The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 33-14 win over Central Michigan
Zakee Wheatley saw a pass coming from Daniel Richardson and broke on the ball, intercepting it before it got to its intended target. Not long after, Johnny Dixon went up and snatched a pass from Richardson out of the air after blanketing the receiver he was covering. Then Kalen King gave up a completion before ripping and clawing at the ball, eventually popping it out and recovering it.
Penn State’s defensive backs, all in their second year with the program, came up big as the entire defensive unit continues coming into its own. This week it was the secondary that turned Central Michigan over and got the ball back for its offense.
“Turnover battle, that’s been huge for us so far this season,” head coach James Franklin said. “Four to zero (this game).”
The defense continues to thrive under coordinator Manny Diaz, bringing pressure and forcing mistakes by opponents more and more as the weeks go on. His play-calling and gameplan have been spot on the last two weeks, even though the team gave up 14 points Saturday to an offense it was clearly outplaying.
Diaz brought with him the “hit hammer” that goes to the previous week’s biggest hit, with it going this week to Abdul Carter, but more importantly he’s brought an energy to the Penn State defense that allows his players to thrive and play the type of football that’s conducive to winning at the highest levels.
“Manny Diaz always has the juice, man,” King said. “He’s just a very energetic coach who loves to see his players make plays. So when you make them, it’s a great feeling. So you’ve got no choice but to be hype. I love hype coaches.”
Good
Getting the win: Pretty simple, sure, but it didn’t seem that way for all 60 minutes Saturday afternoon. Penn State’s 14-0 lead evaporated jarringly quickly and created a tension in the stadium. The kind of tension most people can feel before an enormous upset or a game that becomes far closer than prognosticators expected. That tension loomed throughout the contest, but was ultimately gone by the end. That’s a good thing for a team that went from a preseason nine- or 10-win team to a potential Big Ten contender.
The Nittany Lions have lost these games before. Maybe not to Central Michigan, but to Maryland and to Minnesota and Northwestern. They went into the matchup with all the momentum in the world and every reason to believe they would blow the doors off the Chippewas. That didn’t happen, and when faced with adversity Penn State didn’t crumble. That counts for something in a season where the undefeated teams are dropping like flies.
Kaytron Allen: Nick Singleton has gotten most of the attention for the first three weeks of the season but the other Nittany Lion freshman running back is pretty good, too. Allen, who would be starting in most running back rooms across the country, earned the first 100-yard rushing performance of his college career, racking up 111 and a touchdown on 13 carries in the game. The running back goes by Fatman, but has looked far from his namesake through four games.
He’s nimble in the backfield, carving up defenses with swift cuts that get him into space and upfield before defenders can react. He may not have the elite breakaway speed of Singleton, but he’s still plenty fast and has elite contact balance that allows him to stay on his feet even when defenders try to knock him over. Allen made sure everyone knew this was not a one man show in the Penn State running back room Saturday.
Safety play: Penn State has four starting caliber safeties, and maybe even five, but two have separated themselves to a level above the others. Ji’Ayir Brown, one of the best in the country coming into the year, and Zakee Wheatley look the part of yet another elite safety duo for the Nittany Lions. Brown is an all-around gamer. He attacks running backs with a fearlessness, bringing down open field runners before they can break a big gain, and turns over opposing quarterbacks, seeing their throws long before they’ve even let the ball go.
Wheatley is already looking to be the next iteration of Brown. He can already cover after converting from corner, but displays a toughness and willingness to tackle in the running game. Of course, it helps that he always finds his way to the football, just like Brown. Wheatley picked up his second interception of the season against Central Michigan, sprinting from the middle of the field to pick off the ball. He may not start yet, but he will soon enough and when he does he will have done more than enough to earn it.
Sean Clifford at the bookends: It’s hard to argue Clifford was anything other than spectacular to begin and end the game. He started 8-of-8 passing for 103 yards and two touchdowns, dicing up the Chippewa defense and hitting his receivers in stride. He ended 7-of-9 passing, connecting with his weapons once again in places where they could make the catch safely or turn up the field and go after they had the ball in their hands.
Clifford has been plagued by inconsistency in his career, but the front and back ends of the game were far from inconsistent. He was consistently good and a major part of the reason the team was able to string together long drives and score. Of course, there’s a reason this isn’t about him being good for the whole game. This is about the beginning and the end. That’s because the middle was, well...
Bad
Sean Clifford in the middle: What a stark contrast and a true embodiment of Clifford’s entire career this game was. For as good as he was at the bookends, he was equally as bad in the middle, completing 7 of his 17 passing attempts for only 50 yards. More importantly, he wasn’t giving the offense the chance to succeed. His throws were errant, missing high and low without giving his receivers much of a chance to haul them in.
Even when he was hitting his targets, his passes were still off the mark. His completions in that span didn’t lead to much work after the catch for his receivers because the throws were often too far behind them, not thrown with the anticipation it takes to create big plays most of the time. Clifford was Jekyll and he was Hyde on Saturday. His best was some of the best of his career and his worst was some of the worst. Through four seasons as a starter, inconsistency seems to be the one consistency in Clifford’s game.
Points off turnovers: For the second week in a row Penn State’s defense turned their opponents over at least three times and for the second week in a row the offense didn’t capitalize enough. The Nittany Lions had four takeaways against Central Michigan but only seven points off them. The offense was only able to score off two of those and both of those came with the shortest of fields.
The first was a 15-yard drive after Wheatley’s interception and the second was a 7-yard drive after a Central Michigan muffed punt. Penn State’s offense has been up and down this season but it needs to find more of the “up” after the defense earns it an extra possession. Turnovers are going to be a staple of the Nittany Lions’ defense as long as Diaz is at the helm, but those aren’t going to mean as much if there isn’t an offense that can make them worthwhile.
Ugly
Kicking game: This is something Penn State has to figure out, and fast. Barney Amor was phenomenal as a punter but the rest of the kicking game was horrendous. A blocked extra point, two missed field goals and inconsistent kickoffs plagued the Nittany Lions on Saturday. That doesn’t matter as much against Central Michigan, a team Penn State overpowered with its talent despite not playing its best for most of the game, but it will matter later this season.
Specifically, it’s going to matter against Ohio State and Michigan, and those games aren’t far away. Jake Pinegar took some kickoffs this week after Sander Sahaydak and Gabe Nwosu previously shared those duties, which somewhat helped. However, he had his extra point blocked and his field goal missed from 38 yards out. The other miss was more forgivable, 56 yards from Sahaydak, but missing from short distances is not good and it’s definitely not going to be good enough when the schedule gets tougher.
