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

Well that happened. Penn State finishes off the year 7-5 heading into a bowl game with little in the way of positive vibes or good feelings. The Nittany Lions could have, perhaps should have, won on Saturday, and yet here things stand. Here are the grades.

Offense: C+

Considering the conditions Penn State’s offense managed to look fine in the first half. Sean Clifford threw two first half touchdowns to Jahan Dotson and the Nittany Lions generally moved the ball fairly well. If Penn State plays like it did in the opening 30 minutes, it may very well have won on Saturday. Then the second half happened. The difficult part here is that at the end of the day the offense just did what it was told to. It’s hard to blame this unit for trying to execute plays that may or may not have worked. Whatever the case might be, or whoever is to take the blame, Penn State lost its mojo in the second half — mainly the third quarter — and went from carving up Michigan State’s secondary through the air to trying to run the ball. Maybe you can blame the weather, but the snow was falling hard in both halves. When it was all said and done Penn State was well under 30 pass attempts heading into one of its final drives when the game was effectively already decided. That’s not going to cut it against the worst passing defense in America, no matter the conditions. Clifford ended the evening with 313 yards through the air and three touchdowns but it was too little too late.

Other numerical figures of note include Penn State going 5-for-13 on third down but 2-of-3 on fourth. The Nittany Lions also averaged 6.2 yards per play. Parker Washington also had a nice outing and gets some credit here.

Defense: C-

This was easily the worst day of the year for Brent Pry’s group that has rarely been pushed around by anyone all season. Michigan State moved the ball through the air and on the ground and did so in both phases with relative ease. The Nittany Lions did fid their game in the middle portion of the afternoon’s contest with a stretch of four of five drives going for less than 10 yards, but that was about it. A pick-six really ought to help this grade, but the Nittany Lions couldn’t get the key stops when they needed them and gave up a boatload of yards on multiple third-and-longs. Joey Porter Jr. continues to have a penalty-filled season and aside from Jaquan Brisker racking up 10 tackles, nobody really had a day to note.

It’s not so much the points or the yards, but the ease with which Michigan State gained them. No sacks doesn’t help matters any either. Michigan State also went 5-for-5 in the red zone, a rarity against Penn State’s defense.

Special Teams: C-

Jordan Stout the punter is very good. Jordan Stout the kicker was not so good. A missed field goal and a missed extra point proved to be the difference in this game, and while snow kicking isn’t exactly easy, neither miss was from any significant distance. Devyn Ford was solid on kickoff returns but a fumbled return hurts this grade. Stout finished the day with three punts down inside the 20 and a wild Jake Pinegar appearance for Penn State’s final extra point was a weird “hello” from a familiar face. The return game was fine, the punting was great, but too many mistakes were made by a unit that has been fairly mistake-free this season.

Coaching: C-

James Franklin didn’t offer up much in the way of an explanation other than something vague and generalized about running the ball in the second half, but Penn State’s refusal to throw the ball in the second half with any real intention was boggling. It would have been one thing if Franklin had cited the weather because that would have perhaps been a reasonable explanation, but by and large nobody said anything about the weather on Saturday other than how much fun it was to play in the snow. Jahan Dotson was fantastic, Clifford was also really pretty good on Saturday and Penn State’s running game managed a handful of solid runs. Moving away from the pass was a total head-scratcher though. Penn State didn’t really have any bad decisions beyond that overarching philosophy though. Going for it on fourth down was the right call when it happened. Mike Yurcich called a solid first half and the Nittany Lions generally were up for the challenge. But this was a game where the wrong coaching decisions loomed large. It’s one thing to not throw the ball all that much against a decent team, another to throw it under 30 times against the worst pass defense in America until the game was effectively over.

Overall: D

Michigan State is a perfectly fine team, but Penn State was healthy and equipped with all the tools to beat the Spartans and then simply didn’t use them. In a lot of ways this wasn’t a bad performance by the Nittany Lions but it also felt like Penn State made this game a lot harder than it needed to be and lost it in the process. That can’t help your grade any.