Hindsight 2023: Penn State Offense vs. West Virginia

While the Nittany Lions cleared up several cloudy areas (ahem, QB play) in the season opener, presumed no-brainer positions of strength (OL, RB) raised a few eyebrows…and not in a good way.

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BOX SCORE               FTB CHARTING

Huzzah! The permed-hair prince who was promised!

On the Beaver Stadium scoreboard, Drew Allar is announced as the starting QB vs. West Virginia … 26 minutes before kickoff pic.twitter.com/hA0fr1RM2S

— Mike Poorman (@PSUPoorman) September 2, 2023

At approximately 7:05 p.m., a PA announcer no one apparently likes (poor guy) finally revealed the best-kept secret since up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start Button to the largest college football crowd found anywhere last Saturday (check ya math, Michigan).

From the settled dust of a fierce competition rivaling historic heated tilts like Hammer v. Nail and Obese Man v. Buffet, Penn State sophomore Drew Allar emerged victorious, edging out heel-nippers Beau Pribula and Jaxon Smolik for the starting QB role.

And for all the eye rolls and “come on’s” hurled James Franklin’s direction over the course of the past 5 weeks, perhaps the head coach’s decision to hide his cards and not show his hand until NBC was halfway through the clunkiest pregame show in the history of television was a shrewd, tactical, ingenious ploy.

Because, man, West Virginia looked completely unprepared for Allar’s coronation, didn’t it?

Formations

Safe to assume West Virginia defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley doesn’t have the musical stylings of Matty Fresh queued up on any playlists, because if he did, odds are he wouldn’t have rolled out this cheesecloth alignment vs. Penn State’s hipster-chic T Formation.

For those unfamiliar, Matty Fresh is Central Pa.’s unofficial Lyricist Laureate. Over the years, through his words, we’ve learned that Trace McSorley can hit the smallest form of U.S. currency with a football, Jahan Dotson and the Lamb of God come from the same hometown, and the best way to spend a non-college football Saturday night in Schuylkill County is loitering outside of Sheetz sipping a half-gallon of iced tea.

Oh, and in his latest anthem ‘niTTany naTion’ Maestro Fresh taught us that Penn State is quite fond of running the ball out of the T Formation when he sang (puts on reading glasses, checks notes) “WE RUN THE T.” Again, Lesley never got the memo.

Other than personnel – TE 16-Khalil Dinkins replacing the handsomely-paid Brenton Strange in the backfield, Allar replacing Sean Clifford – nothing has changed. Same symmetrical alignment. Same pre-snap sideline check by the QB to determine the formational strength/weakness of the defense – in this case, 6 defenders to the field, 4 to the boundary, 0-Tech nose tackle splitting the center. Same ‘Blast’ play, an off-tackle run with two lead blockers emanating out of the backfield. Same result as the last two times we saw the T Formation in 2022 (well, January 2023, technically): touchdown.

What is interesting, though, is that late in the 4^th quarter, Yurcich dialed up the T on 1^st and 10 and 2^nd and 5, which marks the first time that this formational relic was used outside of short-yardage or goal-to-go scenarios.

Why would he even bother?

Not totally sure, lazy transition device.

Our best guess is that the game’s dying breaths offered up a chance to squeeze in a few more in-game, live-bullet T reps for the aforementioned positional newcomers, namely Dinkins. Or, perhaps, this marked the first stage of some diabolical trap Yurcich is setting up for later in the season, planting a wicked seed of deception that will sprout chunk yards in late October or mid-November during the only two games of consequence on the schedule. (rubs hands together in a super-villainy manner) Wouldn’t that be delightful??!?!? Mwahahaha!!!

 But, yeah, it’s probably the former, not the latter.

OK, enough with the old (like more than a century old in the T’s case), let’s show you what’s new.

As FTB contributor and former NAIA wide receiver Shane Paul predicted two weeks ago, Allar’s lineup insertion enabled Yurcich to wipe the dust off some old Wide Split alignments that littered his 2016, 2017 and 2018 Oklahoma State film. Behold:

When you have a QB blessed with a Sidd Finch arm like Allar (btw, we’re one week in and already running low on strong-armed pop culture references) capable of launching a one-step frozen rope from the far hash to the opposite sideline, it forces defenses to account for the entire width of the field. That ‘stretching’, if you will, creates natural 1-v-1 matchups, regardless of the called coverage.

