Penn State played its most complete game of the 2023 season‚ and maybe of the past few seasons, in the Beaver Stadium White Out on Saturday. The seventh-ranked Nittany Lions (4-0) blanked Iowa (3-1), in a 31-0 whitewashing that was payment of sorts for the s***show that was Kinnick Stadium when the two teams last met in 2021.
You could say the All-22 of Penn State played well…though there was a hiccup or two on special teams. But that is Nit-picking.
We begin this week’s All-22 with zero, instead of No. 1. Here’s why:
0. Penn State QB1 Drew Allar has not had a turnover in a Penn State game. Yet or ever. In his 14 games at PSU in 2022-23, Allar has thrown 185 passes and made 41 runs without an interception or a fumble. That’s 226 plays in All(ar). In 2023, he is 84 of 125 for 903 yards, with eight TD passes in 2023, and 23 rushes for 83 yards and a TD.
1. Penn State is the No. 1 team in college football in:
• fewest turnovers lost (0)
• fumbles lost (0)
• passes had intercepted (0)
• turnover margin (+2.75 per game)
• time of possession (37 minutes, 6 seconds per game)
• fewest first downs, defense (46)
• fewest passing yards allowed (138)
• defensive passing efficiency (88.26)
• defense fewest yards allowed (219.5)
• winning percentage (1.00; tied with 26 teams)
2. Saturday’s White Out ranks No. 2 in all-time Beaver Stadium attendance. The season-opener vs. West Virginia on Sept. 2 ranks as No. 5. Where are they finding these seats? Likely, the additional folks are not sitting. As the Penn State media guide points out in 6-point type: “Beaver Stadium attendance figures include the press box, suites, bands, ushers and other stadium personnel.”
3. Since it was moved across campus in 1960, and was built using some of the steel from Beaver Field, there have been 11 games in Beaver Stadium that have drawn at least #110k — five under James Franklin (4-1) and six (3-3) under Joe Paterno. The Top 11 among the 393 games in Beaver Stadium, counting the five in covid season 2020, are:
1. 110,889 – Ohio State, 2018 (L)
2. 110,830 – IOWA, 2023 (W)
3. 110,823 – Michigan, 2017 (W)
4. 110,753 – Nebraska, 2002 (W)
5. 110,747 – WEST VIRGINIA, 2023 (W)
6. 110,669 – Michigan, 2019 (W)
7. 110,134 – Ohio State, 2007 (L)
8. 110,078 – Notre Dame, 2007 (W)
9. 110,033 – Ohio State, 2009 (L)
10. 110,017 – Michigan, 2008 (W)
11. 110,007 – Michigan, 2006 (L)
4. The Nittany Lions recovered four fumbles vs. Iowa — two of them by LB Curtis Jacobs. The last time a PSU player recovered two fumbles in one game was by LB Mark D’Onofrio vs. Temple in 1991. Jacobs had a stellar night against the Hawkeyes; he was the one who ran down Iowa QB Cade McNamara and forced him out-of-bounds when McNamara scampered downfield on a busted play early in the first quarter. That run, had it gone longer than 18 yards, could have given Iowa even better field position (he was OOB at the 30), momentum and points.
5. Penn State now has forced 11 turnovers in 2023 (six fumble recoveries, five interceptions) and 37 overall (19 interceptions, 18 fumble recoveries) since 2022.
5a. Credit a very athletic defense, as Franklin pointed out after the game.
5b. Also credit Manny Diaz, which Franklin also did after the game (see above Tweet). Year 2 of the Manny D has been a thing of beauty, innovation and aggressiveness for the Nittany Lions — witness the defensive scheme vs. Iowa that featured three D-ends at one time: Chop Robinson, Adisa Isaac and Dani Dennis-Sutton.
6. Penn State moved up one spot in The Associated Press poll on Sunday to No. 6. The Nittany Lions jumped ahead of USC, even though the Trojans beat Arizona State, 42-28. Georgia remains No. 1 and Texas is No. 3, while future 2023 Penn State foes Michigan (second) and Ohio State (fourth) round out the top four.
6a. More six. The pollsters like the Nittany Lions, but the bowl game prognosticators are thinking a second-straight year of a New Year’s 6 bowl for Penn State. ESPN’s Mark Schlabach has Penn State playing LSU in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, and Kyle Bonagura has the Nittany Lions playing the Trojans – their Big Ten brethren starting next season— in the VRBO Fiesta Bowl.
6b. None of ESPN’s 14 college football experts projects Penn State making the final four, thus earning a spot in the final season of the four-team College Football Playoff.
7. Penn State’s win over No. 24 Iowa was its first shutout of an AP Top 25 foe since it beat No. 18 Texas A&M in the 1999 Alamo Bowl.
8. Here’s how/why I dig out some of these stats: Early in the fourth quarter on Saturday night, my StateCollege.com colleague and quizmeister Ben Jones pondered out loud, “I wonder if Penn State has ever shut out a ranked opponent before?”
