The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 51-15 win over Maryland

Penn State has won plenty this year, but few matchups have played out like Saturday’s 51-15 win over Maryland. The Nittany Lions never trailed and never looked like a team that was going to falter. That’s a far cry from how they’ve performed on the road most of this season, with up and down showings against Northwestern and Illinois still ending in victory but one against Ohio State leading to a loss.

Saturday’s matchup was far superior to those. The offense was humming on all cylinders. The defense was dominant throughout. Alex Felkins was on the money on his three field goal attempts.

This was a thorough domination.

And that’s crucial because of what comes next. At 8-1, all of Penn State’s goals are possible with some help. But all of that goes out the window with a loss to Michigan last week — a Michigan team that is No. 3 in the country and dominating most opponents.

Saturday was a good sign for the Nittany Lions, but the real test for how far they have come in the last two weeks as an offense will come against the Wolverines. Until then, this will have to do.

Good

Drew Allar: I think you’d be hard pressed to find a game Drew Allar has played better at Penn State than this one. He was on the money from the jump, hitting receivers at all three levels of the field while consistently making the right decisions. The numbers — 25-of-34 passing for 240 yards and 4 touchdowns — are good and all but he looked different out there Saturday. There was confidence in every throw. No second guessing if he should sling it deep. No wondering if he should take off and run. No worries about whether he had enough of a window to throw.

Allar was flat out ripping it against Maryland. This is the quarterback many thought was going to start this year and there isn’t a better time for him to get going than heading into next week’s matchup with Michigan.

Dante Cephas: What a game for Dante Cephas. He had yet to put things together at Penn State after playing at a high level at Kent State, but Saturday sure felt like a breakout performance. He finished with 6 catches for 56 yards and 2 touchdowns in his best game yet as a Nittany Lion. Like Allar, it’s not just about the numbers. Cephas was confident and looked like he had Allar’s trust. The two touchdowns were both beautiful throws and beautiful catches on shots to the corner of the end zone where space is limited. Maybe those are the catches people expect a receiver as good as Cephas to make, but this was the first time he had been asked to do it at Penn State.

Maybe it ends up meaning nothing, but I’m willing to bet this offense has its No. 2 receiving option and the player it thought it was getting all along.

Kaytron Allen: I’ve been on this for a while now, but it really is clear that Kaytron Allen is Penn State’s best running back right now. Nick Singleton has all the talent in the world but for whatever reason has not been able to put it together consistently this season. That has put the onus on Allen to carry the load, and he’s done that thus far. That’s not to say that the entire running game is on him or that Singleton shouldn’t see the field. But at this point it does mean that he should be the starter and Singleton should be more of a change of pace back to spell him for the time being.

Allen has excellent vision and does a great job of finding holes, getting to them and carrying defenders for extra yardage by driving his legs. Saturday’s 14 carries for 91 yards and a touchdown was just another example of that.

Mike Yurcich: Credit where it’s due, offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich was great on Saturday. At no point did it feel like the offense was getting predictable — something that has plagued it this season — and it continued to hammer home what was working. Given how often Maryland didn’t have safeties playing over the top, it should be no surprise that the Nittany Lions kept firing on deep shots. It’s easy to say that after the fact, but much harder to do in-game when one or two miss. Fortunately for Penn State, Allar was hitting early and often and there was never much doubt about whether or not those calls were the correct ones.

Not to mention, the Beau Pribula package, with the backup quarterback on the field alongside Drew Allar, proved fruitful with a touchdown. Now, it didn’t look pretty and I don’t know that it was exactly how it was drawn up, but it did create a few openings for the Nittany Lions to potentially exploit.

The defense: I’m just going to have to bunch the whole defense together this week. The group has stood out on the line at times and others its been the secondary. But this week it was all three levels and included arguably the team’s best performance at linebacker all season. Most of that credit has to go to sophomore linebacker Abdul Carter. Carter hasn’t been at his absolute best this season but Saturday’s game was a prime example of how he can wreck a game. He earned a sack in the game and was finding himself near the ball consistently in the running game.

He also had a pass breakup that could have been an interception because he jumped the passing lane so well. That would’ve only capped off an elite day by an elite defense.

Bad

Penalties: There wasn’t much negative that happened against the Terps, but penalties were an issue. Now, the reason this is here and not the ugly section is because I don’t know how valid some of the calls were. The biggest ones ultimately led to Maryland’s two touchdowns — with a Liam Clifford roughing the punter extending the first drive and a Johnny Dixon pass interference extending the second. The first seemed to be a good call despite Clifford nearly blocking the punt, but the second was more up in the air. Dixon grabbed the receivers jersey, but the ball looked like it was uncatchable, which would take pass interference off the table.

Even so, those kinds of drive extending penalties can’t happen next week and could burn the team more in the long run.

Ugly

Maryland’s trajectory: This was rough to watch. The Terps started the year scorching hot with Taulia Tagovailoa leading a high-flying offense and since then its been a complete dud. When a team starts 5-0, bowl eligibility shouldn’t really be a question. But four games later and Maryland is 5-4 with no guarantee of a postseason. There are two potential wins on the schedule, but both of those games are on the road against a Nebraska team that is on Maryland’s level and a Rutgers one that I would probably pick over the Terps right now. They play Michigan, too, but ... yeah ... not happening.

This quickly went from a “Why isn’t Maryland ranked?” conversation in late September to a “Where does Maryland go from here?” one. Not great.

Jon Sauber

Centre Daily Times

(814) 231-6461

Jon Sauber covers Penn State football and men’s basketball for the Centre Daily Times. He earned his B.A. in digital and print journalism from Penn State and his M.A. in sports journalism from IUPUI. His previous stops include jobs at The Indianapolis Star, the NCAA, and Rivals.