Youth Was Served in Penn State’s Just-in-Time Inventory Passing Game

Youth was almost served for Penn State Saturday night.

As it was, three Nittany Lion receivers may have come of age and one quarterback directed another fourth-quarter drive for the ages.

The passing game was all Penn State’s offense had in its 31-24 double overtime loss to Ohio State – the Lions netted all of 16 yards rushing the ball, 35 if you minus out the sacks.

And even at that, an effective air attack didn’t really appear until the fourth quarter. It was just-in-time inventory.

Wide receiver DaeSean Hamilton is a 19-year-old redshirt freshman playing in his first season. Saturday night was only his seventh college game ever, after sitting out 2013 after wrist surgery, yet he caught a school-record 14 passes against the Buckeyes. Half – seven for 68 of his 116 yards — came in the fourth quarter.

Fellow receiver Saeed Blacknall is a true freshman and all of 18 years old. He grabbed his first Penn State TD ever – on his fifth catch ever – with an ARobesque leap in the right corner of the south end zone early in the fourth quarter.

Another 18-year-old freshman, Chris Godwin, made all three of his three receptions when he was on the field for Penn State’s fourth-quarter and overtime drives.

And then there was the quarterback. An elder statesman at 19 and a true sophomore, Christian Hackenberg started his 19th consecutive game – that’s every game since he came to Penn State in 2013. For the fifth time in the past 14 games, he engineered a comeback on Penn State’s final drive of regulation to either win the game or send it into overtime.

There were Michigan (4OT) and Illinois (OT) in 2013. Central Florida and Rutgers in 2014. All led to victories.

Ohio State in 2014 did not.

A WORK OF ART

But that last drive of regulation – it was a masterpiece.

It took only 2 minutes and 56 seconds, but somehow covered 19 plays and 77 yards. That’s one play every Chip Kelly-like 9.2 seconds. Almost one-quarter of all of Penn State’s plays and one third of its offensive yardage on the night came in that one drive. 

On that drive, there were three completions to Hamilton for 26 yards. Two to Godwin for 15. Blacknall one for two yards. Two to tight end/wide receiver Jesse James for nine yards and one to the former starting wide receiver Geno Lewis for 11 yards.

Of the 19 plays, Hackenberg completed nine passes for 65 yards and misfired on four. He ran twice, both times on third-and-1, both times for first downs. He was sacked once, spiked the ball once, took a roughing the passer penalty for a 15-yard gain and handed off to Akeel Lynch, who ran for zero yards. 

He was Christian being Christian – although he didn’t look that way for much of the first three quarters, going 13 of 22 for 81 yards, with two stolen passes – one by a poor call by the officials on the game’s first drive and one by Ohio State’s Tyvis Powell in the third quarter. Five sacks had certainly something to do with those mediocre numbers.

(By quarter, Hackenberg was – first: 6 of 9 for 50 yards; second: 4-7-17; third: 3-6-14; fourth: 15-22-108; OT: 3-5-25; total: 31-49-224.)

The fourth-quarter drive, which began at Penn State’s own 9-yard line with 2:58 left on the clock, went to the Ohio State 14-yard line. Then Sam Ficken came on to make a 31-yard field goal, tying the game 17-17 and sending it into overtime. 

We all know how that turned out.

RECORD PASS-TIME

But it did set the stage for the second half of the season and at least the next season-and-a-half. Godwin, Blacknall and Hamilton – who came to Penn State the same time as Hackenberg — have yet to play a college game in November.

Hackenberg, amazingly, very well may be at the exact midpoint of his Penn State career. Let’s make the fair assumption that the Nittany Lions go to a bowl game in 2014 – they must win at east two of their next five games – and again in 2015. And let’s assume that after next season Hackenberg will turn pro, having put in his minimum requisite three years in college ranks.

He’s played 19 games. That gives him 19 games to go. It’s not as if Hack, we hardly knew ye.

On the contrary, he’s not the QB he was in 2013. And Penn State is not the team it was in 2013. But then again, he is: Three of those five last-minute drives came this season. His first start was that win in MetLife; on Saturday night he almost beat Ohio State 364 days after the Nittany Lions were embarrassed 63-14 in The Horseshoe.

Against the Buckeyes in 2013, Hackenberg was 12 of 23 for 112 yards and two picks. Subtract the picks, and that was his fourth quarter in Saturday night. Hackenberg is already in rarefied Penn State record book air. His:

— 31 completions give him 396 for his career, sixth place at Penn State, behind Tony Sacca (401 completions) and passing a few guys you may have heard of: Kerry Collins (370), Chuck Fusina (371) and Wally Richardson (378).

— Touchdown pass to Blacknall gives him 26 for his career, tied with John Hufnagel for 11th place.

— 224 yards were the 14th 200-yard passing game of his career, tying him for fourth place with Daryll Clark.

– 4,816 passing yards for his career moves him past Todd Blackledge (4,812), ABC’s analyst for Saturday night’s game, and into eighth place for career passing yardage. Anthony Morelli (5,275 yards) is ahead of him in seventh place.

— 31 completions are the second most of his career (32 vs. UCF, 2014) and the fourth highest single-game total in the Penn State record book.

— 49 pass attempts are tied for the fifth-highest single-game total by a Penn State quarterback. His 55 against Indiana in 2013 tops that list. (He’s also had games of 47, 45, 44 and 44.)

TARGETING HAMILTON

Hamilton and Lewis started the season as Hackenberg’s 1 and 1A targets. Over the past three games, Lewis has caught eight passes and Hamilton has had 27. Hamilton’s 57 catches after seven games ranks him No. 8 in the nation and he is the only freshman in the top 25. His overall yards (676) rank him No. 28, at 12 yards per catch.

Hamilton has emerged as Hackenberg’s go-to guy. If the school-record 14 receptions – surpassing the 13 by Freddie Scott against Wisconsin in 1995 – don’t convince you, this should:

Hackenberg actually targeted Hamilton 22 times against Ohio State. Eight were incomplete.

Imagine if half had been completions. After Saturday night, that’s no longer a young idea.