Good question. I told Ben it was too much work to figure it out. He pointed out that the Penn State media guide lists every score of every game in PSU history, with the notation if an opponent is ranked. Now, Ben wasn’t going to figure it out. But, he baited the hook. And I grabbed it. I pored over the media guide, looking at the results four times until I was pretty sure about three things:
8a. The most recent instance came in 1999, as noted above.
8b. The 31-0 blanking of No. 24 Iowa was the ninth time Penn State has done it and the first time in the Big Ten; the full list:
1948 — No. 17 Penn, 13-0
1959 — No. 10 Alabama (Liberty Bowl), 7-0
1964 — No. 2 Ohio State, 27-0
1969 — No. 17 West Virginia, 20-0
1975 — No. 10 West Virginia, 39-0
1978 — No. 6 Ohio State, 19-0
1982 — No. 13 West Virginia, 24-0
1999 — No. 8 Texas A&M (Alamo Bowl), 24-0
2023 — No. 24 Iowa, 31-0
8c. And speaking of whitewashing: When it comes to PSU football stats, Ben is my Tom Sawyer.
9. Penn State’s offensive line has given up just two sacks in 2023, despite the loss of OG Landon Tengwall. “Not a whole lot of people talk about our offensive line,” Franklin said. “They did not give up any sacks; that’s huge as well.”
9a. More Franklin, crediting Allar: “And then at times, Drew’s doing a good job of getting rid of the ball and throwing it away. Sometimes, that’s as big of a play as anything because it would have been a six-yard sack and he throws it away, and you either give yourself another down to pick up the first down or you reserve the right to punt, which sometimes is the right thing to do.”
10. Penn State’s offense had the ball for 97 plays vs. 33 for Iowa. The PSU offense also had:
• possession for three-quarters of the game — 45:27 to 14:33.
• four scoring drives over 10 plays.
• six drives of 10 plays or more. Iowa’s longest drive was six plays, on its first possession of the game.
• a drive that lasted 7:28 — half of a quarter. Iowa never had a drive that hit three minutes.
11. Penn State’s string of scoring at least 30 points is now at 11 games, longest in the country.
12. Penn State’s defense landed in the top 10 of two interesting all-time categories — fewest first downs allowed and total offense lows — that were chock-full of entries from the 1947-48 seasons, and the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
12a. Against Iowa, Penn State gave up just four first downs (tied for fifth all-time) and 76 total yards (10th all-time). Says a lot about the 2023 Penn State D; those 1947 and ’48 squads; and the ineptitude of Iowa OC Brian Ferentz (see 20a). The 1947-48 teams were the last two coached by the immortal Bob Higgins. The 1947 squad was 9-0-1 and outscored its opponents, 332-25. The 1948 team was 7-1-1, and outscored its opponents 219-55.
13. Higgins was 91-57-11 from 1930-48. His 91 wins are No. 3 in PSU history, behind Joe Paterno (409) and Rip Engle (104). Franklin, in his 10th season, is gaining ground. He is 82-36 at Penn State.
13. Every Wednesday night during the season, there is a weekly post-practice media scrum where about 35 beat reporters and the like make a half-circle around Franklin and shout out about 5-6 questions for 8-10 minutes.
13a. Last Wednesday, I asked Franklin about the impact and lessons of the 2021 Penn State-Iowa game, where Penn State lost 23-20 and the fans in Kinnick Stadium mocked Penn State’s players. PSU QB Sean Clifford got hurt, and his backup, Ta’Quan Roberson, was dismal — completing 7 of 21 for 34 yards and two picks. Franklin pooh-poohed the question, concluding his brief, terse answer with a “no comment.” It was a huge storyline that no one had asked him about.
13b. As his players revealed after the game on Saturday night, Franklin had used that game — and the fact that the Iowa special teams coordinator LeVar Woods was flopping on the ground, mocking Penn State — as fuel for the Nittany Lion locker room fire. “We definitely took the disrespect from what they did in 2021. We didn’t take it lightly,” Isaac said. “We’ve been preaching that all week of just saying this is personal in a way. That kind of put a chip on everybody’s shoulder.”
14. You do not want to piss off James Franklin.
15. Saturday was the 15th full White Out in Beaver Stadium, as the Nittany Lions are now 9-6 in those games — no easy task, since those games are typically against the top team or two on each year’s schedule. The history of the White Out, the brainchild of Guido D’Elia, got confusing last week. To be clear: The first White Out of any sort was a student White Out in 2004 vs. ninth-ranked Purdue. (Former PSU WR coach Taylor Stubblefield played for Purdue that day, catching a 40-yard TD pass from Kyle Orton and becoming the all-time leading B10 receiver in a 20-13 win.)
