Penn State pulled away in the fourth quarter to become bowl eligible and avoid a fourth-straight loss with a 31-14 victory over Maryland on Saturday night. It wasn’t always pretty but receiver Jahan Dotson was outstanding en route to an 11-catch, three-touchdown and 242-yard night. The yardage mark is a new single-game Penn State record.
Speaking of record, Penn State is 6-3 on the year with three regular season games left to go. And speaking of grades, here they are.
Offense: C+
How do you even grade this? Generally speaking, Penn State’s offense was not very good on Saturday when it comes to consistency or the feeling that the Nittany Lions had finally figured things out. At the same time Jahan Dotson had 11 catches, three touchdowns and 242 yards receiving. This is – as you might imagine – quite good.
So do you grade Penn State poorly here for not running the ball well [93 yards on 33 attempts] against a bad rush defense in Maryland? Or do you give the Nittany Lions credit for getting their best player the ball and letting him do all the work? In the long run Dotson being faster than everyone else on the field and better at running routes than most receivers in America is a very good thing, but it’s not a product of Penn State’s overall executional competence.
This grade is lower because in the end Penn State only had 14 points early in the fourth quarter and all of those points had come by virtue of Dotson being better than everyone else. Penn State shouldn’t get blamed for having the best player in the game, but it also shouldn’t get too much credit for it either. In the long run the Nittany Lions managed to get some chunk plays on the ground and convert 10 of its 18 attempts on third down. Penn State also had seven passing plays of 15 or more yards while Maryland had just four. These are good things.
Sean Clifford didn’t throw any interceptions and managed to extend plays with his legs again after struggling to do so coming off his injury the past two weeks. The duo of Keyvone Lee and Noah Cain were a solid one-two punch compared to how the running game has gone for most of the season. Parker Washington and KeAndre Lambert-Smith have both been solid this year but both had drops that would have been big gains.
All in all you can’t knock a team for getting the ball to its best player and scoring 31 points. At the same time this wasn’t a pretty performance even if it ultimately was effective.
Penn State is what it is at this point in the year.
Defense: B+
It says a lot about this defense that “gave up points and yards” feels like a bad night, but in reality Maryland was always going to put up a solid passing number in this game. The question was going to be the damage done. All told Maryland passed for 317 yards but only converted four of 15 attempts on third down. That’s pretty much the perfect example of bend but don’t break.
Maryland went two-for-five in the red zone and turned the ball over twice in key spots. Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa was confident and pretty solid all night, but Maryland couldn’t string together enough big plays to ever take control in the game or ultimately answer once Penn State got its fourth quarter lead. Maryland had a stretch in the middle portion of the game with four drives over 50 yards, which is a rarity against this defense and hurts the grade a bit.
All things considered, you ought to win football games in 2021 if you only give up 14 points – so it’s hard to be too critical of this unit when you consider this game would have been over way sooner had Penn State’s offense managed to put up points on a more consistent basis. It was an 85-snap night for Brent Pry’s group and they largely rose to the occasion in the biggest moments.
Brandon Smith led the way with nine tackles, 2.5 of those for a loss. Ji’Ayir Brown and Jaquan Brisker both played solidly with 16 combined tackles between the two of them, and, of course, Brown had an 87-yard interception return for the game’s final touchdown. Arnold Ebiketie only had two tackles but both were solo stops and one was a sack. Even when he isn’t getting things in the box score he’s being a pain.
Maryland had just 48 yards on the ground averaging 1.8 yards per carry.
Overall Penn State’s defense continued to do what it has done all year, and that’s not give up points. A good key to winning any game. A game-sealing pick six doesn’t hurt matters any either.
Special Teams: B-
This group didn’t do anything bad but it also didn’t do much of anything good either. Jordan Stout had three punts downed inside the 20 and six punts overall for a low 34.7 yard average. He also registered his first true shank of the year at a bad moment which hurts this grade.
Stout made a 24-yard field goal which counts for something but nothing super impressive. At this point the grade is getting hurt a bit because Penn State has effectively turned to a fair catch policy on kickoffs – which is fine – but also has entirely erased the prospect of ever turning a game on a kickoff return. Jahan Dotson has largely been a non-factor in punt returns but teams have kicked rugby style or kicked delayed – which has given coverage units more time to get down the field. In that light it’s hard to blame Dotson for not returning kicks when there is no reasonable chance for him to do so.
It’s probably not fair to be so harsh on a unit that has generally done nothing but good things all year, but the lack of any return game hurts this grade as a matter of principle. Maybe a curmudgeonly principle though. In fairness Penn State hasn’t really given up a big return this year, and gave up just nine return yards all game – so credit due there.
Coaching: B
Considering that Penn State managed to get 21 points from Jahan Dotson – its best player – that counts for something in the game plan. That said it sometimes feels like it’s hard to know exactly what this team thinks it is good at. Brent Pry continues to raise this grade with his defense but the offense is still finding itself.
James Franklin and company had a strange clock management debacle at the end of the first half that should tank this grade in the long run but in the end “frustrating things I don’t understand” isn’t bad coaching it’s just annoying. Not agreeing with a strategy doesn’t make it a bad idea. I’m mostly writing this so I don’t have to think about it anymore.
Coaching means going from a 14-14 game to a 31-14 win. Sure, no amount of coaching makes Dotson that good, but “putting your players in the best position to succeed” is coaching 101 and Penn State did that when it counted.
Bonus points for a Stout punt that he held long enough to let his coverage guys get deep, and ultimately catch said punt deep in Maryland territory. That was a nifty wrinkle.
Overall: B
Snap a three game losing streak, play good defense, get your best player the ball. It wasn’t pretty but a win is a win.
