Hindsight 2020: PSU Offense vs. Indiana

It’s Not the Debut We All Expected, but the Show Must Go On. Film Shows Plenty of Room for Improvement and Plenty of Reasons to be Optimistic.

FTB CHARTING – BOX SCORE 

For those expecting us to spew venom for the next 1,900 words, you got the wrong blog. 

Because for as frustrating as Penn State’s bed-wetting in Bloomington was on Saturday, the offense wasn’t the 1970 Gremlin sporting a duct-taped bumper many message-board Marthas (we’re taking back Karen for all the Karens out there) claimed it to be. 

Kirk Ciarrocca’s Lions gained 488 total yards against a veteran defense. In 2019, Penn State failed to reach that yardage mark in 9 of 13 games. Two of the games they did (Idaho and Maryland) shouldn’t even count. So just calm down and let us offer some perspective. Film review shows the offensive line fluctuated between Very Good to Dominant – despite a lot of negativity heaped on this group after the game, the Penn State skill players were pedestrian at best, and Sean Clifford was Sean Clifford.

Formations

Ciarrocca didn’t show us anything that caught us off guard after we spent the endless summer breaking down Minnesota and Western Michigan tape. 

Shotgun every snap. Every play featured one running back. There was at least one tight end on the field for every play – which isn’t a shocker considering Pat Freiermuth seems like the only target Sean Clifford truly trusts.

More than half the plays featured 3 WRs.

Penn State ran 34 plays with either Freiermuth or Brenton Strange lined up as a TE Wing – which we saw a ton in Ciarrocca’s 2019 Minnesota Offense. 

On 7 plays, Ciarrocca brought in a sixth offensive lineman (a formation we call HEAVY in our charting). The most exotic of these HEAVY packages occurred on the first play. OT Will Fries lines up eligible as a wing, while Caeden Wallace provides the extra mass. Wallace was always the 6th OL in HEAVY sets. 

When Minnesota ran 6 OL HEAVY vs. Penn State in 2019, the Golden Gophers amassed five 20+ yard plays, two of which ended in the end zone. In this game, Penn State averaged 0.6 yards per HEAVY play, scored one touchdown and committed one turnover (the Will Levis 2nd quarter fumble). 

Substitutions

On the offensive line, right guard was the only position with consistent rotation. C.J. Thorpe lined up sandwiched between Menet and Fries for the first two drives, but Des Holmes replaced him on the third drive. From there, the two large men rotated in-and-out for the rest of the forgettable day. As we mentioned, Wallace was the sixth offensive lineman in HEAVY formations. Thankfully, no offensive lineman appeared to get dinged up, so we didn’t see any spot substitutions this game.

Freiermuth and Strange were the only two tight ends to see action. The two Aces were on the field together for 18 plays. 

I still can’t figure out how Noah Cain got hurt. It’s not obvious on the broadcast. Whatever happened, it was apparently bad enough to sideline him for the entire day.  UPDATE: Cain is still listed as the starting RB in this week’s depth chart. Without the sophomore from IMG, the Nittany Lions played 3rd-stringer Devyn Ford the majority of snaps (even though his performance didn’t warrant such activity) with true freshmen Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes spotting him for a few drives. 

Quarterback Will Levis entered the game for Clifford on two short-yardage plays that absolutely sucked. On the first, Levis allowed the play clock to run out, resulting in a 5-yard penalty on a makeable 3rd and 2. On the second, this happened:

This play is slow. This play is clunky. This play – and package – needs to be tossed in the trash. You can tell Levis is mentally processing all he’s been coached to do on this play, but he’s doing so with a 1995 landline modem. 

Unlike the MUSCLE GOPHER package Ciarrocca showcased at Minnesota, this Levis HAMMER DOWN set missed the nail completely and left Penn State with a swollen thumb. We’re not even sure which defender Levis is reading on this play…as it looks on replay like he’s just staring into the middle of the offensive line. Unlike his 2019 touchdown against Maryland, Levis establishes no downhill momentum…so even if Indiana didn’t send a defender off the edge, we don’t think this play is going anywhere, anyway. Least he could have done is taken a 4-yard loss and salvaged a field goal (that Pinegar probably would have missed) but Levis couldn’t even do that right. 

WR substitution patterns left us with one pressing question that we didn’t see any news outlets address in the postgame: Where’s Cam Sullivan-Brown?!?!?! Listed as a starter on the Tuesday depth chart, Sullivan-Brown didn’t participate in a single play last Saturday. Believe it or not, walk-on Isaac Lutz saw meaningful action in the 3rd and 4th quarter, although he was never targeted. Jahan Dotson, Daniel George and Parker Washington hogged the majority of snaps. True freshman KeAndre Lambert-Smith popped on a couple plays that should result in more of a workload this week against Ohio State. According to our charting, this catch is the only instance a PSU WR broke a tackle for extra yardage:

RUN/PASS BLOCKING

I’m not sure what you people want from this group. 

