The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 35-31 win over Purdue
There was a feeling of inevitability in the air in West Lafayette Thursday night. Yes, Penn State had been up 11 to start the second half, yes they just needed one score to take the lead and yes they had the offensive ability to go down the field and score.
Yet, a loss was surely on its way.
Sean Clifford was struggling. Seemingly nothing could go his way. He threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown, he threw balls behind open receivers and all of that after he left the game for a drive with cramps.
Yet, when the final whistle sounded, he had won. He marched off the Ross-Ade Stadium grass and into the Penn State locker room a winner — bucking the inevitability that loomed like a cloud over the Nittany Lions’ struggles.
His head coach, ever the optimist with his quarterback, credited him for gutting out the victory.
“In my opinion, Sean has shown character in his entire career,” Franklin said. “...Turnovers for touchdowns are significant, but yeah he battled back. ... He showed a bunch of character, showed a bunch of toughness. Obviously it takes a ton of confidence to bounce back from a pick-six and lead your team to a game-winning drive. I’m proud of him.”
At the end of the day Penn State accomplished its goal. The Nittany Lions went on the road in its season opener and — led by its senior quarterback — earned a victory.
But the win was instructive and it may have been earned, but there’s plenty of reason to believe Penn State needs much more growth to reach its goals. A victory over the Boilermakers was the sought after feat this week, but long term this is a team that wants to compete in the Big Ten.
And not really just compete. It wants to win. Thursday night was a decent start, but the Nittany Lions have much further to go if they want it to be more than that.
Good
Pass blocking: During the postgame press conference, Franklin said his team gave up too many sacks and pressures , but I would guess on a rewatch of the game he won’t feel that way. The Nittany Lions only gave up one sack — on which Caedan Wallace got torched by Scotty Humpich and was subsequently removed for Bryce Effner, a move which Franklin said was planned. Not only that, they rarely gave up any real pressure. Sure, on the final offensive play of the game Clifford had to roll out, but Purdue blitzed everyone. You can only block so many defenders.
More often than not it was Clifford’s happy feet that got him in trouble moreso than the offensive line failing to play at a sufficient level. There is still plenty of room for growth in the offensive trenches but Thursday night was a good sign. Olu Fashanu has the looks of a cornerstone offensive tackle, the guards rotating in were all successful and so was Juice Scruggs at center. Wallace struggled on that one rep but his play didn’t stand out as a negative prior to it. Then again, this isn’t overly surprising. Penn State pass blocked well last year too.
Defense: Manny Diaz’s debut was generally a success. His emphasis in aggressiveness was apparent, with the Nittany Lions getting ever-so-close to multiple interceptions that for one reason or another fell incomplete. There are reasons to be concerned — Adisa Isaac did not look as athletic as he has in the past and the corners held too much — but all in all the win has to be considered a success for the defense. Seven of the 31 points Purdue scored were because of the offense, and you could easily argue that giving up 24 points to a team led by Jeff Brohm as its playcaller is a win.
The team forced Purdue to sustain long drives, which it did, and limited big plays while creating turnover opportunities. That’s the type of modern defense that can reach the highest levels of success in college football. It’s just a matter of time until those turnover opportunities turn into turnovers.
Passing play designs: This has been a staple of Mike Yurcich’s offenses for years. He draws them up with the best of them and can easily put his best players in position to succeed. Few in the country are as adept at getting their playmakers in space with an opportunity to make a big play. The Nittany Lions had plenty of those big play opportunities tonight, they just didn’t convert. Clifford missed a few throws to open players and didn’t see other ones.
Still, the chances were there because of Yurcich. His pass-heavy offenses have been consistently, well, awesome and open up the running game — especially late in games. It’s a wonder that this team was so hellbent on establishing that it could run the ball, but we’ll get to that soon.
Drew Allar’s brief debut: I know, I know. It was one drive. It was four passing attempts. The stakes were low since the team had the lead. With all of those caveats in mind, holy cow was Allar good in that very limited action. I questioned just how ready he would be as a true freshman. He was the No. 1 quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class according to some rankings, but he still had a raw skill-set. Yeah. No.
Allar is going to be really good and he already might be. There would without a doubt be growing pains if he started right now but he was still responsible for the best throw of the night. The freshman turned a throw loose on a read that was — admittedly — probably not the right one. He had an open receiver downfield, but instead tried to fit a pass between a safety and a corner as Tyler Warren ran between them toward the sideline. And he did. Warren dropped the pass but Allar put it right on the money. Yeah, yeah, one throw, I know. I don’t often go out on a limb like this with such a small sample size. But there’s no way to talk around it. Allar is good. And he might even be really, really good.
Bad
Sean Clifford: This isn’t really a fair category for Clifford, but he needs to be discussed and this isn’t good, inconsistent, ugly or good, fine, ugly, so we’ll stick him here. The redshirt senior starting quarterback was mostly who he’s always been in the first half. He was inconsistent, but at times good, and too often felt pressure that wasn’t there and didn’t set his feet. The second half was much different. After he came out of the game with cramps, Clifford returned and imploded momentarily.
He was missing players behind them, too far out front, too high and too low. He missed open teammates, threw a costly interception and seemed like he was destined to cede control of the offense back to Allar for the rest of the game — and maybe longer.
But that didn’t happen. Clifford went from consistently bad to in complete command at a moment’s notice. He was calm, cool and collected as he led the Nittany Lions down the field on what would be the game-winning drive. He even capped it with a nice lofted pass to Keyvone Lee for a touchdown when he was rolling out to escape Purdue’s all-out blitz. This is who Clifford is. His highs are good, his lows are bad and he’s usually fluctuating between both throughout games.
Insistence on running: I don’t get it and I probably never will. I said it earlier. Yurcich’s offenses are awesome, and always have been, when they’re airing the ball out and suddenly hitting teams with a run that turns into an explosive play. So why is Penn State constantly trying to run? The offense’s first four sets of downs all began with two runs. There really aren’t many better coordinators better at navigating an explosive passing offense but here we are.
The team has good running backs, it has an improving offensive line, but it has an offensive coordinator with a playbook that suits a pass-first team incredibly well. The whole idea of his previous offenses has been to throw all over teams and hit them with runs when necessary or when they least expect it. Not at Penn State. It’s fair to wonder if his offense will ever be fully maximized with the Nittany Lions as long as the program continues to insist on running early and often.
Ugly
Jeff Brohm’s play-calling with the lead: Purdue should’ve won. The Boilermakers outplayed Penn State for long stretches, they avoided turning the ball over for the most part and they even had a lead late in the fourth quarter. The only reason they didn’t was because they left the Nittany Lions with the ball and too much time on the clock. That could’ve been avoided had Brohm run the ball. I am fully on board with offenses throwing late in games because they don’t have the running game to milk the clock. But that’s the thing, Purdue was running the ball well.
Running back King Doerue was doing enough to trust him late in the game, but Brohm didn’t give it to him. Giving him the ball and then surprising Penn State with a pass could have ended in a win. Instead, Purdue only forced the Nittany Lions to call one timeout and allowed them to get the ball back. And we all saw how it ended.
This story was originally published September 2, 2022 at 9:35 AM.
