Penn State Football: Handing Out the Grades Following the Nittany Lions’ Loss to Iowa

Penn State heads into its off week at 5-1 with a loss to Iowa under its belt following a dramatic 23-20 defeat to Iowa on Saturday night. The question moving forward is the health of quarterback Sean Clifford, but in the meanwhile here are the grades from Saturday’s contest in Iowa City.

Offense: B/C-

Before the Clifford injury things were going more or less as well as you could ask for it you were Penn State. The Nittany Lions were moving the ball, Clifford was – save for his two interceptions – [we’ll get to those later] finding his targets and using his legs. Penn State hadn’t quite gotten the run game going but Clifford was doing enough with what he had to work with. 133 yards in the first quarter and 14 points is darn near perfect on the road, especially at Iowa. Penn State was a perfect 5-for-5 on third down for a stretch and looked the far better team. This grade is knocked because Clifford’s two interceptions could have been much more costly if not for Penn State’s defense stepping up to the plate.

With Ta’Quan Roberson in the game Penn State’s offense collapsed. From the false starts to the dropped passes, everything went from good to awful. The Nittany Lions had less than 100 yards of offense in the second half and never had much momentum aside from a field goal drive in the third quarter when Roberson had success moving the ball with his legs. It’s hard to really say how good Penn State should or shouldn’t have been with a backup on the field – let alone on the road – but it could have gone better than this.

Expect Penn State to circle the wagons around Roberson, especially if Clifford is out for an extended period, but he has a long way to go if the Nittany Lions want to stay afloat.

Defense: A+

Penn State had 11 tackles for a loss, three sacks and six quarterback hurries on really one of the best nights Brent Pry’s group has had – let alone in a losing effort. The Nittany Lions would have lost this game well before the final play if not for a defense that is among the best in the nation and one of the better defenses the program has fielded over the years. You’re going to win a lot of games only giving up 23 points and Iowa had a whale of a time moving the ball.

By the end of the night the Hawkeyes converted 7-of-19 third down attempts and scored just enough to win, but it was as tough as it comes for Iowa’s attack against this defense. Ellis Brooks had 14 tackles to lead the way while Arnold Ebiketie managed 3.5 tackles for a loss and a sack. Jaquan Brisker picked up a crucial interception and this entire group managed two different key red zone stands.

Penn State lost, but you couldn’t have asked for much more from this unit.

Special Teams: A

Jordan Stout was perfect kicking the ball and boomed three punts 50+ yards and two inside Iowa’s 20. The issue here was that for as good as Penn State’s kicking was, Iowa’s was even better. The Nittany Lions started drive after drive deep in their own end of the field and little to no offensive movement in the second half meant constantly facing difficult punting situations. Penn State would have liked to get more out of its return unit on Saturday but excellent punting on Iowa’s half kept that from being a reasonable expectation. Stout in particular did everything he could on Saturday so that’s good enough for a grade that reflects it.

Coaching: C

This is a tough one to grade because in a perfect world where Sean Clifford is healthy you got the impression in the early going that the Nittany Lions might win the game with at least some level of comfort. With Clifford out of the equation Penn State didn’t really have a plan for Roberson. That being said two drops by Brenton Strange and some overthrows by Roberson to wide open targets don’t help matters any. All told though the false starts – and struggling to sort that out until it was too late – don’t help the grade.

The bigger picture question here is if Penn State did enough to get Roberson ready to play at all this year or if Iowa is simply just a really difficult place to get thrown into the fire. The answer is probably a mixture of both. Roberson had one or two okay drives, but it wasn’t enough.

Overall: B

Penn State probably wins this game if Clifford is healthy. The overall grade gets a boost from that fact, and the fact the defense played outstanding. The grade gets knocked for the fact the Nittany Lions basically played the second half without an offense and couldn’t figure out a way to fake it long enough to win.