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The Red Zone – a place where elite offenses flourish and also-rans stall out like a 1977 Ford Pinto. To many, it’s puzzling why an offense can be so explosive, fluid and rhythmic in the open field then, suddenly, stub its toe and step on rakes once inside the final 20 yards to paydirt.
It’s an enveloping paradox Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich couldn’t untangle from during his first season in Happy Valley but did everything in his play-calling power to smooth out and make right in 2022.
As our friend and FTB contributor Nate Wilmot laid out in his end-of-year statistical recap, Penn State averaged 4.2 points per Red Zone visit in 2021 – “good” for a 114th place tie in FBS alongside neutered attacks like Rutgers and UMass. Last year, different story…the Nittany Lions averaged 5.8 points per Red Zone trip, trailing only Tennessee in this vital metric. Red Zone Efficiency represented the biggest year-to-year leap for Penn State in any basic or advanced statistical category.
