Penn State improved to 7-4 on the year with a 28-0 victory over Rutgers on Saturday that wasn’t short on drama with a good portion of the Nittany Lions’ roster dealing with the flu. Ugly at times? Perhaps, but the Nittany Lions were effective when they had to be on both sides of the ball and Rutgers never had a chance once Penn State started putting points on the board.
So here are the grades as Penn State sets its sights on a final week meeting against Michigan State.
Offense: B
All things considered – and there is a lot to consider – Penn State’s offense did a pretty decent job on Saturday. Sean Clifford was sick, so he doesn’t grade out for a 2-for-8 outing as a matter of fairness. In his stead Christian Veilleux was about five times better than anyone might have expected in Clifford’s place, playing poised, confident and making a few really solid throws in the process. He got bailed out by some outstanding catches along the way but completed passes are completed passes. Veilleux finished the day 15-for-24 for 235 yards and three touchdowns in his Penn State debut, turning heads in the process. Veilleux’s numbers are slightly inflated due to a wide open Malick Meiga going 67-yards on a wide open pass but Veilleux can’t lose credit for hitting open targets.
Penn State ran the ball pretty well too, getting 149 yards on the ground with five different players registering a rush of nine or more yards. It wasn’t flashy but it worked, and worked behind a slapped together offensive line that was dealing with its own fair share of illnesses and injuries. Landon Tengwall was solid in his debut as well on the line.
The Nittany Lions went 5-for-15 on third down, and went 3-of-4 in the red zone.
Parker Washington had one of his better days in a long while with six catches for 72 yards and Jahan Dotson was his usual self with three big catches, although those coming on eight targets.
It took a bit for this group to get going, but once it started to figure things out it looked like the better team, and that’s saying something considering it was playing with its backup quarterback – a guy who hasn’t played football in over two years.
Defense: A
Rutgers isn’t very good and Penn State’s defense didn’t do anything to help the Scarlet Knight’s cause Saturday. Rutgers was 4-of-15 on third down, didn’t score, had 165 yards of offense and picked up just 10 first downs all game.
By the end of the day Rutgers’ longest drive was 60 yards but prior to that it had just two of its first 11 drives go for more than 11 yards and four of those drives went for fewer than five yards. Point being, this was not a good day for Rutgers’ offense.
Jaquan Brisker led the way with seven tackles while Ellis Brooks chipped in six of his own. Penn State picked up two sacks and eight tackles for a loss along the way while forcing two fumbles. Arnold Ebiketie was his usual self and had 1.5 tackles for a loss, a sack, two quarterback hurries and a forced fumble.
Rutgers closed out Saturday’s game averaging 2.3 yards per rush and ran a total of just 58 plays. It was a long afternoon for the Scarlet Knights against the Nittany Lions’ defense, the second time this year Penn State has shutout a Big Ten opponent.
Special Teams: A
Jordan Stout is a ton of fun. He had eight punts with six of those downed inside the 20 and two going for 50+ yards for an overall average of 42.9 yards per punt on a handful of fairly short fields. Penn State didn’t attempt a field goal all day and Jahan Dotson only really had one return opportunity that he took back for 10 yards. It’s maybe a little annoying that Penn State’s special teams unit – as far as returning is concerned – is so docile, but it isn’t making mistakes either and that counts for a lot.
Rutgers started six drives inside its own 20 and four of those inside its own 10. Hard to beat that if you’re Stout.
Coaching: A
For all the criticism this group has gotten – fairly or not – Penn State entered this game with a ton of health related question marks and managed to navigate the Nittany Lion offense through just enough of the storm to win 28-0. Taking Clifford out of the game was the right call, finally playing Veilleux was the right move and Mike Yurcich called a game that was sensible and productive and easy for his backup quarterback to execute. Penn State’s defense did what it always does and the rest was history. A strange and sometimes ugly game, but marks for figuring it out. Games like this aren’t about being pretty, they’re about finding a way to win.
Overall: B+
Considering the circumstances it’s hard to be overly critical about this performance in any one direction. The defense played outstanding, special teams was special, the offense did just enough and the coaching staff found a way to beat a lesser team with a backup quarterback. Forget about style points and just look at the result.
