The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 23-20 loss to Iowa
Penn State hadn’t struggled much with crowd noise under head football coach James Franklin. The Nittany Lions have generally gone into hostile environments and overcome the audience that was screaming in their ears for 60 minutes of game time.
Saturday evening in Kinnick Stadium, however, was different.
Once redshirt senior starting quarterback Sean Clifford left the 23-20 loss to the Hawkeyes near the end of the first quarter with an injury, the struggles began. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson entered the game and the team had several false start penalties, including three consecutive penalties.
“We didn’t have a issue with the crowd noise until we lost Sean,” Franklin said. “We’re responsible for all of it. We used the same system with Sean as we did Ta’Quan and it didn’t work. Obviously it became significant issue in the game. ... Same system that we’ve used. We’ve never really had an issue with it. Like I said, we did it in the first issue with Sean and had no issues, but we did have issues in the second half with Ta’Quan.”
Roberson said he mostly practiced with the backups leading up to the game. The redshirt sophomore also had very limited playing time in college, attempting only eight passes in his career entering the night.
Still, the struggles Franklin saw with the noise was different and not something he saw in practice.
“Obviously if it would’ve been an issue in practice, we would have corrected it,” Franklin said. “It had not been. He’s not as loud as Sean, but not to the point where it was a problem. So we’ll do a deep dive on that, obviously.”
The quarterback wasn’t the only one who took notice of the noise. The Kinnick crowd, which is mere inches away from the players on the sideline, was one of the loudest do-it-all special teamer Jordan Stout had ever heard.
In fact, he said it was comparable to the crowds he’s used to hearing when he plays in Beaver Stadium.
“They were loud,” Stout said. “They were loud, I’m not gonna lie. I feel like they played a pretty large role, to be honest. They have some pretty wild fans. ... (The noise is) pretty similar (to Beaver Stadium).”
Good
Penn State’s defense: The Nittany Lion defense is just going to be here every week until further notice. The players on that side of the ball were disappointed with their performance and the 23 points they gave up, but the truth is that wasn’t their fault.
The unit was dominant and only gave up the number of points it did because the offense was unable to move the ball. That forced the group to take the field in its own territory, or close to it, and made it difficult for the defense to do anything meaningful because of it. Even when it only allowed a single first down, that was enough to put the Hawkeyes in field goal range. If it gave up anything more, Iowa scored a touchdown.
Iowa’s offense finished the game with 305 total yards and only 2.4 yards per rushing attempt and 6.3 yards per passing attempt. Not to mention, it was stuffed by the Penn State defense on a drive that began at the Nittany Lions’ eight-yard line. The defense may have blamed itself for the loss, but it had no reason to.
Penn State’s offense with Sean Clifford: Clifford may have thrown two early interceptions, but even that couldn’t stop the offense from rolling early in the game. The Nittany Lions scored 17 points with Clifford at the helm and looked like it had finally cracked the Iowa defense that came into the game viewed as one of the best in the country.
Clifford was hanging in the pocket when necessary, scrambling for time when necessary and taking off for runs when necessary. He was getting into a rhythm and looked like he was going to lead the offense to a breakout performance. Not to mention, all of that was happening because wide receivers were getting open and the offensive line was blocking spectacularly. It’s hard to look as good as the Penn State offense did early in the game while turning the ball over twice, but it did.
Jordan Stout: Iowa may have started plenty of drives with good field position, but it wasn’t Stout’s fault. The kicker/punter/kick-off specialist was at the top of his game. He punted five times with an average of 50.4 yards per punt. That would rank in the top-five in the FBS if he did it for the entire season to this point. Not to mention, some of those punts were kicked into a howling wind while he stood in the end zone and he still managed to do well.
Then the senior specialist added on two extra points, booted every kickoff for a touchback and field goals of 32 and 44 yards to cap off the night. He did his best to pin Iowa as deep as possible and because of that he gave the Nittany Lions’ defense a little more leeway than a punter usual would give it. It may not have been enough in the end, but Stout was on point in all three facets of his game. Not to mention, a few of those kickoffs went anywhere from three to nine rows deep in the stands behind the end zone.