You do realize Penn State possessed the ball for more than 2/3rds of regulation, amassed 11 more first downs than Indiana, and ran 25 more total plays…and they did all that with just 4 scholarship wide receivers available, the top two running backs out, and Sean Clifford doing his best Rick Ankiel impersonation for the entire 2nd quarter!

In 87 plays, Penn State was tackled behind the line of scrimmage five times…FIVE! 

One of those five occurred on this screen pass Tiawan Mullen blew up when Parker Washington whiffed (-2) – not the OL’s fault:

Another happened on this horribly conceived swing pass to Ford…a call made worse when Penn State receiver Daniel George (-2) decide to opt out of blocking anybody – once again not the OL’s fault: 

So now we’re down to three negative plays out of 87. And remember how the 17 people who give a rip about Indiana football barked all off-season how this might be the program’s best defense this century? If that’s the case, it’s been a sieve of a century because Penn State’s front five got major push over and over and over on Saturday. Here’s an example:

On this next play, a hole big enough to accommodate those fat motorcycle-riding Guinness Book of World Records twins forms when Walker (+2) seals the DT inside while Freiermuth (+2) gets a rare quality kick out block on the flatfooted Indiana DE. 

Amazingly (but not in a good way), Ford makes a wrong read — which happened too often this game–  cuts inside when there’s no reason to cut and gets slightly slowed up before reaching the second level.  

On passing downs, Clifford threw from a clean pocket on 32 of 40 drop backs – which is insanely good. Yes, Walker got beat on the edge a few times. Conversely, Fries’ performance turned out to be a pleasant surprise, though, as we only docked him on one pass play the whole game. Penn State did a fantastic job of handling Indiana’s unpredictable rush concepts, especially when LBs blitzed and the DEs dropped into coverage:

Clifford ducks out of the pocket even though there’s no pressure. The OL did its job. Tough blitz picked up easily. 

Here’s another one:

On what should have been the final touchdown of the game, Mike Miranda picked up a slightly delayed linebacker blitz and PANCAKED the extra pass rusher, allowing Clifford time to step up in the pocket and hit the Cover 2 beater post route to Dotson. 

QUARTERBACK PLAY

Want us to sum up Sean Clifford’s 2020 debut in a single word? Hmmm, schizophrenic, I guess. On difficult passes, he didn’t miss. Then, he’d go ahead and airball layups and lip-out gimme putts. It was a Box of Chocolates kind of day. When Clifford’s arm went back, you never knew what you were gonna get. 

*Chart doesn’t include 4 Throwaways/Batted Balls

Not sure whether this is good or bad, but the majority of Cringe-worthy Clifford plays got clustered together during a 10-minute stretch spanning the late moments of the 1st quarter to midway through the 2nd quarter. After that stinker sequence, Clifford faired fairly well and occasionally displayed moments of grit-laced greatness.

Clifford’s worst throw happened on a play we never expected to see from Kirk Ciarrocca – a traditional RB screen pass. We scouted 3 Minnesota games and 2 Western Michigan games Ciarrocca piloted in his final seasons at both schools and this screen was not in the playbook. And if this is the expected result, here’s hoping we never see it again:

A routine throw becomes a slightly tougher drop-it-in-the-bucket toss when Des Holmes’ block on Jerome Johnson unluckily chucks the defender right in Clifford’s passing lane. Ford does a good job of staying behind the line of scrimmage to negate an Ineligible-Downfield flag. But Clifford misses the target by four yards. In case you were wondering, that’s really bad.

Unlike the first pick, there’s no excusing Clifford in any way, shape, or form on this one. The pocket is perfect. The crossing route is the perfect answer to man coverage with a single-high safety. Freiermuth has nearly two yards of separation. Hit him in stride and this might go for 20 yards. But he doesn’t, so it doesn’t. Clifford just misses the target…by a lot.

But things eventually got better.    

Late in the 3rd quarter, Clifford completely flipped the script and turned into a different player for the remainder of the game after this on-the-run gem to Daniel George on the sideline to convert 3rd and 9:

For whatever reason, Clifford threw his best balls while on the move and under duress:

Oh, he also scored a touchdown where seven dudes in red had a shot of tackling him. Maybe he likes the chaos?

PASS CATCHING

*Chart doesn’t include 8 Uncatchable/Throwaway/Batted Down passes

Not a lot to discuss here beyond the chart. Freiermuth had an uncharacteristic drop but made up for it with a stylish one-handed circus catch on an errant Clifford toss. Same thing with George…bad drop with 4:15 left in the 3rd, only to squat down and snag the aforementioned Clifford throw to the sideline three plays later.

To us, the biggest takeaway here is Penn State’s established pass catchers – George, Dotson and Sullivan-Brown (if he ever plays) – aren’t going to keep Defensive Coordinators up at night. They’ll do what’s asked of them…and that’s about it. The spectacular escapes them.