdown on fourth-and-goal. That drive put the game away.
“He was huge for us because he managed the game well,” wideout Jahan Dotson said. “Like that 9-minute drive, we had no delay of game penalties; he was able to pick up the first downs on the ground. It was just huge to see him lead our team to victory.”
Clifford finished 11-of-23 passing for 173 yards and a touchdown. He also had 55 rushing yards and two scores on the ground. Again, not terribly impressive — but the numbers didn’t tell the full story Saturday. He came up big.
RB Journey Brown’s 2nd-straight 100-yard performance: Without an injured Noah Cain — whom James Franklin keeps saying is OK but keeps not playing — Brown still turned in a solid performance.
For the second straight week, he registered at least 100 rushing yards. Against Minnesota, he turned in a career-high 124 yards and two TDs. And vs. Indiana on Saturday, he finished with exactly 100 yards and a TD on 21 carries.
And he had one of the turning points of the game. When confusion reigned on the fake punt in the third quarter, giving Penn State the ball at the Indiana 40, Brown responded with a 5-yard run and a 35-yard touchdown. Indiana was not overcoming that lost momentum.
Brown doesn’t have the most potential in this backfield, and few thought at this time last season that Brown would turn into a featured back. But he’s become an important contributor, one who hasn’t disappointed when his number’s been called. So, lately, he’s been a staple in the “Good.”
Stifling run defense: OK, the Penn State defense wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine Saturday. But the run defense still dominated.
Indiana’s one-sided offense ran just 31 times for 91 yards, meaning the Hoosiers averaged 2.9 yards per carry. It was just the third time this season that Indiana rushed for less than 100 yards; the other two times were also losses, to Ohio State (42 yards) and Michigan State (72 yards).
The Nittany Lions didn’t get a lot of penetration in the backfield, but they essentially hit and tackled the ball-carrier once he reached the line of scrimmage. After all, only two Indiana runs went for longer than 10 yards. (And none went longer than 14.)
Running back Stevie Scott, who stands at 6-foot-2 and 231 pounds, also managed just 54 yards on 17 carries (3.2 ypc). We’ll get to the other half of Penn State’s defense a little later — you can probably guess where — but there were few complaints in the run defense. That’s been consistently good for PSU.
K Jake Pinegar and Penn State’s special teams: Penn State thwarted a fake punt of sorts, recovered a muffed Indiana punt return and watched as Blake Gillikin booted two of his three punts inside the 20. Oh, and Jake Pinegar was perfect on field goals.
It was a solid all-around effort from the Nittany Lions’ special teams. But Pinegar especially deserves a shoutout here.
The short-range kicker showed he’s got some leg himself, kicking a 47-yard field goal in the first quarter — an important one that gave his team a 10-7 lead — and following it up with a chip-shot 27-yarder in the next quarter.
This game would’ve looked completely different had Pinegar missed either of those opportunities. Instead of Sean Clifford driving Penn State downfield on a clock-consuming drive in the final quarter, for example, odds are James Franklin would’ve approached that a lot differently if PSU was tied as opposed to leading by a field goal.
Bad
KJ Hamler’s apparent concussion and inconsistency at WR: You hate to see any player get injured in a game, but Hamler’s injury was especially costly to the Nittany Lions. Late in the first quarter, he was flipped upside-down during a kick return and landed on his head.
He appeared to be in concussion protocol. And, although James Franklin does not comment on injuries, he said the program is “hopeful” he’ll be good to play next week. At any rate, in what has become one of the main storylines this season, there really isn’t a way to replace Hamler’s production.
It says something when Hamler played about 12 minutes Saturday and still finished with a team-leading 52 receiving yards. Penn State does not have a No. 3 WR. And, if Hamler can’t go against Ohio State, the Nittany Lions won’t have a true threat at wideout outside of Jahan Dotson.
Dan Chisena earned the start Saturday, for instance, and he wasn’t once targeted. Justin Shorter wasn’t targeted either. In fact, besides Hamler and Dotson, only Mac Hippenhammer was targeted as a receiver. He caught one of three targets for 15 yards.
The Nittany Lions boast two quality tight ends in Pat Freiermuth and Nick Bowers. But at receiver? This might move into the “Ugly” next week, if Hamler does not return.
Lack of QB pressure: Is it time to start asking if this front-seven is overrated?
The talent is obvious. The potential is sky-high. But the play? The production? It just hasn’t been there lately on passing downs.
It took Penn State 29 minutes to register its first tackle in the backfield Saturday, when Yetur Gross-Matos sacked Indiana QB Peyton Ramsey. Despite Ramsey attempting 41 passes Saturday, the Nittany Lions came away with just two sacks and three QB pressures. (For comparison’s sake, Indiana had three sacks and six QB pressures, the most Indiana’s had this season, equaling its production against Rutgers.)
Indiana boasts an average offensive line, one that features a true freshman left tackle, so the Nittany Lions should’ve dominated in this department. They didn’t.
And if you look at the big picture this season, it’s pretty lopsided. Sure, Penn State is tied for 11th nationally with 33 sacks. But 10 sacks came against Purdue, and seven happened vs. FCS Idaho. In Penn State’s last five games, it’s had just eight total sacks.
The pass-rush has struggled lately against better opponents. Early in the season, we never thought this would belong in the “Bad.” But this is where it should’ve been placed for a while now.
First-quarter defense: In the first eight games of the season, Penn State didn’t allow a single score. Then, last week against Minnesota, the Nittany Lions allowed two first-quarter touchdowns. And, on Saturday against Indiana, it was deja vu as the Hoosiers scored a pair of first-quarter TDs.
This isn’t the tone the Penn State defense usually sets. But it just couldn’t stop IU early on.
Indiana was 3-for-3 on third downs in the opening quarter, and it averaged 9.9 yards for every play it ran. Peyton Ramsey was also 8-of-10 passing for 124 yards, and the Hoosiers gained 25 rushing yards on five carries.
Nothing was working early on. Indiana had two offensive drives and scored two touchdowns, and Penn State’s tackling left a lot to be desired.
“There are a lot of areas for improvement,” Penn State safety Garrett Taylor said. “We came out a little bit slow in that first quarter, but then turned it around.”
If Sean Clifford’s play wasn’t as clutch Saturday, or Indiana didn’t make several special-teams mistakes, this game could’ve taken an altogether different turn. The defense is fortunate its lackadaisical first quarter didn’t prove more costly.
Ugly
Entire pass defense: This might be the first time all season that we’ve had the same “Ugly” in consecutive weeks.
That’s not the kind of consistency you want to see.
Indiana came in averaging a conference-best 308 passing yards per game, but it fared even better than that Saturday. Peyton Ramsey, Indiana’s backup QB, finished 31-of-41 passing for 371 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions.
Franklin tried to dismiss the struggles to an extent, saying Penn State must get better — but adding, “That team has done that to everybody.” Well, yes and no. Ramsey has played in 28 career games. And, yes, that was a career high.
Once again, blown coverages and soft-zone coverage defined the day. This is quickly becoming the Achilles’ heel of the entire team, and it’s not going to get any easier against Ohio State. And Penn State hasn’t had any answers.
Over the last two weeks, Penn State has allowed the opposing quarterbacks to complete 80 percent of their passes for 710 yards. If that’s not “Ugly,” we don’t know what is.
