3 takeaways from Penn State football’s 27-6 win over Rutgers
Penn State sleepwalked its way to a 27-6 victory over Rutgers Saturday afternoon in the team’s final regular season game of the year. Let’s look at what we learned as the Nittany Lions sent off their seniors with a win on Senior Day.
1. Will Levis still has work to do
The most obvious thing we learned in Penn State’s regular season finale is that redshirt freshman quarterback Will Levis is not yet ready to start for Penn State. Levis was inaccurate on most of his throws and struggled to hit receivers when they were open downfield. Poorly placed balls prevented two Penn State touchdowns early in the game and it forced offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne’s hand when it came to play-calling.
Rahne clearly limited the playbook in a big way for Levis, almost exclusively calling run plays. That allowed Levis to play to his strengths and use his size and speed to move the ball on offense, but it also limited Penn State’s big plays in the game and allowed Rutgers to hang around for far too long in this game. Levis gave Penn State a nice spark against Ohio State, but he has some work to do if he wants to challenge Sean Clifford at quarterback.
2. Penn State’s defense no-showed
The Penn State offense couldn’t move the ball downfield and was limited on the ground, but its defense didn’t do it any favors. Rutgers moved the ball with relative ease on the ground and was able to turn the game into a slugfest, which is exactly what the Scarlet Knights needed if they wanted to keep it close. They needed to control the ball and control the clock and they did it consistently for four quarters.
Penn State’s defense had almost no answers for Rutgers’ rushing attack all game and it almost cost the Nittany Lions. The Scarlet Knights ran for 184 yards on 44 carries in the game. Penn State’s defense let the letdown of a loss to Ohio State drag into this week and it made Saturday’s game tighter than it should have been.
3. Rutgers is so bad that the Penn State effort didn’t matter
In the end, Penn State’s lack of effort didn’t change the outcome of the game. The Nittany Lions still walked out of Beaver Stadium with a victory and a 10-2 record with an excellent shot to make the Rose Bowl. Rutgers wasn’t good enough to take advantage of Penn State abysmal effort and that’s indicative of the state of the school’s football program.
The Scarlet Knights remain the laughing stock of the Big Ten and one of the worst program’s in the country. They’re an easy target for insults, but this game showed just how vast the gap is between a program like Rutgers and one like Penn State. The Nittany Lions played as poorly as they could have, yet they were never in any real danger of losing.
This story was originally published November 30, 2019 at 7:05 PM.