Pass blocking: Penn State may have struggled at times in the passing game, but it wasn’t because Roberson and Clifford didn’t have time. Both quarterbacks were given plenty of time to sit in the pocket and analyze the field in front of them before making a decision. Clifford did so to the offense’s benefit quite a few times early in the game. He dropped back and surveyed the field without a worry in the world as the receivers worked their way open.
Then Roberson had much of the same, dropping into the pocket and finding he had space to operate with more than enough time to find his teammates down the field. For all of the offense’s struggles, the unit’s pass blocking was at the top of his game for nearly all 60 minutes Saturday night.
Bad
The offense with Roberson: There’s a little bit to unpack here. Was the offense good with Roberson at quarterback? No. Is Roberson the cause of that? Not really.
While the redshirt sophomore quarterback was the one who took the field and made the throws and decisions he did, it’s not entirely his fault he played poorly. Roberson entered the game with eight career passing attempts and none in game action that truly mattered. He’d only played in blowouts up until Saturday night and said he’d mostly taken reps with the twos in practice rather than the starters, which makes sense since, well, he was the backup.
Still, his lack of playing time and lack of preparation in game action has nothing to do with him. Rather, it falls at the feet of the coaching staff. Now, it’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight that it’s easy to get Roberson either the practice reps or the meaningful playing time to prepare him for the situation. The truth is it’s not. That doesn’t mean, however, that there are no opportunities to do those things. Roberson could have come in earlier in the Nittany Lions’ games against Villanova and Ball State, two games they won by at least three scores. That would have given him more time to be ready for a moment like this. But who knows, maybe it would have been enough to make up the three-point difference in the game.
Regardless of why the offense wasn’t good enough, the reality is that it just wasn’t. After Franklin declined to update Clifford’s status moving forward, it has two weeks to figure out how it can get better.
Injuries: Penn State really couldn’t catch a break with injuries this game after the team stayed relatively healthy leading into it. Several players went down during the game, including Clifford, PJ Mustipher, Jaquan Brisker, Arnold Ebiketie and Dvon Ellies. A few of the players got back into the game relatively quickly, but some like Clifford and Mustipher did not.
Those two injuries loom as the real damage that may have been done to Penn State’s season Saturday night. Realistically, the College Football Playoff committee would likely put the Nittany Lions in if they win out and win the Big Ten Championship game, likely in a revenge game against Iowa. But what could derail that potential to go undefeated would be Clifford and Mustipher’s absences lasting for an extended period. It seems clear that Clifford is far and away the team’s best quarterback and Mustipher is an important piece along the defensive line. Not having the redshirt senior quarterback, given the blatant gap between him and the rest of the quarterback room, could eliminate Penn State’s chances of earning the team’s first berth into the playoff.
Ugly
Fans booing injured players: I don’t know that I’ve ever been more confused about why fans were booing than I was Saturday evening. The Iowa fans that filled Kinnick Stadium unleashed their wrath every time a Penn State player went down on the field, seemingly because they thought it was to slow the offense’s momentum. There are several reasons that doesn’t make sense, but I’ll let Franklin explain the gist of it.
“I do have a little bit of a hard time with our players getting hurt and the fans, and the coaches and the staff booing our players. They don’t run a tempo offense. It was not part of our plan. Obviously, didn’t want Cliff, PJ, (John) Lovett, (Devyn) Ford, (Jonathan) Sutherland, guys that play significant football for us, to get injured. To all the Iowa people out there, it was not part of our plan. It would not be, you don’t run a tempo offense. We had some guys get injured. I just don’t know if I necessarily agree, I don’t think that’s the right thing for college football, booing guys when they get hurt, however it looks. If one of those kids would have been significantly hurt and you’re booing them, I got a hard time with that.”
Franklin is 100% correct. There is no doubt that players go down to slow up opposing offenses when they go fast to halt momentum. But as he said, Iowa doesn’t go fast. In fact, they go slow. And going down after a big play doesn’t make much sense when the offense is going to give the defense nearly 40 seconds anyway. The booing never made sense given the way Iowa plays and makes even less sense when you consider a few of those players then missed extended snaps.
This story was originally published October 10, 2021 at 10:51 AM.
