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Introduction

Penn State is back in the win column, which makes pounding out this piece way more fun than the previous three. So, hey, we’re off to a sunny start!

Now for the dark cloud…

Despite registering the 6^th W of the season, there remains concern about this instillation of Penn State ever becoming a complete team. The run game looked better, especially with respect to the performances of Noah Cain and Keyvone Lee. Jahan Dotson gave his usual superstar performance. The defense limited Maryland to a very low point total and the game was sealed with an interception by a former Lackawanna Falcons safety, Ji’Ayir Brown. With that established, the offense only gained 2.8 yards-per-rush; the defense surrendered more than 400 yards, which is too many, and though it felt like the Nittany Lions had complete control, and the game was still technically in doubt with under 10 minutes remaining. So, a win’s a win but there are still things to explore and issues to fix.

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There are players who make plays, and then there are playmakers, the rare and oh-so-sought-after cats who have that instinctive ability to be in the right spot at the right time and the brains and balls to take advantage of it.

True playmakers can take a team from good to great (see Barkley, Saquon) or make a mediocre defense look formidable (see Parsons, Micah). They can breed confidence in their teammates and attract the attention of future playmakers. They’re the reason college coaches spend so much time and effort on recruiting and the reason the NFL keeps piling up the cash despite one public relations nightmare after another.

One of those playmakers won a game Penn State had little business winning on Saturday in sleepy College Park, Maryland.

Jahan Dotson was the best player on the field, which he’s been before, and on this day looked like he wouldn’t be an afterthought if the discussion were about the best player in the Big Ten. He shined so brightly that any of his teammates were going to seem dull by comparison and yet, that light also revealed why the Nittany Lions are pretty much an afterthought in early November after such a promising start.

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Introduction

Welp, another postgame analytics write-up following a Penn State loss, although this one is a little less demoralizing than the previous two. The Nittany Lions hung with the heavily favored Buckeyes from first whistle to last whistle but just couldn’t finish the job. Offensively, two big turnovers directly led to 10 Buckeye points, which was ultimately the difference in the game. The defense played very well and held the best offense in the conference, if not the nation, in check except for a few backbreaking chunk plays. Once again, this game reaffirmed a couple of things: 1. Penn State remains Ohio State’s toughest competition within the Big Ten year in and year out. And 2., the gap between Ohio State and everyone else in the conference is really, really wide.

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Three players trotted into the end zone with no one around them on Saturday night.

Only one of them scored a touchdown.

Penn State’s 33-24 loss to Ohio State in the Big … uh, Horseshoe was a game defined by big plays. The Buckeyes made enough of them — including a 57-yard scoop and score by defensive tackle Jerron Cage — to hold off a game bunch of Nittany Lions, who went toe-to-toe with the hosts in many ways but made more mistakes than big plays of their own.

Jesse Luketa’s jaunt into the end zone came after he picked up a harmless incomplete pass, and John Lovett’s romp was only after he had run more than a yard out-of-bounds before catching the pass. Neither counted, of course, and it was that kind of evening for the Nittany Lions, an evening of missed opportunities and almosts. Penn State forced a turnover on the first possession, the perfect start for a team looking to pull off a big upset on the road … and then gave the ball back on the very…next…play. Down three early in the final quarter, the Nittany Lions were gifted a turnover on downs when C.J. Stroud missed a wide-open Chris Olave … then gave the ball back four plays later on an ill-advised throw by Sean Clifford that was intercepted by Cameron Brown.

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• Wanna know the sickest aspect of this loss tonight? No? Well, too bad. The sickest aspect of this loss tonight is that it’s the type of “Well, if we gotta lose one” setback we all would have killllled for three weeks ago – a close, hard-fought setback worthy of CFP debate had Penn State finished the season at 11-1. (Inset Aunt/Uncle anatomy retort here).

• No moral victories. Not at Penn State. That’s Rutgers stuff. BUUUUUT…the team backed up all the preseason flowery talk of chemistry and closeness with their effort tonight. With nothing but pride on the line, they showed up. In 2020, the dam bursts and Penn State drowns at 17-7 and 27-17. So Yay!

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Introduction

“Oh man, what a terrible loss.” – Me, Oct. 9, 2021.

“Oh man, what a terrible loss.” – Me, Oct. 23, 2021.

Hope – the most dangerous of four-letter words – rested on the figurative shoulders and literal “right torso” (as ABC’s sideline reporter kept calling it, as if humans have two) of QB1 Sean Clifford following a disappointing, but excusable, setback at Iowa. And then Saturday happened. What began as a foregone conclusion on Tuesday – no way Clifford plays vs. Illinois, but no way Penn State loses to Illinois, either – turned into the most unpleasant surprise in recent memory – Oh wow, Clifford’s starting, and Oh Wow, Penn State lost to a bunch players the opposing coach doesn’t want on the roster. In the most ‘Big Ten’ of Big Ten games, Illinois posted 10 times more rushing yards than passing yards but couldn’t really score, as Penn State’s ‘Bend but Don’t Break’ defense once again showed off its Stretch Armstrong pliability. The Nittany Lions offense, with a clearly hobbled quarterback, couldn’t muster enough production to score more than 10 points in 60 minutes of play against an Illini defense that was allowing 28.7 points per game prior to Saturday.

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It is tempting, oh so very tempting, to dive into the abyss of the overtime portion of Saturday’s game, and just splash around in the muck and the mire of the botched Boalsburg Special or the runs to nowhere or Brandon Peters’ throw into the stands. There is agony and ecstasy — OK, mostly agony — to be found there, and maybe even some pseudo-inspiring schtick about Penn State defenders who logged roughly 100 snaps (not an exaggeration) in a game in which they were favored by 24 points.

But the longest overtime stretch in college football history is not the story of the day. No, that particular tale is the story of a would-be contender who was finally, painfully, exposed as a fully flawed pretender.

Penn State showed us who it really was in Saturday’s ugly 20-18 loss to a previously 2-5 Illinois team. For most of this season, the Nittany Lions had the markings of a talented team that could rev it up from time to time and was just a few plays or a few days away from putting it all together. The loss at Iowa was maddening and disappointing, to be sure, but could also easily be explained away — the gap from QB1 to QB2 on this particular team was substantial, and QB1 had been doing enough damage before his injury that you could make the case that the Lions could just as easily been 6-0 and sitting at No. 2 in the country as they came out of the bye week.

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Sponsor: Whether tailgating in Happy Valley or watching the action at home, take your Saturday spread to the next level with Sauces, BBQ Dry Rubs and Bloody Mary Mix from the 409 Tailgate Club. Visit 409’s Online Store HERE.

• Kudos to Arby’s clairvoyant in-house marketing team for landing the title sponsor spot on ABC’s Penn State-Illinois broadcast. Great choice. In fact, I’d say the decision makers in horsey sauce-stained suits couldn’t have picked a more “on-brand” game to advertise on. I mean, this contest WAS Arby’s — soggy, repulsive, depressing, nauseating, disappointing, and really, really, really tough to swallow.

• (Deep breath) Where to even begin…

…guess we’ll dish out credit where credit is due: swollen Illinois HC Bret Bielema authored an masterful run-blocking opus today using an unwanted collection of 300-pounders that he verbally eviscerated five days earlier. The Illini somehow managed to rack up 357 yards on the ground despite posing zero threat through the air. In several standard down situations, Illinois lined up 7 O-linemen, 2 tight ends, 0 wide receivers, and just Red Rover’d right through the unprepared Penn State defense, thus validating every slow-footed Big Ten stereotype your co-worker from Chattanooga or brother-in-law from Houston has ever spouted at you.

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