The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State’s undefeated first half of the 2024 season
Penn State is halfway through the regular season and now on its second and final bye week of 2024.
How have the Nittany Lions fared? Let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from the team’s first six games.
Good
Andy Kotelnicki: It’s hard to imagine James Franklin’s most recent offensive coordinator hire performing much better to this point in the season. Yes, the offense still has its flaws, but right now those are vastly outweighed by the creativity and execution the unit has had this year. You won’t find many groups around the country that have seen its players utilized more effectively than Penn State’s. Kotelnicki has maintained a focus on one of the major points of emphasis from Franklin during the offseason — getting the ball to the team’s playmakers — and has done it by putting them in unusual positions. Linemen are lining up outside, pass catchers are snapping the ball, tight ends are in the backfield and running backs are lined up at receiver. All of those players are given added advantages by the way the coordinator utilizes them.
And there are many reasons Franklin should be thrilled with the hire he made, but the top one has yet to play out — the way Kotelnicki calls an offense should put Penn State in position to upset Ohio State in November.
Tyler Warren: The biggest beneficiary of everything Kotelnicki has done to this point is Warren. He is well on his way to winning the Mackey Award, given annually to college football’s most outstanding tight end, and has proven to be the best player on the offense — and probably the best on the team. He’s already racked up 40 catches for 513 yards and four touchdowns as a receiver, along with two passing completions on two attempts for 26 yards and a touchdown and five carries for 38 yards in a touchdown. All of those things don’t even fill out the full picture with Warren, either, because he’s also been a very good blocker for the Nittany Lions this season.
There isn’t much he can’t do at this point, and I have to think his role in the offense will only expand as the team plays tougher matchups the rest of the season.
Secondary: Penn State lost so much from its secondary last season that it would have been easy for this year’s iteration to be one of the worst groups on the team. All three starting corners and two key rotating players at safety from the 2023 team are all gone and have somehow been replaced by an even better group. This year’s starting corners and safeties have played at an incredibly high level — even with star safety K.J. Winston being out since the Bowling Green game with what Franklin has called a long-term injury.
A.J. Harris, Jalen Kimber, Elliot Washington II and Cam Miller have been tremendous at corner, while Zakee Wheatley and Jaylen Reed have both proven to be high-level safeties in the middle. Harris and Reed in particularly have helped take the defense as a whole to another level and have established themselves as some of the best at their position in the Big Ten.
Drew Allar: The primary beneficiary of Kotelnicki has been Warren, but Allar has to be second on that list. He’s taken another step this season — some of that is a natural progression because he’s more experienced than he was a year ago, but some is the offensive coordinator setting him up to succeed. One of the best things Kotelnicki has done is create a running game that takes the pressure off Allar’s shoulders. Once that gets going, it gives opponents something to think about and allows Allar to get into a rhythm — something else the OC has done well — with easier throws as the defense hesitates due to the running game.
The junior quarterback will only continue to improve as he spends more time in this offense, and I tend to think he’ll elevate his game as the stage gets brighter. He’s in a great position to have the kind of game against Ohio State that could launch him into a much different conversation — the Heisman one.
Bad
Linebacker depth: This is something worth monitoring the rest of the way, as the position has limited depth. Kobe King and Tony Rojas have proven they’re quality starters — and frankly much more than that — but not many players behind them have proven worthy of significant snaps against the best offenses they’ll face. That was the case against USC, it will be the case against Ohio State, and it may even be the case against Washington.
The team’s backups all struggle to operate in space, but the good news is help could be on the way. DaKaari Nelson switched from safety to linebacker and has taken more snaps at the position, while Franklin said he’s hoping the team will get Keon Wylie back this season. Wylie has been out with a long-term injury and would be a massive addition to a position that could sorely use him.
Injury issues: Wylie’s long-term absence, and Winston’s, are two of many that have hit the Nittany Lions this season. Those two are joined by running back Cam Wallace, tight end Andrew Rappleyea and defensive end Zuriah Fisher with long-term injuries. All five of those players were expected to have roles this season, with Winston expected to be arguably the team’s best player and the other four all expected to contribute with varying degrees of roles on the 2024 team.
That doesn’t even account for wide receiver Kaden Saunders, who was out for the team’s win over USC and has missed significant time this season. He was one of five receivers who was expected to play a role in the offense and without him the already thin position takes another hit. Like Wylie, Franklin said he’s hoping to have Saunders back at some point this season.
Ugly
The team’s start to games: This has been seemingly everyone’s biggest issue with the team this year and I think it’s fair. The offense has started slow at times, but I’m more willing to wave that away. There have been long drives by the group to begin a game, just for something odd — like a bad offensive pass interference call against USC — to stall it out.
The defense, however, does not get the same pass. The group is allowing too many long drives to start games that makes it feel like the team is in a bigger hole than it actually is. The Bowling Green game is an obvious example given that the Falcons don’t have a good offense, but I think the USC start was worse. The Trojans gashed Tom Allen’s defense time and time again in the first two quarters, almost putting the game too far out of reach for the team to come back. The bright side for Penn State fans is the defense still showed up in the second half and played at a high level like it has in almost every game this season.
But inevitably an early deficit will doom the Nittany Lions. And it’s the exact kind of thing that could get the team eliminated from the College Football Playoff earlier than expected.
