Here are the 3 questions that will decide Penn State football’s matchup with Rutgers
Penn State football will try to earn a victory in its final home game of the season Saturday at Beaver Stadium. The Nittany Lions will take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at noon for their Senior Day game.
They’re coming off a 21-17 home loss to the Michigan Wolverines and remain unranked in the College Football Playoff rankings with their 6-4 record. All four losses have come in the team’s last five games after starting the season 5-0. The losses began in Iowa City with the Hawkeyes, then followed with losses to Illinois at home and Ohio State on the road. The Nittany Lions were briefly back on track with a win over Maryland before dropping the game to Michigan.
The Scarlet Knights are coming off a dominant 38-3 win over Indiana and are 5-5 on the year. However, the Hoosiers are the only Big Ten East team they’ve defeated this season, losing to Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State by a combined score of 103-39, scoring 13 points in each game.
Let’s take a look at the three questions that will decide the outcome of Saturday’s Big Ten matchup between the Scarlet Knights and Nittany Lions.
Can Penn State’s running game keep the momentum going?
The Nittany Lions had arguably their best rushing performance of the season against a high-level defense last week when running backs Keyvone Lee and John Lovett combined for 105 yards on 24 carries. Lee and Lovett may be the right combination for the offense, with Lee clearly leading the way. The sophomore running back is averaging 4.9 yards per carry this season, the highest among the position and 1.5 more than any other back who has at least 15 carries.
Lee didn’t get much playing time early in the season after his mishaps against Wisconsin in the team’s season opener, when he fumbled and lost yardage while trying to break short runs for big gains. Those issues have gone by the wayside in recent weeks and he has clearly become the team’s best rusher. As long as Lee is the team’s lead back, the running game should have more success, especially against a team like Rutgers that does not have an elite defense. Penn State should lean on the sophomore running back and make him the focal point of the running game moving forward, even if it means giving him 20 or more carries per game.
How will the non-Dotson wide receivers fare?
There have been no questions about Penn State senior wide receiver Jahan Dotson this season — and there shouldn’t be — but there have been some that have come up about the wide outs behind him. Sophomores KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Parker Washington have both dealt with some level of a sophomore slump this season. There haven’t been major issues for the two receivers, but they’ve both struggled in key moments at various points this season.
It was Lambert-Smith who struggled on Saturday afternoon, dropping multiple passes in the game, which led to him being left off the field in key situations. The Nittany Lions have three clear-cut top receivers on their depth chart and if any of those three struggle, it spells trouble for the offense. Lambert-Smith and Washington will need to find consistency at some point and there may not be a better week to do so than this one. Rutgers has struggled mightily against the pass and the two sophomore receivers should find themselves open with space to run quite a bit against the Scarlet Knights. This is their best opportunity to prove they can be the top two receivers next season after Dotson’s inevitable departure for the 2022 NFL Draft.
Will Rutgers score a touchdown?
This might seem harsh, but the Scarlet Knights have struggled on offense this season. They have the No. 100 offense out of 130 in college football, according to ESPN’s SP+, a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. That lines up with how they’ve performed against good teams, scoring 13 points or less against the likes of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin. Penn State’s defense (No. 6 in SP+) is in line with Wisconsin (No. 2) and Michigan (No. 5) and should be able to stifle the Rutgers offense.
To be frank, the Scarlet Knights’ best opportunity to find the end zone might be by taking advantage of an offensive mistake by the Nittany Lions. Their offense has been subpar this season and will likely struggle unless they come up with a game plan similar to that of Illinois. The Fighting Illini came out with seven offensive linemen and ran all over Penn State on the back of that strategy, although they still only scored 10 points in regulation. Rutgers should follow that line of thinking and try to find a game plan that is outside the box in order to move the ball against the Nittany Lions.
