Here are the 3 questions that will decide Penn State football’s matchup with Maryland
Penn State football is on a three-game losing streak and will head on the road this weekend to try to get off the schneid. The Nittany Lions will travel to College Park to take on the Maryland Terrapins at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in Capital One Field at Maryland Stadium.
The unranked Nittany Lions’ three straight losses come after starting the season on a five-game winning streak. The first loss came at the hands of the Iowa Hawkeyes on the road in Kinnick Stadium on Oct. 9 in a 23-20 game. The loss came after redshirt senior starting quarterback Sean Clifford left the game in the second quarter with an injury. They then followed that up with a 20-18 9OT loss to unranked Illinois Saturday in Beaver Stadium and a loss to Ohio State at Ohio Stadium, both games in which Clifford played.
The unranked Terrapins are also 5-3 with their losses coming to two of the same teams Penn State lost to — Iowa and Ohio State — and the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Those three losses came in three of Maryland’s last four games with its most recent game being a 38-35 win over Indiana, a team Penn State also beat.
Let’s take a look at the three questions that will decide the outcome of Saturday’s Big Ten matchup between the Terrapins and Nittany Lions.
Which version of Taulia Tagovailoa shows up?
There have been two versions of redshirt sophomore Taulia Tagovailoa this year. There’s a version that looks infallible — one that shredded Indiana and West Virginia, dismantled weaker opponents and threw only a single interception in five games.
Then there’s the version that showed up when Maryland took on Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio State. That version threw seven interceptions in those three games and for 625 passing yards. Tagovailoa was far from the only reason Maryland lost those three games, but his performance was a major reason the team played so poorly.
He was inaccurate in those games but more importantly his decision-making wasn’t at its best, leading to those seven turnovers. Penn State’s passing defense is much closer to the ones Tagovailoa struggled against than the ones he found success against. In fact, there’s a chance the Nittany Lions possess the best pass defense Maryland will face all season.
The answer to this question should be abundantly clear early on in the game. If Tagovailoa is at his best, the Terps will have a chance to pull off the upset.
Will Maryland be able to run the ball?
One of the best ways Maryland can help Tagovailoa is to run the ball well and force Penn State to dedicate more defenders closer to the line of scrimmage. There’s some reason to believe Maryland will be able to run the ball if they game plan properly for the Nittany Lions. The Terps could easily follow the strategy Illinois used and stack the offensive in a way that most teams — including Penn State — wouldn’t be prepared to play against. That worked for the Illini, when they trotted out seven offensive lineman on numerous occasions and ran for over 300 yards against the Nittany Lions.
Maryland could try to do something like that because — while it does have better talent than Illinois — it doesn’t have enough talent to overcome a Penn State run defense that mostly stifled one of the best running games in the country when it took on Ohio State. Deploying a unique strategy like playing extra offensive linemen could help the Terps get going on the ground and force the Penn State defensive coordinator Brent Pry to bring in extra defensive linemen, opening the door for Tagovailoa to gash the defense on play-action passes.
Will Penn State be able to rely on the run consistently?
The answer to this one might be a flat “no” but this might be Penn State’s last real chance to get a ground game going. Head coach James Franklin said the team was more physical against Ohio State and could build off that moving forward in the run game, but at this point that doesn’t seem all too likely.
That being said, this is as good of a chance as any to finally right the ship and prove the running game can be a prominent part of the offense with difficult games against Michigan and Michigan State still on the schedule.
The Terps’ last four opponents have run the ball well against them, including a 326-yard performance by Minnesota and a 166-yard performance by Ohio State in the team’s last two losses.
The defense is one that can be taken advantage of by Penn State, but the running game could just be a lost cause for the Nittany Lions at this point. If that’s the case, Penn State could continue to lean on short passes to be an extension of the running game the rest of the way.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
