UNIVERSITY PARK — No. 8 Penn State (2-0, 0-0 Big Ten) snuck past Bowling Green (1-1, 0-0 MAC), 34-27, in its 2024 season home opener on Saturday, Sept. 7. Both teams came out firing, scoring 44 of the eventual 61 total points in the contest in the first half. A record-breaking day for tight end Tyler Warren proved to be the difference.
Bowling Green started the scoring party in two minutes and 21 seconds with a six-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. The Nittany Lions responded quickly, though, as Allar ran the ball into the end zone less than three minutes later to knot the game at 7 apiece.
The next 10 minutes were all the Falcons, who broke the tie with a field goal, followed by another long touchdown drive early in the second quarter. The 17-7 lead Bowling Green held at this point would be their largest of the game.
As the halftime break approached, it was Penn State’s turn to go on a run and the nationally eighth-ranked team tied the game at 17 with a three-play touchdown and a subsequent field goal.
In the final five minutes of the half, Bowling Green scored its first rushing touchdown of the afternoon. This was rivaled by another Sander Sahaydak field goal for Penn State, cutting the lead to four.
The Nittany Lions went into halftime down 24-20.
Thankfully, for Penn State fans, if the first half was a scoring party for the Falcons, it was shut down by the cops during the halftime break.
The Nittany Lions opened the second half scoring after a long nine minutes thanks to an 85-yard drive. A 14-yard pass from Allar to Nick Singleton topped off a drive that saw Tyler Warren record 62 receiving yards on three receptions.
Now playing with a lead and the crowd behind them, Penn State’s defense locked down the Bowling Green offense. An interception from Tony Rojas set up another Singleton touchdown, a 41-yard rush. Zakee Wheatley also caused a turnover shortly after.
Penn State’s 34-24 lead was chipped away at by a Falcons field goal with 47 seconds left, but it was too little too late. The Nittany Lions narrowly beat the Middle Atlantic Conference team, 34-27.
Despite a closer game than many anticipated, there were a lot of impressive individual performances from Penn State’s top players.
One of which was Tyler Warren, who broke Penn State’s single-game receiving yards by a tight end record with 146 on the day.
“I appreciate being able to do something like that at Penn State with a lot of great tight ends,” Warren stated. “I think it speaks to our diversity as an offense.”
Warren benefited from the absence of Andrew Rappleyea, still out with injury, but the Mackey Award watchlist player remains a large part of the rush and pass game for the Nittany Lions.
Another meaningful performance on Saturday was the turnaround from the Penn State defense in the second half. The Nittany Lions gave up 24 points in the first two quarters and just 3 in the third and fourth combined.
“I think early on, we’re trying to make plays rather than play the defense — getting out of our gaps, trying to make plays, doing things that we haven’t done during the week, and we’ve got to get those things cleaned up, for sure,” head coach James Franklin said.
Franklin also pointed to the fact that the Nittany Lions were behind the sticks a lot in the first half.
“I think the biggest thing in the second half, like I already mentioned, on defense, we were more efficient on first down, which created second-and-long and created third-and-long situations,” Franklin said. “We were ahead of the sticks. The whole first half we weren’t.”
One of the reasons for the change in energy on the defensive side of the ball was linebacker Tony Rojas.
Rojas recorded three total tackles and was deployed all over the field, even dropping into one-on-one coverage multiple times.
“He’s big, fast, smart, physical. He can do a lot of different things,” Franklin said. “It’s not just tackles in the box. He’s the sideline guy as well as a guy that can obviously make plays in coverage.”
The sophomore linebacker was rewarded for his work with a diving interception in the fourth quarter.
The Nittany Lions have a bye on Saturday, Sept. 14, but will look to continue and improve on their second-half play in two weeks. Penn State is set to remain in Happy Valley to play Kent State on Saturday, Sept. 21, at 3:30 p.m.
