The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 38-17 win over Villanova
James Franklin felt a sense of complacency within his team. Sure, the Nittany Lions took care of business against Villanova to the tune of a 38-17 victory to stay undefeated — going 1-0 for the fourth time, as Franklin would put it — but something was off.
He wasn’t entirely sure what spurred the change in his team’s tenor heading into the game, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“I feel like our guys, a little bit, were enjoying people patting them on the back,” Franklin said. “... I thought today was a little bit of an issue and when I say today, I mean this week. We did not practice the way I think we should practice on Wednesday.
“We’ve had very little of that since I’ve been here. The other thing I would say is we haven’t really had a lot of that during camp, but I thought Wednesday we did not have a good practice, so I think they’re getting patted on the back. I think they are reading articles, and we’ll make sure that there’s no leftovers of that come Sunday. I’ll make sure that we clear all those things out of the fridge.”
The complacency will have to dissipate rather quickly for the Nittany Lions. They take on Indiana next week at home now that non-conference play is over, then head on the road to play in one of the most hostile environments in college football — Kinnick Stadium — where they’ll take on the Iowa Hawkeyes, who have impressed early in the season.
Franklin said his team will have to correct those errors before it affects its overall record, something his teams haven’t always done in the past — by his own admission.
“It’s one of those deals you talk about until you’re blue in the face, you show examples,” Franklin said. “We have had to have setbacks in the past to really grow and learn. We shouldn’t have to do that. We will emphasize that point as strong as you possibly can. We’ll have pretty aggressive meetings tomorrow going through these things.”
While Franklin was not happy about the complacency, sophomore wide receiver Parker Washington didn’t see it the same way.
He saw a team merely carrying its momentum forward that its built with multiple big wins.
“I wouldn’t say that (some guys are getting overconfident),” Washington said. “It’s just momentum. We’re excited that we got the win today. Like I said, it’s one day at a time. We won today, now we just gotta get ready to go tomorrow.”
Good
Penn State came out healthy: The biggest goal the Nittany Lions should have set for this game was to come out unscathed, and for all intents and purposes they did that. Outside of starting running back Noah Cain getting dinged up last week, there were no injuries to speak of for Penn State following the win.
That’s an excellent sign in a game like Saturday’s where you’re almost guaranteed a win and the only thing that can truly derail your season is if your health goes by the wayside. That didn’t happen on either side of the ball and Penn State should take on Indiana no worse for wear than it would’ve had it not played the Wildcats at all.
A win on the scoreboard is the most important thing, but a win on the injury report is nearly as important considering the aspirations the team has after a 4-0 start to the season.
Explosive plays: Four of Penn State’s five touchdown were from 20 yards out or longer, so yeah, the Nittany Lions did pretty well from an explosive play standpoint. We’ll get to the personnel catching those big plays in a second, but first let’s focus on the playcalling of it.
Offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich has long been known for getting the ball to his playmakers in space and letting them go to work, and hitting them deep down the field for big plays. That’s exactly what his offense has done through the first three games and Saturday against Villanova was no different. There was a 23-yard touchdown pass, an 83-yard touchdown pass and two 52-yard touchdown passes. That’s quite the day for an offense and showed what Yurcich is capable of drawing up, especially when his team has a vast talent advantage.
The passes weren’t all deep shots, either. In fact, only one of the four had more yards gained through the air than with the receiver running with the ball. That play — the first 52-yard touchdown — was the first play of the game and quickly set the tone for what the Nittany Lions were planning to do to the Villanova defense. The real beauty of the call is that it opened up everything underneath for Penn State.
Starting wide receivers: All right, now let’s talk about the guys who made those plays. Jahan Dotson, KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Parker Washington were tremendous Saturday afternoon from start to finish. Dotson did exactly what he’s done all year. He got open, caught difficult passes and made defenders miss time and time again. What should have been especially thrilling for Penn State fans was that Lambert-Smith and Washington did those things, too.
