COLLEGE PARK, MD. – In the grand scheme of things Penn State did everything it needed to during a 51-15 thumping of Maryland on Saturday. The Nittany Lions, fresh off an important but not terribly impressive victory over Indiana the week prior, had one last opportunity to improve before hosting Michigan in a game that will help define the story of the 2023 season. And they did.
There was always the potential for an upset, but for all of Penn State’s perceived or actual weaknesses, the Nittany Lions are not very easy to beat. Whatever fans might like to see from James Franklin and his teams in the biggest games of the year, it’s undeniable that Penn State has rarely lost the games it shouldn’t. So even while the Nittany Lions might lack the lethality of years prior, they have still maintained the trait of regularly beating everyone they should.
As such, Penn State should have beaten Maryland on Saturday. And it did. It should have been able to establish a ground game. And it did. It should have been able to find success in the passing game and give Drew Allar some options to work with. And it did. It should have been able to show a few wrinkles that will give Michigan something to think about. And it did. It should have looked like a team playing good football heading into a season-defining game. And it did that, too.
So it was a mission accomplished.
Boiled down, the Nittany Lions played one of their more complete games of the year, managing to leave behind the feelings of an ugly but essential victory the week prior. Perhaps most of all, Penn State provided fans — and themselves — with enough good things to talk about that both parties might spend the better part of the next six days talking about beating Michigan and really start to believe it in the process.
“I think the big thing for us is just continuing to tell ourselves what we’re capable of,” Penn State tight end Theo Johnson said. “We play a good defense in practice every single day so it’s it’s nothing new for us … just kind of remember what we’ve done.”
It’s what makes Penn State’s pending game against Michigan so interesting. The Nittany Lions are not far removed from one of their least inspiring *big game* performances of Franklin’s tenure with an almost immediate opportunity to make amends for it. A Penn State victory next Saturday would change the narrative of the entire season. A good performance in defeat would at least provide fans with some confidence that a complete inability to move the ball against Ohio State may have simply been a one-off occurrence and not a sign of something more systemic. It’s one thing to never win, another to feel like it’s getting worse.
So as Penn State piled onto the buses and headed back to State College, it did so having checked off all the right boxes without raising any new red flags.
“I think games like this are huge for momentum, especially when you know you’re firing on all cylinders,” Johnson added. “Not only in all facets of offense, but on all facets of your team. Special teams had a good day. defense played lights out. So I think it’s just huge for momentum in general.”
What happens next is hard to say, but Penn State made the best case it could on Saturday that the Nittany Lions are still capable of playing really good football. Whether or not really good football is good enough to beat Michigan remains to be seen.
