Sunday Column: 7 > 14 … And Numbers Still Don’t Add Up For Offense

Penn State made a position switch on Saturday that might not have saved the game but might have salvaged the season.

Or maybe the season was already beyond salvaging, and the switch only solved one of many, many problems while possibly creating another.

It is increasingly difficult to draw any firm conclusions about this Penn State team, which lost in a different fashion for the fourth straight week, other than that it’s not very good. The Nittany Lions have been consistently sloppy, but also shown flashes. They’ve been more than competitive when it comes to total yards accrued vs. yards allowed (501-298 on Saturday), a metric that doesn’t mean anything without context but usually speaks to general competency, and yet they continue to be insanely bad in the red zone, where they now have eight touchdowns in 19 visits.

The insertion of Will Levis at quarterback for Sean Clifford provided more of those scoring chances, and 20 of the team’s 23 points, as well as a vastly needed spark that seemed to permeate not only the rest of the offense but the rest of the team; the defense allowed only eight first downs and six points after Levis took over early in the second quarter. There was the powerful running style the 220-pound bruiser had shown last season, yes, but there was also a confidence and decisiveness in the pocket we had not seen from his predecessor this fall.

At the same time, we saw the reasons Levis has been a backup; he completed only 14 of his 31 pass attempts, some of those missed connections the result of timing or good coverage but many just a slight lack of accuracy — a ball that needed to be placed inside on the outside, or a pass on-target but a yard short. You can certainly attribute some of that to rust, but if Levis could control his strong right arm on a consistent basis, he might already be the starter.

And though it was encouraging to see Levis lead the offense inside the Nebraska 20-yard line on four second-half occasions, the disasters that followed were enough to dampen most of the enthusiasm that spark had generated, and only so much of it can be placed on the quarterback. Predictable running plays, end zone fades, breakdowns in pass protection, penalties – the same sort of foul-smelling potpourri that had tripped up an offense led by Clifford prevented a Levis-led offense from winning a game in which the defense played well enough to win.

Well enough in the second half, that is. Even if you take away the seven points the Cornhuskers tallied on Clifford’s fumble and Deontai Williams’ touchdown return, Nebraska mustered 17 points and 150 yards on its first three possessions (it would have been 21 points and 155 yards had Kade Warner caught the wobbly but between-the-numbers pass from Luke McCaffrey in the end zone). That doesn’t sound like much until you remember that Nebraska had scored only six touchdowns and averaged 370 offensive yards in its first two games.

For the second straight week, Penn State faced a top 10 NFL Draft pick …’s younger brother, and though the Nittany Lions didn’t look anywhere near as helpless chasing freshman McCaffrey as they had chasing freshman Taulia Tagovailoa, the defense was very much on its heels for the first part of the game for the third straight week. That it has made adjustments and played better in the second halves of each of those games should not be discounted, but the production is not equaling the talent level on that side of the ball, and it is evident against offenses both strong and weak.

The question is the same that followed each of the previous three losses: Where does Penn State go from here? The addendum that’s different is: And who will be under center in the gun? James Franklin, to no one’s surprise, declined to name a starting quarterback after the game. The decision doesn’t seem all that hard on the surface; Levis’ flaws can be corrected, and what he needs most is game experience. Clifford has shown a higher ceiling than we’ve seen from Levis to date, but his floor continues to crumble and fall away each time he takes the field. He perhaps needs a break from QB1 as much as the rest of the team needs a break from him. Sending him to the bench permanently or even for a couple of starts might be a tricky intangible situation for Franklin and Kirk Ciarrocca if every other intangible situation weren’t so messy at the moment. And should they re-structure the offense to better take advantage of Levis’ strengths and mask his weaknesses, or simply start from scratch because, well, why not?

Even if Levis gets the call and is able to build on some of his encouraging play, though, the immediate future doesn’t look appetizing for Penn State. Good quarterback play can mask a lot of problems, but, as flipping the switch from 14 to 7 revealed, so can bad quarterback play. Expecting the entire squad to receive a shot in the arm was one thing, and the Nittany Lions got that on Saturday. Expecting the rest of the 21 starters – and the play-callers – to suddenly be rid of the rest of their problems was wishful thinking.

 But at least it’s a start.