Handing out grades after any game can pose problems. A shellacking like the one Penn State suffered in Columbus doesn’t make it any easier.
When two equal teams play you have a pretty good idea which team had its A-game and which team didn’t. When you have two teams that aren’t on the same level it’s important, and hard, to balance between players who are simply better than their opponents and players who are simply playing bad football.
In the case of Penn State’s loss to Ohio State on Saturday night the truth was somewhere in the middle. Ohio State is without a doubt one of the best teams in the nation. Penn State on the other hand feels the full brunt of NCAA sanctions, depth issues, and was faced with stopping multiple weapons at once. To simply say Penn State played poorly is underselling Ohio State’s talent, and to say that Ohio State was just a better team overlooks mistakes that were made by some legitimately talented Penn State players.
So handing out the grades this week is a little harder than usual.
Offense: C
At the end of the day Penn State accumulated more yards on offense than it did against Michigan. The bad news for Penn State was that the 357 yards was just about half of Ohio State’s 686 total. Add in the fact that 65 yards came on a single play and Penn State’s offense had far from its best game. Bill Belton was a bright spot on the night with 98 yards on 22 carries as well as Allen Robinson who caught 12 passes for 173 yards and a touchdown. Hackenberg threw two interceptions during his first true road test of his career. Overall the true freshman looked poised and collected, but things got out of hand far too fast for him to comfortably play in the game.
At the end of the day Penn State’s offense couldn’t keep up with Ohio State’s and that’s why Ohio State is ranked No. 4 in the nation.
Defense: D-
You can give Ohio State credit for playing at a high level, but missed tackles, broken coverages and uninspired play were a big factor. There were too many self-inflicted wounds by Penn State’s defense.
Ohio State was able to rack up 686 yards of offense, a record number given up by a Penn State defense. Buckeye quarterback Braxton Miller threw for 252 yards, three scores, and rushed for 147 yards and two additional scores. A lot of that was Miller’s doing, but he completed long pass after long pass to wide open targets. In total, Ohio State had eight different plays of 20 or more yards — four over 30 yards. For all of Ohio State’s talent, Penn State failed to do much of anything to slow down Ohio State’s attack.
Jordan Lucas led Penn State with 11 tackles followed by Jesse Della Valle with 9. When players in the secondary are leading the defense in tackles, that’s usually a bad sign. There were a lot of bad signs on Saturday night.
Special Teams: B-
Penn State’s special team’s didn’t have much of an impact on the game thanks to Ohio State’s offense, but it didn’t contribute to the loss either making it about the only unit to come out of the game neutral. Alex Butterworth had six punts for a 37 yard average. He had a nice 48 yard punt but was average the rest of the night. Sam Ficken looked ready to go in pregame warm-ups, but never got a chance to contribute. Ohio State’s 49-yard kickoff return didn’t help matters any either.
