The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s loss to Arkansas in the Outback Bowl
Penn State football’s 2021 season came to an end Saturday afternoon looking much like it did all season — the offense sputtered and the defense left it all on the line. The similarities were apparent despite the vast difference in personnel compared to what the Nittany Lions have been trotting out all season.
Five defensive starters — safety Jaquan Brisker, linebackers Brandon Smith and Ellis Brooks, defensive end Arnold Ebiketie and defensive tackle Derrick Tangelo — all opted out of the game to prepare for the 2022 NFL Draft, while cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields traveled but did not dress for the game.
Offensively, the team lacked its leader and its best player in senior wide receiver Jahan Dotson, who also opted out of the game.
Those players were sorely missed on both sides of the ball and left the team relying on its youth and inexperienced players to come up big.
“The next man up mentality (showed in the game),” senior Jesse Luketa said. “I’m extremely excited for my brothers making that decision to pursue their dreams and aspirations. I’m even more excited for the young guys that had the opportunity to step up today. ... It doesn’t matter who’s on the field. The goal is to stop the ball.”
The next man up mentality can help players step into a larger role but it doesn’t mean they’ll be able to replicate the larger production and impact — as was apparent Saturday afternoon on both sides of the ball.
The Lions’ sorely missed Dotson offensively, with Parker Washington filling some of the production but not the impact. Dotson’s ability to draw the attention of the entire defense is something Washington won’t be able to replicate until he has to be the No. 1 receiver for several games — and plays like it. He played to that level Saturday, when he had his first crack at replacing Dotson.
“I was just happy to have another opportunity to play with our family and our team,” Washington said. “I feel like it was a learning experience for everybody. We just have to take any momentum we have from this game and mistakes, and just build off of them to be ready for next year.”
Good
Redshirt sophomore defensive end Smith Vilbert: There were few spots as bright as Vilbert for Penn State Saturday afternoon. The redshirt sophomore showed the kind of upside that made him attractive as a recruit to the Nittany Lions. He’s an excellent athlete who is relatively new to football after focusing on basketball at first. Saturday that athleticism shined, with him bursting off the edge and driving Arkansas’ offensive tackles into their own backfield, resulting in three sacks. Those sacks not only tied him for second in sacks, but were his first three career sacks and tied an Outback Bowl record.
All three of the sacks came in the first half and showed just how good Penn State was against the Razorbacks’ passing game. The tenor of the game — and Vilbert’s impact — changed when they stopped throwing the ball for the most part in the second half, but the redshirt sophomore showed enough upside to have fans excited about what he might be able to accomplish next season.
Senior safety Ji’Ayir Brown: Brown was one of the few players who decided to return despite the opportunity to go relatively high in the 2022 NFL Draft and he immediately made the impact Penn State fans should hope he’ll have in 2022. The senior safety picked off Arkansas twice and both came in moments that prevented the offense from scoring. The first came on a pass to wide receiver Warren Thompson, who was wide open in the endzone. Brown sprinted halfway across the field, realizing how open Thompson was and that quarterback KJ Jefferson was readying to throw him the ball.
The second came near the end of the first half with Arkansas in field goal range, when the Razorbacks ran a trick play and Thompson threw an interception. Brown was a ball hawk all season and Saturday was a continuation of that.
Sophomore wide receiver Parker Washington: Penn State’s offense struggled for the most part Saturday but Washington was not at fault. He looked the part of a player who is ready to assume a much larger role next season and will have to with Dotson’s departure. The sophomore had an absurd one-handed catch against tight coverage in the game and consistently found himself open and able to create in the open field. He’s small in height at 5-foot-10, but is strong for his position at 207 pounds and could fill some of the role Dotson held but in a different way.
While Dotson excelled in space by making opponents miss, Washington can run through arm tackles and build up to his long speed. He’s the most likely current player to fill that role and made his case in his seven-catch 97-yard performance against the Razorbacks.
Arkansas’ offensive game plan: The Hogs had success running the ball early, saw it was working then doubled down on that game plan in the second half. The game plan and play-calling by offensive coordinator Kendal Briles allowed the offense to flourish and make it nearly impossible for Penn State to come back late. Once the Razorbacks went into the half down 10-7, Briles and his offense began building off the success they already had in the game’s first 30 minutes. He went run-heavy with an emphasis on quarterback runs that put Outback Bowl MVP KJ Jefferson in space in 1-on-1 situations with defenders that weren’t good enough tacklers to bring him down.
Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. and safety Jaylen Reed were in situations to bring Jefferson down for a loss or short gain, but were left in the dust by the quarterback, allowing him to consistently break off chunk gains and keep the Penn State defense tired and on the field.
Bad
Penn State’s second half run defense: The Penn State defense was without most of its starters, but still held strong in the first half against a strong running team in Arkansas. The Lions gave up 105 yards in the half, mostly limiting the Hogs for the most part. However, they were reinvigorated on the back of Jefferson’s rushing ability and the Lions were doomed from there. The blame for the poor run defense can fall many places, but most of them are circumstantial. Having an interim defensive coordinator in Anthony Poindexter calling plays, along with an inexperienced group of players, made it difficult to make the kind of adjustments necessary to stop Jefferson.
Instead, they simply played the hand they were dealt and tried to defend as well as they could with the personnel they had. The result was predictable, but not one that was necessarily preventable.
Nittany Lion passing offense: Penn State struggled to get the ball to open receivers on several occasions Saturday afternoon for reasons that fall at the feet of several people, but the team’s quarterback was not at his best. Redshirt senior starting quarterback Sean Clifford had a gutsy performance after taking several big hits in the game, but he still struggled when given ample time to throw. The hits wore on Clifford who seemed to become more unsettled as he took all of the hits — reasonably so. Those hits turned into situations where there was no pressure, but Clifford was still looking for a way out.
He took off from the pocket multiple times when eh had time to throw and missed a few open receivers downfield when he did have time, along with the poor decisions he made on forced throws. Clifford didn’t play well once he got hit a few times and it put the passing offense in a bad position.
Ugly
Offensive decision-making: The primary reason for all of the offense’s struggles comes down to the fact that the decision-making — at seemingly every level — was not good enough. That starts with the choice by offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich to make the same mistake he did against Michigan State, but inverted form. In that game, the Lions were having success throwing the ball against one of the worst defenses in the country and fell behind 23-20. Then, Yurcich’s offense ran the ball on nine of the next 15 plays and couldn’t move the ball enough. On Saturday the opposite occurred. Penn State had finally — finally — gained traction running the ball after beating its head against the wall in an attempt to do so all season and the Lions did it after running back Keyvone Lee broke off a few big gains.
Then, inexplicably, Lee didn’t touch the ball for an extended stretch and Penn State’s offense fell apart. Running the ball may not have changed the outcome of the game, but for a time desperate to do it successfully, it sure did abandon it quickly when it finally got going.
