OK, so you’re waking up and you’re sad and/or unhappy. It’s hard to blame you. Penn State lost, didn’t look good in the process and you had to wait 300 days for a game that you would really like to forget. The good news/bad news is that Ohio State is next, and nothing flushes out a loss quite like the biggest game of the year coming down the pike.
Want a morale boost, here are five reasons to still believe in Penn State this coming weekend.
Time Of Possession:
Penn State held on to the ball for just over 40 minutes on Saturday and while the game didn’t pan out how the Nittany Lions would have liked, they’ll stand to have a better chance at pulling off the upset if they’re holding on to the ball. Playing keep away isn’t the worst strategy but it does put an emphasis on making the most of those possession because you do eventually have to score. That aside, if quick drives are a thing of the past, the next best thing is taking time off the clock, assuming the score is close.
The Defense:
We can argue all day about what Penn State’s defense should or shouldn’t be able to do for most or all of the game but the Nittany Lions have leaned on Brent Pry’s unit for just about as long as he has been on campus. Obviously college football is no longer geared towards defensive battles, but *if* the Nittany Lions can get pressure on Justin Fields and cover well enough in the secondary, it’s not entirely unreasonable to expect Penn State to keep it close. Obviously ‘just slow down Justin Fields’ is not exactly a casual undertaking, but it’s also not impossible. You just want to hang around against the Buckeyes, you’re never going to win the blowout approach.
Done It Before:
At some point here it’s worth mentioning that Penn State has given Ohio State its best non-playoff test of the year basically on an annual basis as of late. Even if the 2019 loss was something of a strange fumble-filled and mildly confusing ‘well technically it was close and also not close’ mess, Penn State has been in this position before. Really only during the 2017 season has Penn State been equal to or better than the Buckeyes. Obviously gonna-try-real-hard isn’t a reason to pick Penn State to win, but this is not exactly an unusual circumstance given the series history.
Take 2016 for example when Penn State managed to look pretty ‘not good’ for most of the early season and then still scrape together enough of an effort to hang around and eventually win the game. It seems unlike that block-a-field-goal-and-score routine will work twice in 10 years but hey everyone is super reliable from inside the 40.
Problems Are Fixable:
Penn State didn’t look great on Saturday and shot itself in the foot more times than you can really count, but in a lot of ways that’s the good news. It would be one thing if the Nittany Lions didn’t gain almost 500 yards of offense and score 35 points, but when they got out of their own way, they didn’t look all that bad. Sean Clifford will have to be smarter with the ball, James Franklin will have to improve his game management and everyone will have to do everything better, but we know they can.
So if you’re looking for a reason to take heart, remember that mistakes are correctable and there’s a lot more data suggesting this team can play good football rather than continue to play poorly. Part of the reason Penn State’s loss was surprising had a lot more to do with how the Nittany Lions looked, and for better or worse, and right or wrong, they looked rusty. Even if that’s not an excuse.
Seeing is believing though when it comes to corrections. Especially when you have one week to make them.
Things Are Weird For Everyone:
The fact of the matter is Penn State *probably* needs the help of a rocking Beaver Stadium crowd to beat Ohio State but also we have no idea if that’s actually the case because well, things are different. Ohio State has to deal with the strange travel in COVID times, the odd lack of atmosphere away from home and the general uniqueness of the situation. Point being, if it’s weird for Penn State it’s probably going to be weird for Ohio State too.
