The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State’s 45-37 Big Ten title game loss to Oregon
Penn State closed out the non-playoff portion of its 2024 season Saturday night with a 45-37 loss in the Big Ten title game to Oregon.
Let’s take an abbreviated look at the good, the bad and the ugly from the game.
Good
Penn State’s offensive explosion: This might have been the most surprising part of Saturday’s game. Penn State’s offense this season has consistently been really good. But even its best performances don’t look like the kind you’re used to seeing from elite offenses — ones where the quarterback is slinging the ball and the running backs are breaking off big gains. But on Saturday, against one of the 10 best defenses in the country, the Nittany Lions exploded.
And it happened on the ground and through the air. Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen each ran for over 100 yards while averaging at least 8.9 yards per carry. Star tight end Tyler Warren caught seven passes for 84 yards, and even Tre Wallace caught four passes for 59 yards and a touchdown. There were moments of brilliance from the team’s best players — like when Drew Allar threw a dart to Warren from one hashmark to the opposite sideline.
This was as good as it gets for the Penn State offense, and the performance served as tangible evidence the team can take a bigger step forward in the College Football Playoff.
Bad
Passivity in a crucial moment: James Franklin gets credit for making the right decision in one instance — going for two when the team was down eight — but gets docked for being far too passive in another. And to get this out of the way before I criticize Franklin, the two-point decision is smart because if it’s successful then another touchdown wins the game. And if it fails, then you can go for two again later and get right back to square one. Odds are, you’ll convert one of the two, and if it’s the first one, you have a big advantage.
Back to the curious field goal. With 9:30 left in the third quarter on fourth-and-5 from the 23-yard-line, Franklin sent out Ryan Barker to kick a 40-yard field goal. Make or miss, that’s a bad call — but missing makes it even worse for those who judge these decisions strictly with the benefit of hindsight. The Oregon offense was racing up and down the field all game, and there was no reason to believe it was going to start settling for field goals any time soon. So taking one yourself is only going to lead to a bigger disparity when the Ducks do score their next touchdown.
And it’s made worse by the third-down play-call — what looked like a quarterback draw on third-and-9. You’re essentially giving yourself no chance to convert that set of downs if that third-down play-call doesn’t lead to a fourth-down attempt regardless of result.
Ugly
Penn State defense: If the offense’s excellent performance wasn’t the biggest surprise of the day, then the defense laying an egg definitely was. The Nittany Lions have been excellent all year on that side of the ball. They’ve dominated almost everyone they’ve face and held Ohio State to 20 points. Oregon had 21 points less than two minutes into the second quarter.
Penn State had no answer for the Ducks’ team speed. Oregon was excellent in the open field and broke off enough chunk plays to ruin defensive coordinator Tom Allen’s day. And wide receiver Tez Johnson was at the forefront of that. He finished with 11 catches for 181 yards and a touchdown and was consistently getting open in big situations for quarterback Dillon Gabriel.
And Gabriel was able to do that because he had all day to throw. The Nittany Lions had only one sack in the game, as Dani Dennis-Sutton and Abdul Carter combined for zero. Of course, there were more than a few visible holding penalties that went uncalled on Carter — something that has been increasingly prevalent in the second half of the season — but, at the end of the day, Penn State still needed to get to Gabriel. But they didn’t, and that’s a large part of the reason why the Ducks were the ones celebrating under falling confetti Saturday night.