Wide splits also distinctly separate run and pass facets of a play, making defenders commit to one island (run support) or the other (pass coverage) instead of straddling the grey, isthmus, ‘in-between,’ pre-snap and post-snap. Usually, that spacing affords the QB elementary pre-snap reads on RPOs, like this one:

Count the yellow pants along with me….in the box, we have 6 Mountaineers with a centerfield safety who could easily trigger downhill and fit (so 7ish) versus 5 Penn State blockers. So cross run off the option list.

On the edges we have 2 versus 2 with the WVU boundary corner, 11-Beanie Bishop Jr., granting PSU wide receiver 1-KeAndre Lambert-Smith 10 yards of cushion with more to come since he’s bailing into a deep-third at the snap. To the field, we have the same 2-on-2 look, but the corner is pressed up and it’s a longer throw…so Allar wisely chooses the softest coverage/shortest toss and flicks the NOW screen to KLS. Candy-from-a-baby first down that coulda/shoulda been more.

Lastly, as we also predicted, Yurcich flashed split-back 21 personnel featuring Nick and The Fatman sharing the same backfield for the first time in anything other than the T Formation. With that established, this felt like the BETA version of split-back…like when you’re halfway through downloading Madden and all you’re allowed to play is last year’s Super Bowl.

Expect more diversity and creativity from this 1-2 Punch look in the weeks to come:

Substitutions

The Big Ten’s newly-implemented, gambling-driven, mandatory pre-game participation list policy bore its first last-minute bummer fruit of the season when presumed starting slot WR 5-Omari Evans unexpectedly popped up as “Questionable.” According to our charting, Evans didn’t step on the field for offense or special teams.

In his absence, 2-Liam Clifford ran 19 routes out of the slot, while 1-KLS, 3-Dante Cephas and 6-Harrison Wallace combined for 7 routes from the slot in non-garbage time reps. Somewhat surprisingly, Florida State transfer 11-Malick McClain – a guy who received crumbs of buzz, at best, this preseason despite his undeniable physical gifts and scattered flashes of brilliance in garnet and gold – popped on the scene and quickly turned into one of Allar’s favorite targets in limited snaps. McClain’s target-to-route ratio – 40 percent – topped all Nittany Lions wide receivers that caught at least two passes.

Prior to the Lions’ final ‘Alcoa Fantastic (Gambling) Finishes’ drive (you have to be over 40 years old to get that reference, btw), 7 offensive linemen saw action: the 5 Starters left to right, Fashanu, Nelson, Nourzad, Wormley, Wallace along with reserve swing tackle 66-Drew Shelton (5 reps at LT, 17 reps at RT) and mammoth swing guard 71-Vega Ioane  (17 reps at LG, 11 reps at RG).

What’s interesting, though, is that when it was time for Penn State’s 2^nd team offense to cover the spread against the Mountaineers’ starters, presumed backup center 53-Nick Dawkins actually played right guard while some guy named 51-Dominic Rulli snapped the football to QB 9-Beau Pribula. Nelson bounced out to left tackle on the drive…replacing Shelton…who replaced All-Word LT 74-Olu Fashanu for the entirety of the 4^th quarter (precautionary coach’s decision).

Former Williamsport High Millionaire/Minnesota transfer 23-Trey Potts failed to vulture carries away from Nick or The Fatman during the competitive phase of the contest, settling instead for 5 parting-gift rushes for 6 yards.

Run/Pass Protection

*Includes Plays Negated By Penalty

Not spectacular. But not horrible, either. And, to be fair, a handful of reps we red-checked as ‘disturbed pocket’ occurred on long-developing pass concepts, which is understandable.

Although, to be fair once more, a handful of the pass protection reps we red-checked can’t be excused, the most egregious being this physics-defying steamroll of 348-pound guard 71-Vega Ioane by a defender a side of scrapple shy of 235 pounds (how?).

Examining this from a glass-half-full POV, the good news is that the remaining reps we red-checked can be dismissed as fixable missed assignments on the same protection concept, pulling-guard play action passes – eye candy simulating power run that’s designed to suck up linebackers and box safeties toward the line of scrimmage.

Play 2: Split-Back Formation. Penn State left guard 56-JB Nelson pulls. Both West Virginia outside linebackers drop into coverage. The three d-linemen rush. Penn State center 64-Hunter Nourzad is responsible for any second-level threats attacking the A-gap – a duty he apparently forgets. Simple assignment brain fart. Easily corrected.

