The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 55-10 win over Rutgers
Penn State’s wide receiver room was short its leading receiver Saturday evening in Piscataway, but for one night at least, that didn’t matter.
The Nittany Lions rolled to a 55-10 win over Rutgers, but the status of Parker Washington lingered in the consciousness of the team and head coach James Franklin spoke about his star receiver after the game.
“I will have to wait until Tuesday to talk to you about about Parker,” Franklin said. “I want to make sure I’m clear with what’s going on. I have not talked to Parker yet so I’d like to be able to do that first and then I’ll make sure I answer your question on Tuesday.”
Washington’s absence would be a big one if he can’t play next week against Michigan State or in the team’s bowl game in over a month. He has 46 catches for 611 yards and two touchdowns, leading the team in the first two categories.
He’s also the team’s punt returner and a big play threat whenever he has the ball in his hands, giving the offense a chance to score on any given play.
Without him, a group that includes Harrison Wallace III, Omari Evans, Liam Clifford and others will have to step up and make a difference. Wallace made the biggest imprint of the players who don’t typically start with three catches for 49 yards but Franklin said the whole group made a difference.
“I think pretty good,” Franklin said about how they played. ”Early on we weren’t in rhythm the way I felt that we needed to be. Parker (Washington), obviously not having him for this game, that’s a big loss as you guys know. A good percentage of our passing game has gone through him not just this year, but last year. He’s a leader for us as well. I thought those other guys did a nice job. Obviously we’re going have to build on it. We’ll see how this plays out with Parker, but we’re going have to build on it. Either way, their rep count is going to go up.”
Good
Pass defense: Penn State’s defense as a whole was a terror for Rutgers in the game, so we’ll split it up and start with the passing game. Gavin Wimsatt is a young quarterback with talent, but the Nittany Lions made his life miserable Saturday evening. The team’s cornerbacks were sticky, rarely leaving the Scarlet Knights’ receivers with any space to make plays. The safeties were looming, ready to pounce on any lofted pass by the Rutgers quarterback.
Not to mention, the defensive line and linebackers. Defensive coordinator Manny Diaz consistently dialed up pressure and got after Wimsatt, and even when he didn’t the Nittany Lions found their way home with four rushers. They finished with four sacks but pushed the Rutgers quarterback off his spot time and time again and made it hard for him to settle in and find his receivers. Penn State’s pass defense has been better than it was Saturday, but it was still very good in the game.
Run defense: Rutgers broke off a few reasonable runs early in the game but the Nittany Lions put a stop to that fairly quickly. They filled their gaps and put a halt to the rushing attack for most of the game, limiting the Scarlet Knights to 54 yards on 27 carries that weren’t by quarterbacks. That’s not to say Wimsatt was a threat as a runner. It just eliminated the negative rushing yards he accumulated while he was getting sacked.
The Penn State defense had been gashed in the past by good running backs (see: Corum, Blake) but has handled lesser ground attacks with relative ease. Saturday evening was a case of the latter and forced Rutgers into a deficit and therefore into throwing passes. Once that snowball started rolling downhill it wasn’t going to stop, and the Scarlet Knights never had a chance.
Mitch Tinsley: Penn State not having Washington forced players down the depth chart into larger roles but it also forced senior wide receiver Mitch Tinsley to become the team’s best option. And he delivered. Tinsley was the best receiver on the field in the game and did much more than his five catches for 63 yards would lead you to believe.
He did what he’s done most of the season, consistently getting open and finding soft spots in the defense when he needed to. Not to mention, Tinsley was excellent in the open field, turning on the jets and blowing by defenders at times and dragging defenders with him at others. He’s the type of player who fans could look back on and wonder how he didn’t produce more as a Nittany Lion when he’s making big plays on Sundays in the National Football League.
Kaytron Allen: Sure seems like at least one of Penn State’s freshman running backs is going to make this category every week. This time it was Kaytron Allen’s turn as he eclipsed the 700-yard mark for the season. That’s significant because it makes him and Nick Singleton the only freshman duo in Big Ten history to both reach 700 rushing yards in one season.
Allen ended the game with 11 carries for 117 yards and a touchdown and looked as impressive as the numbers made it seem. He turned defenders into carry-ons as he lugged them with him down the field. His abilities to fight for tough yards and stay on balance through contact make him an excellent partner alongside Singleton. This week it was his turn to prove just how good he can be and give the Nittany Lions the jolt they needed on offense.
Bad
Offensive line/Sean Clifford: These two things tie together this week. The Nittany Lion offense struggled mightily in the first half of the game and most of the blame for that falls at the feet of the offensive line and the quarterback. Penn State struggled in the trenches when it had the ball Saturday evening whenever pass plays were called. The group gave up too much pressure early and didn’t allow Clifford to settle in at quarterback.
However, he also didn’t do much to help the linemen’s cause once he felt the pressure early. Clifford tried to escape a few clean pockets that he didn’t need to and gave away opportunities to earn first downs. This was not that bad of a Clifford performance, but he still made mistakes you wouldn’t want to see out of a sixth-year quarterback who’s in his fourth year leading the program as the starter.
Rutgers: Give the Scarlet Knights credit for coming out and creating chaos early in this one. There was a stretch where it looked like Rutgers might be able to hang in the game and give the Nittany Lions a scare — more on that in a second — but it didn’t last long. The Scarlet Knights just don’t have the talent to match up with Penn State and Saturday showed they remain a long way away from battling with the elite of the Big Ten.
That’s not to say Greg Schiano isn’t the right head coach or they can’t get to consistent bowl games. I think they can and they probably will with Schiano at the helm. But right now this is a bad football team that’s listless on offense. Once the program figures that side of the ball out, maybe then we can have conversations about it taking a step forward.
Ugly
The first quarter: It’s been a minute since I’ve seen football that bad. I mean, that was some of the worst football I’ve seen in years and both sides were actively contributing to it. Bad turnovers. Egregious mistakes. Failures on special teams. That quarter had all of the chaos you could want. It was so close to even having back to back kickoff return touchdowns. Part of that was Penn State’s offense being pedestrian once again, but the other part was the Rutgers defense being completely incapable of capitalizing on it.
Look, Penn State’s offense was the last of its three units to score a touchdown. Yes. That’s right. The defense and the special teams both scored before the offense got on the board. It was U-G-L-Y. And honestly I kind of loved it. I think we all knew Penn State was going to blow out Rutgers eventually. The talent gap was just too wide. I’m glad both teams at least provided some entertainment value early on before the onslaught began.