Washington was especially impressive in the game and excelled in one of the areas that makes Dotson really special. Like the senior receiver, Washington snatches the ball out of the air with very strong hands and a wide catch radius and he was doing plenty of that against Villanova. Everyone will — rightfully so — talk about the plays in the open field that Washington made, but his ability to catch seemingly every ball that comes his way is even more important. He probably has the strongest hands on the team and is going to be a difference maker as long as he’s a Nittany Lion. He, Lambert-Smith and Dotson combined for 14 receptions, 353 receiving yards and four touchdowns in the game.
Starting defense: You can’t ask for much more from Penn State’s starting defenders. The Nittany Lions only allowed three points until the bottom of the depth chart took the field in the fourth quarter and didn’t give the Wildcats any room to breathe in the running or passing games. That’s not much of a surprise considering just how good the unit has been this season. The non-garbage time defense has given up 46 points through four games this season and still looks to be one of the best in the country.
The group doesn’t possess many — if any — weaknesses and has been able to stifle opponents when necessary, with Auburn’s running game last week being the only aspect that’s caused the unit to struggle at any point this year. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Villanova wasn’t able to be the team that caused the Penn State defense any struggles.
Bad
Sean Clifford’s accuracy: This will go over well. Look, I get it, Sean Clifford threw for 401 yards and four touchdowns on 26 attempts and the Nittany Lions were able to score 38 points. Not to mention, Clifford’s lone interception was on a perfectly thrown ball that hit Lambert-Smith in the hands and shot up into the air. However, his play — raw numbers aside — was not up to par and certainly wasn’t on the level of last week when he had the best performance of his career.
Clifford struggled with a few aspects of his game that brought back memories of 2020. He didn’t navigate the pocket well — occasionally running into defenders and occasionally throwing when he wasn’t balanced — and more importantly his accuracy was not where it needs to be for Penn State to win the Big Ten East.
He was bailed out on a few occasions by Dotson and Washington and didn’t always hit the open man when that option was available. Clifford threw a few ill-advised passes deep or into the middle of the field when he had a check-down option available underneath. Normally, those deep shots are fine, but in situations where the yardage you need for a first down is available, it’s better to take it than to try to do too much.
Backup defense: The first and second team defense were excellent but the third and fourth were brutal. The deepest parts of the roster gave up 14 points to Villanova in the fourth quarter and made the game seem much closer than it actually was. The fortunate part of that performance for Penn State is that it was completely inconsequential and may even end up being a positive in the long run.
The Nittany Lions still got the win, but Franklin and his staff now have a teaching point and some film of the youngest players on the roster. Those players will need to improve, but they’re that low on the depth chart for a reason. They won’t likely be counted on for any meaningful snaps this season and will be able to learn from the mistakes they made in what was many of their first game action in college.
Ugly
Penn State’s run game: Rushing for 80 yards as the No. 6 team in the country against an FCS opponent? Not great. The Nittany Lions have run the ball well in one of their four games — against Ball State — and have been unable to get going in any form or fashion. The offensive line has gotten no push up front and isn’t giving the running back room much to work with when it comes to rushing lanes.
When those lanes are there, the running backs haven’t done much to capitalize. Noah Cain has been subpar this season and hasn’t looked like the freshman standout he was in 2019. He does a good job of finding the hole and running through defenders, but he doesn’t have the speed to burst through those openings for big gains. Keyvone Lee has similar strengths and weaknesses — except he’s even bigger — but has struggled with fumbles and too often tries to do too much, losing yards in the process.
Devyn Ford and Caziah Holmes are home-run hitters — capable of breaking the big plays but with questionable ability to gain enough yardage in short-yardage situations. The wildcard here is senior John Lovett. He ran 11 times for 45 yards Saturday against Villanova and has looked big enough to pick up a few yards when necessary, but fast enough to turn medium runs into long runs. He should continue seeing an uptick in snaps if the Nittany Lions want to get their rushing attack turned around.
This story was originally published September 26, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
