The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State’s 53-39 Cotton Bowl win over Memphis
Noah Cain nestled up to his locker Saturday afternoon, after capping off a historic freshman season, and didn’t even so much as smile. But the rookie with the business-like approach, who teammates say is slow to crack a grin, still had plenty to celebrate in private.
With a pair of scores Saturday in the 53-39 Cotton Bowl win over Memphis, Cain broke the school record for most single-season rushing touchdowns by a freshman with eight. He passed Penn State greats DJ Dozier and Saquon Barkley, who both had seven.
“This,” he said, “was a blessing.”
In some ways, it was also unexpected. Cain missed 18 quarters due to a lower-leg injury, or about one-third of the season. And the Cotton Bowl acted as his first full game since teammates were forced to carry him off the field Oct. 26 at Michigan State.
Cain told reporters earlier this week that he was waiting for this opportunity ever since. So, when it finally came, he wasn’t about to let Memphis stop him.
The bruising back picked up right where he left off, rushing 15 times for 92 yards. And Cain said Saturday his time off helped him appreciate that performance all the more.
“I don’t take any games for granted,” Cain said. “Going through what happened with my injury, it just taught me to have a different perspective. So it was great for me, to get back out there and contribute.”
Good
Running game/run blocking: One word sums up the rushing dominance Penn State experienced in this bowl game: Unprecedented.
The Nittany Lions finished with 396 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns on 53 carries Saturday. That’s the most rushing yards in Penn State bowl history, and it’s the most by PSU in a game since rushing for 423 yards against Northwestern on Oct. 19, 2002. (Larry Johnson had 257 yards in that 49-0 win.)
OK, OK. Now that we’ve got those numbers out of the way, it’s time to give credit where it’s due — namely the offensive line. Yes, Journey Brown set a bowl record himself with 202 rushing yards and, yes, he ran with a blend of speed and power that stunned a national TV audience. But the offensive line absolutely dominated the trenches when it came to run blocking, which is why Noah Cain and Ricky Slade looked pretty darn good, too.
Slade had 58 yards on five carries, and Cain added 92 yards himself. Overall, Penn State averaged 7.5 yards per carry. Left tackle Rasheed Walker called it the line’s best game of the season, and Brown didn’t try to downplay the unit’s impact.
“I feel like just the line up front, those big boys really set the tone,” he said.
Tyler Bowen’s play-calling: It’s OK if you yelled at your TV to, “Run the damn ball!” Bowen did open the game a little too pass-happy and, sure, he went away from the run from time to time — but, overall, he made the necessary adjustments to succeed. And he finished with a fine game as the interim offensive coordinator.
After all, it’s difficult to find too much fault with a tight ends coach who guided his offense to the most points in PSU bowl history (53) and the second-most yards in PSU bowl history (529). And can we really say with the utmost certainty that former OC Ricky Rahne would’ve called a better game? (No. The answer is no.)
The run game was working, Bowen called rushes at about a 2-to-1 ratio, and he mixed up personnel well. The assistant coach is going to eventually earn his chance to be an offensive coordinator somewhere, and Saturday simply offered a glimpse at his potential.
LB Micah Parsons and his game-changing performance: Say hello to the 2020 version of Chase Young.
Parsons could legitimately contend to be one of the Heisman finalists next year. He’s that good. And Saturday showed it: 14 tackles, two sacks, three tackles for loss, two pass breakups, two forced fumbles and one quarterback hurry.
Penn State might not have won this game without him. He pressured Memphis QB Brady White into throwing the crucial third-quarter pick-six to safety Garrett Taylor, and he was a no-brainer as the Cotton Bowl Defensive MVP. It was the best game of the All-American’s career.
And the scary part? Despite being a generational talent, there’s still clear room for improvement. Even Journey Brown joked that Parsons has to hit the jugs machine — he did drop two interceptions — and, in some ways, he’s still learning the position he first took up as a freshman.
Memphis solved the Penn State defense and scored more points than any other opponent this season but, on Saturday, it still couldn’t solve Parsons.
Solid special teams: It’s easy for special teams to get lost in the shuffle. But Penn State did no wrong here, even if the impact in the end wasn’t that of a Journey Brown or a Micah Parsons.
Memphis returned only one kick, which went for 12 yards ... to the 12-yard line. Blake Gillikin booted three punts, averaging 45.3 yards an attempt and hitting two inside the 20. (Memphis returned one of those for minus-1 yard.) Jake Pinegar nailed a 45-yard field goal. And the punt-return team rattled the Tigers’ struggling punter.
The closest thing to a mistake that Penn State made was when one Gillikin punt traveled just 38 yards out of bounds. Which still wasn’t awful. Joe Lorig, the special-teams coordinator, was on Memphis last season — and he made sure Penn State’s units here only helped it Saturday against his former team.
So we couldn’t get through the “Good” without at least a quick nod to special teams.
