Introduction
By now, I hope you know what we try to do here. We look at the stats of the latest Penn State football game loss from a statistical and contextual analysis and compare it to years gone-by. And now, with each passing week, the historic nature of this team is starting to add up for all the wrong reasons.
Basic Statistics – Summary
In the basic stat table, we highlight the team that won each category and, week over week, Penn State has had something good to hang their hats on despite always failing in the most important row – the score. Whether it was winning the yardage battle or controlling the ball, there was something positive. Against Iowa, there was nothing that gives hope. Yes, Penn State had more passing yards than the Hawkeyes (280 to 186) and completed a slightly higher percentage of passes but this didn’t matter. After scoring on their 2nd possession to take their first lead since Indiana (which was game 1 in case you forgot) Iowa thoroughly dismantled the Lions and this game wasn’t close. Even after Clifford subbed in for an ineffective Will Levis and threw two touchdowns in two plays to cut the lead to 31–21 the game was never really in doubt. Any existing doubt about this week’s outcome was erased when Penn State chose to punt down by 13 with just over 3 minutes remaining. What also may have been erased with that punt was any faith that this team might have the skill, organization, will, and heart to gain anything positive from the 2020 season.
This week, rather than go through the detailed graphs, analytics, and statistical breakdowns, we’re going to focus on historic context. In honor of the first Penn State team to start 0-5 in the 134-year history of the program, let’s see how far we need to go back to find other points of futility in the storied history of this once gloried program. Here are the Top 10 shocking, depressing, and embarrassing stats of your (not my – I’m a Coastal Carolina fan now) 2020 Penn State Nittany Lions.
