The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 41-17 loss to Michigan
Penn State head coach James Franklin spoke softly but meaningfully about his team’s performance. He said all the right things, criticizing his own performance and his team’s while looking sullen and just as defeated as his team was in The Big House.
Franklin’s Nittany Lions had just lost to Michigan on the road, 41-17, and did so without putting up much of a fight.
“We did not control the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball,” Franklin said. “... Give them credit, but we didn’t play well. We didn’t play well.”
Things weren’t always bad for Penn State in the game. In fact, the Wolverines only led by two at halftime. That was despite a substantial advantage in both time of possession and yards.
Still, things were pointing upward after 14 unanswered points by the Nittany Lions gave them a brief 14-13 lead and led to a small scuffle on the way to their lockers at the half.
“Two great programs that love to compete, it wasn’t no more than that,” defensive tackle PJ Mustipher said. “That type of stuff happens in football all the time. Ton of credit to that program, love playing against them guys all the time.”
And then it crashed. The team fell apart and Penn State once again showed who it was after a 5-0 start to the season.
Good
Ji’Ayir Brown: I’m grasping here but Brown really was good for most of the game. He made several key plays early, preventing Blake Corum from turning 6-yard gains into 60-yard gains and peeling off blocks to make big stops in the backfield. Of course, he also missed opportunities that eventually did allow Corum and Donovan Edwards to make their mark with explosive touchdown runs. But still, we’re focusing on the good for now.
The senior safety has a way of finding himself around the ball and making plays on it when he has the opportunity. The tackle for loss he had in the first half was the perfect example. Michigan had a chance to score a touchdown early, but Brown pulled away from an offensive lineman and wrapped up the ball carrier to hold the Wolverines to a field goal. So at least that was good. …
Defense before it was exhausted: Did I mention that I’m grasping? There really wasn’t much good this game. I would love a temporary change to fine, ugly, pathetic but that isn’t how this works. The defense held strong early, holding the Wolverines to field goals on drives that looked like they would end with touchdowns. They firmed up in the redzone and made the necessary plays to keep the team in the game.
That means the running game, too. For as good as the Wolverines are on the ground, the Nittany Lions managed to find a way in the first half to limit them, despite the offense refusing to help it out by holding onto the ball. Instead the group was forced back onto the field shortly after each drive ended, setting it up for a beatdown in the second half, one it took without much resistance.
Bad
Defense after it was exhausted: And was it ever a beatdown. Michigan got whatever it wanted in the second half. The Wolverines ran all over the Penn State defense and embarrassed it along the way. They used Corum, they used Edwards and they even used sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy on occasion. The running game was the entire Wolverine offense for long stretches and there was nothing the Nittany Lions could do about it.
Players were jogging off the field slowly to catch their breath after plays while their replacements came in to attempt the futile task of stopping those backs. They were flat out exhausted the entire second half and the Michigan offensive line did not give them a moment to catch their bearings. Make no mistake, two different Penn State defenses showed up Saturday and the Wolverines are the ones who forced the second one to come out.
Offensive line: Penn State’s answer to Michigan’s dominant offensive line was its own playing about as poorly as humanly possible when the Nittany Lions ran the ball. The Wolverines got more than enough push up front all game long and that led to 13 carries for 41 yards for the team’s running backs. That’s, uh, not great. We all talked about — myself included — the Penn State running game taking a step forward but it regressed all the way back to 2021 Saturday afternoon.
The line didn’t get any push and the running backs didn’t do much once they had space. Of course, that didn’t happen much but they also tried to create it when it wasn’t there, leading to a loss of yards. Michigan has an elite defense, but that’s the kind of defense the team needs to be able to beat if it wants to be a top-level program.
Defensive line: I can probably be a little more specific here and blame the defensive line’s ability to stop the run but it also didn’t close space against the passing game well enough either. The group was exhausted as I’ve said already but they still have to show more than they did against Michigan. There was no real threat to Corum or Edwards that a lineman was going to blow up a play before it got started.
That was the case for essentially the entire second half and it sunk the game for Penn State. Had the group gotten some push against the run it would have given them a chance to get off the field on occasion in the game’s final 30 minutes. Of course, that didn’t happen and everyone saw how it went from there.
Passing game: Sean Clifford was not good enough for Penn State to win Saturday and it wasn’t entirely his fault. The whole passing unit set him up to fail but even when he had the chance to make plays in the passing game he usually missed. The exception, of course, was a beautiful deep ball to Tre Wallace that resulted in a 48-yard gain, but the rest was so bad I don’t know that I remembered many of them before re-watching the game.
His decisions were mostly not great, his accuracy was off the mark and the outcome was exactly what you’d expect with those ingredients. Clifford isn’t entirely to blame, assuming he isn’t the one calling all of the goal line fades, but he isn’t helping. Speaking of those fades, can we stop? Please? No more. I’m begging.
Ugly
Where Penn State goes from here: Here we are again. Penn State gains some momentum early in the season and finds itself highly ranked and with higher expectations. And then it combusts, falling apart in every way possible with nowhere to go. Last year it turned into two more losses in a row. This year it might do the same with a near-guarantee that at least one more is coming Oct. 29 against Ohio State.
I don’t know what to say anymore, if I’m being honest. The Nittany Lions are a good team and a good program. Right now they aren’t a great team or a great program. And I don’t even know how they get there. There were versions of the program that I thought would break through from great to elite but instead it has regressed. People will question the direction it goes from here and I’m not the one who has those answers. But I do know things are much different today than they were Friday.
