It was a strange night at Beaver Stadium but a familiar sight to see Penn State hanging around against Ohio State only to finally succumb to the Buckeyes’ overwhelming talent. The Nittany Lions have had better efforts than this one against their Big Ten East de facto rival and won’t look at Saturday’s film with much fondness.
That being said, there were signs of better day ahead for this Penn State team. Unfortunately for the Nittany Lions, even brighter days appear to be in store of Ohio State coach Ryan Day and his national title hopeful squad.
Here are the grades.
Offense: B-
Penn State’s offense had a confusing night. In the first half it was a somewhat uninspired combination of quarterback runs and seemingly straightforward RPOs that left Penn State looking pretty one-dimensional compared to their Buckeye counterparts. Then in the second half Sean Clifford and his receivers managed to look fairly competent and drag the Nittany Lions back within respectability as the game went along.
Clifford had a run-of-the-mill outing going 18-for-31 while racking up 281 yards through the air including three touchdowns while Jahan Dotson had a career night with 144-yards receiving and two spectacular catches as well as three touchdowns of his own. KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Parker Washington also had solid home debuts and proved to look promising as young freshmen in the offense.
Devyn Ford’s first real start was a bit of a mixed bag as he managed just 36 yards on a surprisingly low eight carries compared to Clifford’s 18. Ford wasn’t Journey Brown or Noah Cain, but heading into the season he was never expected to carry that load to begin with.
Penn State was 3-for-3 in the red zone and had a span of scoring on four out five drives which gives this grade a slight bump. The grade is bumped down for a 3-of-9 conversion rate on third down and faced just over an average of 10 yards to gain. Also for a surprisingly average night for Pat Freiermuth in pass protection and with the ball in his hands, Penn State’s offensive front was also up and down as well.
All in all this was a strange outing and the grade depends on which half you put more weight towards. A bad first half put Penn State in a hole, but a decent enough second half got Penn State out of it. So it’s a little bit of everything. Clifford’s interception late in the game didn’t help Penn State’s cause, but it was also probably a bit much to assume that comeback was going to happen in anyway.
End of the day Penn State will take any game it can score 25 or more points on Ohio State. The Buckeyes are the Buckeyes after all.
Defense: C-
This was probably the most surprising aspect of the game. It should be noted that Justin Fields is one of the best players in college football, so a general understanding that it is hard to slow him down counts for something. That said, Brent Pry’s group didn’t seem to have the extra step that it should given the opponent and the situation. Penn State’s defense played better in the second half but really couldn’t do anything to significantly slow Ohio State down over an extended period of time. Fields was sacked twice but the rest of the night he pretty much had his way with Penn State’s secondary. Two, 100-yard receivers hurt this grade and 208 yards on the ground didn’t help matters any either.
Ohio State faced 18 third-down attempts and converted 10 of them and averaged needing just over five yards to gain on those downs.
It seems reasonable to give Penn State some slack considering how good Ohio State is, and considering that holding the Buckeyes to 38 points is not all that bad when one contemplates their usual output. That said ‘getting beat up by less than most’ is not the best way to judge quality. Penn State has been able to lean on its defense in this series on an almost annual basis and it was a surprise to see it gashed from the outset.
Ellis Brooks led the way with 11 tackles while Jaquan Brisker had eight. Jesse Luketa also joined a host of players with eight tackles but did it in just one half of work after sitting out the first due to his targeting call against Indiana. Brandon Smith’s big hit on Fields was his first highlight in the Blue and White.
All told something other than Micah Parsons was missing with this group, and the grade takes a hit because of it. Time will tell how much of this is a real issues versus Ohio State being Ohio State.
Special Teams: D
After spending the week in the theoretical doghouse, Penn State’s special teams unit went from doing everything wrong to doing nothing at all. In fairness Jake Pinegar and Jordan Stout were solid between kickoffs and field goals, but Penn State’s return unit balked at any attempt to return kicks -seemingly by design.
Stout’s 49 yard punt average was actually a nice surprise but it’s just incredible to watch Penn State simply fair catch kickoffs from the outset. This grade probably shouldn’t be this low considering Penn State was perfect kicking the ball, including Stout’s 50-yarder, not to mention Ohio State’s return game was no more threatening than Penn State’s.
So why is the grade low? Simply for the lack of risks being taken on returns. It was clear Penn State planned to fair catch just about everything, but the why is unknown. For a series that has turned on special teams mistakes one can understand why Penn State would try to avoid them, but the Nittany Lions weren’t taking risks in a game they knew they could only win with a certain amount of risk involved.
Long story short, grade is low as a matter of being philosophically offended by the approach. Who cares if it was a smart idea.
Coaching: C-
There’s a certain assumption fans have when it comes to coaching that you can just coach your way out of not being as good as the other team simply by calling the right play all night over and over again. While in theory this is true, in reality the obstacle of overcoming really good teams is slightly more complex. This great is a C- for two reasons. On the one hand Penn State made things interesting in the second half during a time when Ohio State tends to just dismantle other teams for kicks. That counts for something.
On the other hand, Penn State hasn’t looked this outmatched by Ohio State in the first half in quite some time. All told this grade is low simply because Penn State just seems out of sorts, not stout on defense, uninspired on special teams and rudderless on offense. Sure, injuries play a role in some of that, but mental mistakes, penalties and a lack of forward momentum comes back to coaching. Ohio State didn’t win simply because of some straightforward thing like ‘Penn State is poorly coached’ but Penn State showed up and seemingly tried to hang on for dear life. Ohio State showed up to win and get it over with in a hurry. Maybe fair positioning for both teams, but the Nittany Lions didn’t put the fear into any Buckeyes on Saturday. For better or worse.
Overall: C-
Penn State not being as good as Ohio State, especially this season isn’t a surprise. There’s also a decent chance Penn State has once again given Ohio State its toughest test of the year. So we’re not going to knock the Nittany Lions for being who they are, or knock them for not having Justin Fields or the general depth and skill that Ohio State does.
That aside, something was missing on Saturday night that had been there in years past. Sure, Penn State pulled back just close enough to make things interesting, but after years of four quarter games, the Nittany Lions seemed to not be there in spurts. Some of that is Ohio State, but some of that is Penn State.
The good news for the Nittany Lions, Ohio State is a thing of the past for now.