Bad
QB Sean Clifford off his game: Before we get into Clifford’s struggles Saturday, let’s first open this up with an important directive for fans: Step away from your panic buttons.
Clifford hasn’t looked the same late in the season, so it’s easy to forget all the good he did in the first half of the year. In his first six starts, he threw for more yards, passed for more touchdowns and tossed for fewer interceptions than Trace McSorley did in his first six career starts.
Still, despite being dinged up since November, there’s no way around Saturday’s performance: It was bad. Disappointing. And mistake-filled. We’re not pretending otherwise; we’re just trying to reiterate that one bad game does not make a bad quarterback.
Clifford started off the Cotton Bowl throwing off-target and missing receivers. And, early in the third quarter, he winced after a hit and rotated his shoulder. One play later, he threw a low pass to KJ Hamler that was picked off.
It was the lowlight to a game that saw him finish 11-of-20 passing for 133 yards and one touchdown to complement the interception. Clifford did not play well Saturday. That much is obvious.
He may have suffered from a few drops, and the pass-blocking wasn’t nearly as dominant as the run blocking, but this performance was on Clifford. If Penn State is going to compete for a College Football Playoff berth next year, the Nittany Lions have to see more “Maryland” Clifford and less “Memphis” Clifford.
On the positive side, he should benefit from the tutelage of offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca this offseason.
James Franklin’s clock management at the end of the first half: It’s just a matter of time. At some point, Franklin’s puzzling clock management is going to cost the Nittany Lions a win.
Let’s set this up in case your memory is a little fuzzy. After QB Sean Clifford picked up 4 yards to make it third-and-goal at the 4-yard line, Franklin called an immediate and questionable timeout with 56 seconds left in the half. Even if Franklin needed extra time to draw up a play, he could have just opted to let the clock tick down before calling a timeout with about 18 seconds remaining.
Those 18 seconds would’ve been more than enough to run two final plays. Instead, the Nittany Lions scored a short TD pass on the very next play — with 51 seconds left. And what happened next? Well, if Franklin ran down the clock like he should have, Memphis should’ve gone into the half with a 35-20 deficit.
Instead, Memphis had the time to drive down the field and hit a field goal to cut the deficit to 35-23. There was no excuse for that timeout.
It’s one thing if this was just an isolated mistake. But this is just part of a continuing and troubling trend. Franklin needs to clean up the clock-management issues before the start of next season, before those issues turn into losses.
OL Will Fries’ back-to-back holding calls: Overall, it was a clean game for the Nittany Lions as they ended up with just one accepted penalty for 10 yards. But Fries’ third-quarter mistakes might’ve cost his team a touchdown.
On third-and-10 from the Memphis 17-yard line, QB Sean Clifford threw a pass to KJ Hamler in the end zone — and the opposing defensive back was flagged for holding. First down Penn State, right? Well, not quite. Fries was also called for holding, which off-set the penalty against Hamler and Penn State was forced to re-play the down.
On the very next play, Clifford found wideout Daniel George for a 16-yard completion for a first down ... except, yes, once again Fries was flagged for holding. Instead of first-and-goal from the 1, the Nittany Lions had third-and-20 from the 27.
Penn State eventually settled for a field goal.
Fries was absolutely dominated on both of those plays, and he needed to hold — or else Clifford would’ve been sacked. Fries has struggled off the edge against better defensive ends throughout this season. On that two-play stretch Saturday, Fries’ issues just finally came to a head.
Ugly
Secondary/pass defense ... again: Maybe we should’ve seen this coming when James Franklin said earlier in the week that Memphis reminded him a little of Pitt — seeing as the Panthers passed for a season-high 372 yards against Penn State.
Because, well, the pass defense against Memphis was similar to how it was against Pitt, except worse. Much, much worse.
Memphis QB Brady White passed for a career-high 454 yards — 91 yards better than his previous best — as the Nittany Lions’ secondary looked like the Group of 5 unit and Memphis’ offense looked like the Power 5 group. Sometimes, miscommunication was an issue. Other times, balls were misplayed. A few times, White and the wideouts just made great plays.
It was a hodgepodge of mistakes, poor play and sub-par execution. And, when the front-seven couldn’t generate pressure, it was basically an automatic Memphis completion.
When James Franklin first arrived in Happy Valley, the offensive line was often referred to as the Achilles’ heel of the team. Now? Maybe we can start labeling the pass defense this team’s weakness.
Over the last five games, Penn State has allowed 315.2 passing yards per contest. If that was Penn State’s average over the whole season, it would rank No. 129 out of 130 FBS teams. That’s how bad the secondary has been.
If the secondary was as good as the front-seven, this team would’ve made the College Football Playoff. As it stands, the question remains whether this group will prevent Penn State from getting any further next year.
This story was originally published December 29, 2019 at 4:22 PM.