Play 1: Same idea. Now, typically when the left guard (Nelson) pulls he’s responsible for the end man on the line of scrimmage – in this case, WVU LB 13-Hershey McLaurin (delicious name) – while the running back is told to work inside the guard. Well, both Nelson and Kaytron block the same dude. So someone goofed up. And even though it looked like 73-Caedan Wallace’s Xbox controller died mid-play, he’s technically responsible for any second-level inside threat (like Nourzad was the previous play) since the nose tackle is engaged with Nourzad here.

Finally, for a treat, here’s a savage BOGO run block from Nelson. Impressive rep.

Quarterback Play

By the time you’re reading this, Coach Codutti’s Film Study on Allar’s performance as a first-time starter will be anywhere between 24 and 48 hours old, so to avoid redundancy we’re gonna do our best to highlight aspects/moments that were left on the cutting room floor.

*Does not include 3 throwaways/batted balls but does include throws negated by penalty

Fun note re: our passing charts: In our three years of meticulously combing through Sean Clifford throws, the Big NFL Backup Red Dog always had at least ONE pass we deemed ‘WILD/Off-Target’ per game. Yes, that includes Clifford’s near-perfect 28 of 32 outing vs. Auburn in the 2021 Whiteout – we labeled THIS juuuuust-a-bit-outside toss to Jahan Dotson ‘WILD/Off-Target’ for good reason. As you see above, Allar – the freshly-crowned B1G Offensive Player of the Week — didn’t register a single WILD/Off-Target attempt on Saturday. Not bad, newbie.

Nearly as impressive as Allar’s unrivaled arm – an appendage that has had pundits drooling for (checks watch) 2 days and 21 hours now – was the real-time, in-game processing that took place between his ears. Shout out to Allar’s independent QB coach, Brad Maendler, for being the first to highlight this supreme Football IQ nugget on the Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter:

The protection call is a Full Slide Left, which is a zone blocking scheme where every offensive lineman is responsible for any pass rusher coming through the gap to their left. That means, on this five-man rush, the RB’s responsibility after the run fake is to square-up the Mountaineers BANDIT (a DE/OLD hybrid) 10-Jared Bartlett — a task that doesn’t get done. Anticipating this match-up might be an issue, Allar takes a couple calculated steps left, moving in unison with his shifting pocket, to buy time for McClain’s route to fully develop vs. this ballsy Cover 0 look.

It’s a minor detail that helped facilitate a massive play for six.

Pass Catching

The difficulty in sculpting a definitive opinion on the state of Penn State’s WR corps from the lone 60-minute sample size available is the plethora of free-access, unabated routes run against the Mountaineers cloudy and confusing coverages. For example:

 These are routes on air. This is throwing/catching in practice…albeit a really, really, really well-attended practice.

*Does not include 4 Uncatchable Passes

Of course, as you just witnessed in the final chapter of that montage, just because you’re throwing against ghost defenders doesn’t necessarily guarantee success. Top transfer portal acquisition 3-Dante Cephas – a player we’ve continued to prop up as a surefire difference maker even as repeated preseason practice reports dulled the Cephas shine day after day  — had a rough Blue-and-White debut. No need to sugarcoat it.

Like a tourist battling a slippery, flying Alaskan halibut at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Cephas almost let this decently-throw ball wiggle through his grasp, before adjusting, turning and re-catching it. And while securing the pass is obviously job No. 1, the extra, unneeded effort/concentration to do so seemed like it caused Cephas to stumble on what should have been an easy score.

At Kent State, Cephas’ career 8.8% drop rate was substantially worse than the percentages posted by recent Nittany Lions standouts Jahan Dotson (5.2%), Parker Washington (5.2%), and Mitchell Tinsley (4.9%) . Not trying to be negative. Just stating stats.

On the bright side, a curiously ignored (in media circles, anyway) transfer portalee, former Florida State wideout 11-Malick McClain, chased the sour aftertaste of Cephas’ opening act with a where-did-that-come-from? 4-reception, 58-yard outing vs. the Mountaineers. Beyond the numbers, McClain unearthed a trait that was noticeably absent when we poured through his FSU film – the ability to make guys miss and fight for yards after the catch.

For a big, tall, lanky target, McClain possesses a certain smoothness, fluidity and elusiveness normally exclusively found in pass catchers 5 to 6 inches shorter.