The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 31-24 win over Maryland
Heading into halftime of Penn State football’s 31-14 win over Maryland, it was difficult to ignore the similarities between those first 30 minutes and the first 30 of the team’s 20-18 9OT loss to Illinois two weeks prior.
In both games, the Nittany Lions got on the board first with a touchdown. In both games the defense allowed the opponent to move the ball downfield but did not give up many points. There was at least one major difference in the two halves — that redshirt senior starting quarterback Sean Clifford appeared to be much healthier against the Terrapins than he was the Fighting Illini.
As a result, he was able to get the ball to the team’s best player and most dynamic playmaker, senior wide receiver Jahan Dotson.
Clifford’s adjustment played an important role in the team’s win.
“He missed some throws in the first half that I know he’d love to have back that I think could have opened the game earlier,” Penn State head coach James Franklin said. “But we were able to get some things adjusted, some of the checks we were doing from a protection standpoint. ... Some of the throws he missed in the first half, he made in the second half and we got some guys that can make plays for us and that helped tonight.”
The Clifford-Dotson connection built on its first-half success to lead the team to victory in a game where the latter played in front of a large group of family members who came from all over the country, whether it was Florida or Georgia or nearby New Jersey, to watch one of the best wide receivers in college football take the field.
Their presence gave the Nittany Lions added motivation for Dotson and gave him the fuel to put on the dazzling display he did.
“I had a lot of family members here today,” Dotson said. “A lot of them seeing me play for the first time. It was a special night all around. Got the W, that’s what we came here for. It was good to get back on a win streak. But it was just a fun night overall.”
Good
Penn State wide receiver Jahan Dotson: Dotson is arguably the best wide receiver in the country and that was on full display Saturday night. He made big plays, he made shorter plays and he carried the Nittany Lion offense on its way to a victory.
The senior wide receiver was the unit’s lone source of scoring in the game coming up with three big plays. His three touchdowns were the team’s only offensive touchdowns of the game and all three would have been far less likely to happen had another receiver run the routes Dotson did. Two of the touchdowns came on double moves where he ran a sluggo route, a slant that turns into a go route. Both baited the Terrapins into coming forward to cover Dotson who turned up the field and blew by his man. The third came on a ball that wasn’t perfect, but he came down with it anyway.
Dotson finished with a new school record 242 receiving yards in the game to go with his three touchdowns and turned an offense that was mostly stagnant into one that looked explosive at times. It’s fair to say several games would have gone much differently if Penn State didn’t have Dotson and this was one of them.
Penn State’s safeties: Franklin said it after the game, there might not be a better safety duo in the country than the one the Nittany Lions have. Jaquan Brisker and Ji’Ayir Brown are excellent in coverage, against the run and play from sideline to sideline for the Penn State defense.
The duo finished Saturday’s game with 16 total tackles, 14 of which were solo. They prevented big running plays from becoming explosive runs and covered well when required to make plays in the back end of the defense. Most important of all, they helped close out the game and earn the win for the Nittany Lions. Brown jumped a passing route and intercepted Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, taking the pick back to the house and sealing the team’s 31-14 victory. Brisker and Brown have been consistent in all facets of the game this season while also stepping up when it matters most.
The team’s defense has rarely allowed opponents to earn big plays and a lot of that credit has to go to the team’s two best safeties.
Defensive philosophy: The Penn State defense has given up plenty of long drives this season. Time and time again the unit seems to allow opponents to drive deep into its own territory and put itself in position to score. And time and time again the Nittany Lions stuff whoever they’re playing and prevent them from finding the end zone.
There are a lot of reasons for that much success, but a lot of it has to do with the team’s ability to bend but not break. The defense doesn’t allow teams to create big plays by getting over the top in the passing game or by breaking tackles down the field in the run game. Some of that has to do with the aforementioned elite safety duo, but some of it has to do with the team playing absurdly well in the red zone.
The Nittany Lions just don’t allow teams to find the end zone that often and that was the case Saturday night with the Terps only scoring twice with one touchdown coming in each half. Maryland has shown it can score points in bunches but Penn State’s defense is unlike any other the Terps have faced yet this season and it showed why it’s one of the best in the country again.
Bad
Redshirt senior quarterback Sean Clifford’s pocket presence: Clifford had plenty of ups and downs in Penn State’s win, but his pocket presence left much to be desired. In fact, some of his issues were reminiscent of the Clifford that struggled mightily in 2020. He held on to the ball for two long at times and instead of throwing the ball away, he would try to make a play that wasn’t there, leading to a loss of yards.
Other times, Clifford had time to stand in the pocket and instead vacated it only to run into defenders that would have been well blocked otherwise.
Those plays can ruin a team’s momentum and end drives before they get going. Clifford has to be calmer in the pocket and work through his progressions. That means standing tall and not running into opposing defenders, but it also includes getting rid of the ball rather than putting he and his teammates in a position where they can lose yards. At the end of the day, a play going for no yards is better than a negative one and Clifford too often turned those should-be incomplete passes into sacks.
Non-Dotson weapons: While Dotson eviscerated the Maryland defense, the rest of the team’s skill position players fell flat. The star receiver’s 11 catches for 242 yards and three touchdowns was almost the entirety of the team’s receiving production. The rest of the offense caught 16 passes for 121 yards and no touchdowns in the game. It’s an obvious positive that Dotson was able to do what he did but players like KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Parker Washington struggled at times and could have helped blow the game open sooner.
Both had passes fall off their hands or fingertips and end up incomplete in situations that a catch could have set up Penn State to score a touchdown or even ended with a score on that play. Those two players only had four catches for 52 yards combined even though they were targeted 13 times. While Clifford was at fault for some of the incomplete passes, there were still plenty of opportunities for his weapons to make plays. Washington and Lambert-Smith have both had big games at times this season and they will need to get back on track for Penn State to have a chance to upset the Michigan Wolverines next week.
Ugly
The first half offenses: The play picked up for the game’s final 30 minutes but the first 30 were, frankly, tough to watch. Neither team was moving the ball well and neither team looked like it could reasonably score more than once in the second half. Of course, that ended up not being the case, but it doesn’t change that the first half was horrendous. Clifford played poorly for Penn State, the Nittany Lions struggled to run the ball and the wide receivers were not hauling in passes they had proven they could catch in the past.
And while Penn State was bad, so was Maryland. Tagovailoa was up and down, but was more the latter than the former. He would make excellent throws to help move the ball and then make a potential drive-killing decision that would complicate things for the Terrapin offense and force the team to punt, which it did on its first five drives of the game.
Maryland was able to run the ball relatively well but quickly went away from it in favor of continuing to throw the ball. The bright side for Penn State is that its offense at least recovered and was able to put up 17 points in the second half.
This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 12:04 PM.
