The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Penn State’s 55-16 loss to Michigan State

“Black Sunday” did not leave Penn State untouched.

When the announcement came on Sunday afternoon that offensive coordinator John Donovan had been fired, the celebratory response from the Penn State fanbase was immediate. James Franklin had recognized the biggest problem in his system, and applied a fix to it. The same guy who brought his entire staff with him from Vanderbilt, a tight-knit grouping of friends, confidants and advisers who also served as coordinators and position coaches, cut one of them loose.

It shows that the head coach is not afraid to make the tough call when he needs to do so. A word used often by Franklin this season was “patience,” and allowing Donovan a second year to get an offense in shape after a poor first season with the program, and then watching that offense fail to improve despite returning all but three key starters, took patience.

The move is all parts good, bad and ugly.

It’s good, because it was absolutely necessary. Donovan’s offenses ranked in the dregs of the FBS for two years straight in total offense, passing yards, rushing yards and scoring.

Penn State posted a 7-5 record this season, and ranked 82nd in the nation in passing, 106th in the nation in rushing and 108th in the nation in total offense. The Nittany Lions averaged 23.7 points per game this season, No. 101 in the country. In Donovan’s first year as Penn State’s offensive coordinator, the team scored a conference-worst 20.3 points per game.

It’s bad because a man lost his job and had to go home to his family and tell them so.

It’s ugly because, true to the fickle nature of college football, an entire fanbase was rooting for that.

The Good

▪ A 55-16 loss to Michigan State on Saturday night left little for fans to celebrate.

But small moments of potential did shine through, and they were from young players who have found themselves coming through for Penn State time and again this year.

With his 103 net rushing yards on 17 carries, Saquon Barkley broke the single-season rushing yards record for a freshman, first put in place by D.J. Dozier in 1983, with 1,007 on the season. He did so despite missing 2 1/2 games to injury and taking just a snap or two in Penn State’s season opener against Temple.

After the game, Barkley’s teammates were sent in to talk to media in lieu of the freshman, and though they sat, shoulders slumped under the weight of the loss, many agreed that Barkley had earned the respect of the locker room.

The running back also earned Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors from BTN.com, announced on Sunday night.

▪ Chris Godwin pulled down some impressive catches on his way to 109 receiving yards and two touchdowns, including one in which he shook his coverage and flipped into the end zone, and another catch during which he caused Montae Nicholson to flip over him in coverage as the two fought for the 50-50 catch.

“When you come out and see one-on-one coverage you know you have to beat the man across from you,” he said after the game. “You trust the hard work that you put in (during) practice and throughout the season. You trust the fundamentals and come out of the one-on-one with a victory.”

▪ Brandon Polk showed impressive speed on a jet sweep handoff that he carried for 25 yards and was just barely caught at the Michigan State 39-yard line by Arjen Colquhoun with nothing but open space behind him. The play set up a drive that resulted in a field goal and pulled the Nittany Lions within three points early in the second quarter.

The Bad

▪ Michigan State racked up 436 yards of offense against the Nittany Lions, who had spent the first half of the season in the top-10 in total defense nationally.

Missed tackles were again a part of the issue, especially on third down. Spartans running back L.J. Scott powered for the conversion seemingly at will as the ground game totaled 5 of 8 third-quarter first downs and helped with four converted third downs in four attempts.

Safety Malik Golden was asked after the game to evaluate the team’s tackling.

“I honestly don’t know, I don’t know how many tackles we missed,” he said. “So I can’t really assess that.”

▪ The team also recorded no tackles-for-loss, which is a telling sign of the effects that missing personnel, especially on the defensive line, had on Penn State’s total defense.

Carl Nassib and Garrett Sickels were both absent from the game, and Sickels didn’t even travel, for undisclosed reasons. Nassib has been nursing an injury for the last few weeks and played just a couple of snaps.

Tarow Barney and Torrence Brown replaced the two starters, and tackle Anthony Zettel was shifted to the outside. Brown did not record a single tackle, while the unit, which had led the nation with over 10 tackles for loss per game prior (97 total), did not get any push on Michigan State’s offensive line and barely hassled quarterback Connor Cook.

“Connor told me that at the end of the game, he never got touched, never got knocked down,” head coach Mark Dantonio said after the game.

“Yes, obviously he was comfortable in the pocket,” said Franklin.

“We have been able to get pressure on everybody all year long but when you take away your starting defensive ends off of your unit that’ll take an effect.”

Michigan State executed a 12-play drive that lasted 7:08 during the third quarter, in which Scott pounded against the line on seven carries, before Cook threw a six yard touchdown pass to Josiah Price to put the Spartans up 34-10. The series absolutely gassed the Nittany Lions, who then allowed a 21-point fourth quarter.

“We did not dictate the game to them,” added Franklin. “They were able to dictate the game to us, especially with their offense.”

▪ Penn State’s second and final touchdown of the game started in the third quarter and ended in the fourth, after nine attempts within or at the Michigan State 10-yard line and was a completed pass to Godwin after two previous incompletions and minus-4 total rushing yards from that position. The team then attempted, and failed, a two-point conversion.

The Ugly

▪ Penn State’s four turnovers led to 27 Michigan State points, and was the ultimate deciding factor in a game that was evenly matched in yardage through the air and on the ground.

“The fact that we had more total yards than them, that’s kind of mind-boggling,” said receiver Chris Godwin, after the game. “And then have the scoreboard be how it is.”

▪ Penn State has not beaten Ohio State, Michigan or Michigan State in six matchups over the last two years, and has been outscored 204-89 in that time.

“We are going to get healthy and have a chance to get our whole roster back with and go on with the future,” said Franklin. “Next year will be our first opportunity to be back at full scholarships. We obviously have a lot of work to do, all of us.

“Good things are coming though, I feel very confident with that. We’ve shown it in flashes but whenever we’ve played the top-tier teams in this conference and in this country we just haven’t been able to get it done yet. We improved on our conference record from last year but we still need to close the gap on the upper-tiered teams in this conference.”

This story was originally published November 29, 2015 at 10:12 PM with the headline "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Penn State’s 55-16 loss to Michigan State."