16. Blake Berson, a senior producer at CBS Sports and a former student of mine at Penn State, sent me this DM at 7:09 p.m. Saturday, a half-hour before kickoff: “Had to send you this piece I did for our first White Out on CBS. Not sure if you remember this, but you gave me a C on an article I wrote because I spelled Derrick Williams’ name Derek. 20 years later, I had to make sure I spelled his name correctly. Still stuck with me all these years later.”
“Man, I was tough!” I DM’d Blake back. “But — you should have gotten a F 🙂 Can’t wait to watch it.”
Berson is a stalwart at CBS Sports, doing short and long-form documentaries, and has been there for 17 years. It is a great piece (above), narrated by Penn State football radio voice Steve Jones. And note that Blake spells Derrick’s name correctly.
17. Another Penn Stater, John Fisher, heads sports research for all of CBS Sports. He majored in finance at PSU and worked in the money business after graduation. But, John loved sports and numbers, so he took a flyer and emailed an ESPN editor after reading a baseball story on the network’s website. They made a connection, John got a job at the World Wide Leader (“I didn’t even know such jobs existed”) and eventually he moved to CBS. Every single number and stat on a CBS Sports broadcast, including the White Out? That’s John and his team.
18. John was in town with the CBS crew for his first White Out. We had the burger and fries — the best in State College — on Friday afternoon at a very packed Local Whiskey, one of the best adult hangouts in downtown State College. While there, we spotted legendary Penn State QB John Shaffer and his wife, Marta. My favorite Shaffer stat, which I recited to both Johns: Shaffer was 25-1 as a starting QB at Penn State (and 66-1 lifetime as a starter, going all the way back to eighth grade).
18a. It’s a small Penn State world. I had talked to Shaffer in 2017 for a piece about Trace McSorley’s amazing record as a starting QB as well; he was 86-14 overall — 55-5 in high school, 31-9 at Penn State. (Read it here.) Shaffer is a Cincinnati native, having played at the iconic Moeller High School. Trace — at Penn State’s practice midweek in anticipation of being an honorary captain with Grant Haley vs. Iowa — ended up in Cincinnati over the weekend, working out for the Bengals. Here is what Shaffer had to say back then about McSorley, but it is true of himself as well: “An unbelievable gamer. He’s a winner.”
18b. It has already been an amazing fall for uber-successful Penn State quarterbacks returning to Happy Valley. Todd Blackledge called the season-opener vs. West Virginia for NBC, and Michael Robinson worked the on-the-road studio show for that game, then came the next week to call the Delaware game for Peacock. Both Blackledge and Shaffer led Penn State to national titles; MRob guided PSU to an 11-1 record and a No. 3 ranking in 2005 as the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year; and McSorley was the gritty mainstay of a 2016-17 squad that went through a 16-1 stretch.
19. RB Nick Singleton had a long run of 19 yards vs. Iowa, his biggest of the year. Yet, he had just 49 yards rushing on 17 carries. That’s 2.9 yards per carry. It has not been a banner year for the sophomore, who rushed for 1,061 yards in 2022. Game-by-game in 2023, he has run for 70, 47, 37 and 49 yards. Let’s compare his first four games of 2022 vs. his first four of 2023:
2022 — 42 carries, 376 yards, 8.95 ypc, 4 TDs
2023 — 53 carries, 203 yards, 3.83 ypc, 5 TDs
19a. Now, the same comparison for fellow RB Kaytron Allen:
2022 — 36 carries, 217 yards, 6.02 ypc, 3 TDs
2023 — 63 carries, 280 yards, 4.4 ypc, 2 TDs
19b. In a post-game interview on Saturday, Singleton said he understands the ball-control role of the running game this season.
20. Predictions: Hindsight could be 20/20 with these three:
20a. This could be Kirk Ferentz’s last season as head coach at Iowa. He’s been HC at Iowa since 1999 — he was also a Hawkeye assistant in 1981-89 — but a series of off-the-field issues, coupled with the horrendous performance of his son/OC (no offense, but Brian is a relative problem), and Ferentz’s time may be up after his season despite owning a 3-1 record right now and a career mark of 189-116. He is 68 and, since 2017, he has been the longest-tenured FBS head coach at one school.
20b. Allar has the potential…and it is getting more realized each week…to be the No. 1 player taken in the 2025 NFL Draft.
20c. Manny Diaz will get a lucrative, big-time head coaching gig after this season.
21. Penn State has a cakewalk for the next three weeks, until it meets undefeated Ohio State in The Horseshoe on Oct. 21. The Nittany Lions are at scandal-plagued Northwestern next week (though the Mildcats did down Minnesota, 37-34 on Saturday); they have a bye week; and then they host UMass, which is 1-4, for Homecoming on Oct. 14.
22. Bye Week could be Penn State’s toughest foe, since Penn State’s No. 1 defense will go against Penn State’s No. 1 offense.
