The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 45-14 win over Indiana
Questions swirled around who Penn State head coach James Franklin would go with at quarterback heading into Saturday’s game.
On one hand, there was Sean Clifford — an above average starter who was great at times and bad at others with mistakes that could crush a team’s chances of winning.
On the other was Drew Allar — a freshman phenom who had done nothing but impress and live up to his five-star rating as a recruit but only in limited action.
There were plenty of opinions from the outside on what the team should do. Some said Clifford gave the team the best chance to win and should start, some said that was true but the team should move to Allar to prepare for the future and some (me) even said Allar was both the right answer for winning right now and in the future.
In the end, there was no real decision for Franklin to make.
“Nothing had changed,” he said after the team’s 45-14 win over Indiana. “... Everybody still saw it the same way. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t too close to the decision. Literally to a man, everybody saw it the same way.”
The decision he and his staff made worked out to near perfection on Saturday with Clifford building a lead and Allar playing the rest of the way once the game was out of reach.
While there may be a consensus within the building, there surely will be continued discussion outside of it after Clifford was good for the most part, yet still threw an interception, and Allar was very good in his limited action.
Good
Pass rush: It’s hard to have a much better day than Penn State did on the edge. The Nittany Lions made life miserable for the Indiana offensive tackles for the portion of the game when it was still within reach, racking up six sacks in the process. That number could have been even higher, but Indiana’s quarterbacks had a few occasions where they dumped the ball before the Nittany Lion defensive ends had a chance to finish the play.
The number of victories on the outside was much higher than those six sacks, with defensive ends meeting at the quarterback more than once during the game. Chop Robinson was dominant, showing the elite first step he’s had all season and using it to blow by offensive linemen. Combine that with a few well timed blitzes and it’s easy to see why Penn State looked as dominant as it did.
Ji’Ayir Brown: Brown has become a mainstay in this section and for good reason. He is always in position to succeed, even when things don’t play out in the way you would expect. The obvious contribution he made was his sack that continued to keep the pressure on the Indiana offense. Brown has become increasingly valuable as a pass rusher to add to his already wide array of skills when opponents drop back to pass.
Those skills were also on display, even if it didn’t show up in the box score. Indiana tried to run a screen to one of its wide receivers but Abdul Carter broke up the pass before it got to its intended target. Well, it was never getting to that target. Brown was about to have a walk-in touchdown if the pass got through because he read the play and was going to pick the pass off with nobody in front of him. Again, that’s not in the box score, but it’s another example of just how good he has been all season.
Kaytron Allen: Nick Singleton received most of the hype for Penn State heading into this season at running back and for good reason. He’s an explosive back who can break off a big play at any moment with a power and speed combo that’s hard to find. Singleton has been great this season, but it’s Allen who has proven to be the more consistent back and he did it again on Saturday.
He’s a very different back, one who relies on vision and contact-balance to find holes and stay on his feet when defenders try to bring him down. That led to the freshman carrying the ball 18 times for 86 yards and three touchdowns against the Hoosiers. Those attributes are invaluable near the goal line where they combine with his overall strength to punch the ball into the end zone in short yardage situations. Allen may have been underappreciated before, but that won’t be the case anymore.
Offensive line replacements: Penn State was banged up in the trenches heading into Saturday’s game in a way that could have been extremely problematic. Olu Fashanu — the best lineman on the roster — was out. Caedan Wallace, the team’s longtime starting right tackle, was out. Landon Tengwall, who was emerging as a high level starter at left guard, was out. Sal Wormley, the team’s starting right guard, was banged up and in and out of the game.
But by the time the final whistle blew those absences could almost have been forgotten. Drew Shelton, a true freshman, filled in at left tackle and did so admirably. As did Hunter Nourzad at left guard and JB Nelson at the same spot for Nourzad when he went out with an injury. Same with Bryce Effner at right tackle. Across the board, Penn State’s depth shined along the offensive line. Given how the program has struggled along the offensive line prior to this season, that might be the year’s most shocking development.
Bad
Indiana’s quarterbacks: I get it — Jack Tuttle isn’t too different from a departing senior, but it’s at least a little weird to start a quarterback who has already announced he’s entering the transfer portal after the season. Especially over someone like Dexter Williams, who could be the team’s starter next year at quarterback. But, I digress.
It didn’t matter much who was in there for the Hoosiers. The Indiana quarterbacks struggled with decision making and didn’t get the ball out quickly enough more often than not, and it put the team behind the sticks on offense.
Of course, Williams was the only one who gave the offense some juice when he was in the game. He made a few plays and helped the team drive down the field to score. Things sure do seem to be messy in Bloomington for a program that seemed like it was on the rise two years ago.
Penn State’s QB containment: The one flaw Penn State had on defense was that it struggled to contain Tuttle early on when he scrambled. The Hoosiers couldn’t get anything going through the air, but the quarterback was able to take off for chunk plays on the ground. Now, that wasn’t entirely on the players in coverage. Most of the time it happened when the team blitzed and Indiana successfully picked it up.
Still, there should be a safety valve on the back end after the quarterback runs for several big gains early on in the game. The issue rectified itself when the Nittany Lions got home on the blitzes called by defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, but that doesn’t change that the early struggles could have been a bigger problem if Indiana was, ya know, better at football.
Ugly
Indiana’s red zone defense: Penn State was awesome on offense in the red zone and part of that is because Indiana could not have been much worse. The Nittany Lions converted six of their seven red zone opportunities Saturday; really, they converted six of six because the final one came in the game’s waning moments, and they mercifully let the clock expire instead of trying to score.
Indiana had no answer for Allen, who was a force from in close, and couldn’t do much with Singleton either, who beat the Hoosiers to the pylon on a toss for a touchdown of his own. That doesn’t even include the two touchdowns Allar threw — one a wide open pass to Theo Johnson, and the other a dart to Tre Wallace in the back of the end zone. Penn State was good in the red zone, but Indiana was terrible.
