Sunday Column: As Lions finally end losing streak, it’s time to give the Fatman his flowers – and some more touches

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I guess it only took the desire for the prestigious Land Grant Trophy to finally get Penn State into the Big Ten win column.

The Nittany Lions traveled to East Lansing on Saturday in danger of going 0-7 in conference play, which would have surpassed the nadir set by the supremely forgettable 2003 Nittany Lions, who also lost their first six conference games before beating (cough) Indiana in Beaver Stadium. They went to Spartan Stadium the following week and lost 41-7.

This time, Dani Dennis-Sutton and the Penn State defense showed up (after taking their first snap off), the special teams blocked another punt, and the offense did what it has had a surprisingly difficult time of doing this season and gave the damn ball to Fatman.

Very little has gone right when Penn State has possessed the football this autumn. Another new group of receivers has struggled to get separation. The tight ends have been only sporadic parts of the passing game and have whiffed on an almost shocking number of blocks. The highly touted offensive line has been sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but mostly kinda just there. And the quarterback play, from both the can’t-miss NFL prospect and the super-raw redshirt freshman, has been subpar. Enough has been written here and elsewhere about the playcalling, which has both handcuffed and been handcuffed by all of the above, but there won’t be many Lions fans sorry to see Andy Kotelnicki go.

The lone consistently productive performer has been Kaytron Allen, who rolled up 181 yards and two tuddies Saturday while taking what was left of the Spartans’ souls in the fourth quarter and, with at least two games remaining, stands 139 yards from becoming the program’s career leading rusher.

With all due respect to the underrated Evan Royster, the electrifying Saquon Barkley and the legendary Curt Warner, no great Penn State back has had to deal with an offensive quagmire quite like the one Allen has played in this season, let alone split reps and carries with his roommate (who we’ll get to in a minute). Defenses have built mansions around the line of scrimmage, because they know the Lions won’t or can’t throw the ball down the field. As a consequence, Allen has repeatedly been met by one or more defenders within milliseconds of when he takes the handoff. When the line does its job and he gets to the second level or it doesn’t and he bounces it to the outside, the wideouts and tight ends are often just in the way. A mystifying number of his carries have come on third and medium, when most teams in their right mind would be calling a pass play and defenses are charging the line with bad intent.

And all the dude does is get yards. More yards than he has any right to be getting.

Allen is averaging 5.6 yards per carry this season, which is an impressive number on its own and puts him roughly around the top 40 in FBS. To put that number in perspective in the context of the Penn State offense, though, you must consider another: 3.9. That’s the 2025 per-carry average for Singleton, who entered the season with 35 more career yards than Allen but has been just about half as efficient since. Yes, he’s busted some tackles and a few big plays, but when 10 gets the ball, the offense looks like it does most of the time—feeble. When 13 touches it, however, plays that were blocked for 2 yards get 5, or a defender who had Allen dead to rights at the 25 gets carried to the 31.

Allen sees holes better than Singleton, than many great backs who have come through this program. He hits them hard and isn’t afraid to run through contact but he also manages to avoid it better than his roommate as well—no easy feat given the blocking issues mentioned above. All of it makes both the total usage of both players and particularly their usage in key spots—such as the times Singleton was stuffed on both third-and-short and fourth-and-short in a key sequence in Michigan State territory early in the second quarter Saturday—all the more puzzling, and a microcosm of the offense’s shortcomings as a whole this year.

Whether you think the Lions’ season ended with the overtime loss to Oregon or the meltdown in Los Angeles a week later or when Drew Allar left with an injury at the end of the Northwestern game, you could be guilty of wondering why the Lions haven’t given more younger players, including the running backs, some playing time, why they’re not playing for the future. Instead, Allen and Singleton are the only Penn State backs to carry the ball since the Villanova game on Sept. 13, when Cam Wallace had one carry for 4 yards. But given that 2026 will likely bring a new coach and a new coordinator and a new offense and new backs, perhaps that’s understandable.

So, keep feeding Allen, I say. Get him this rushing record, get him some more tape that will boost his improving draft stock, and get the team some more first downs and everyone on offense more snaps while you’re at it. Should he have been used more before the season went straight to hell, in games where a play or two, a few more yards here or there, could have been the difference? Probably, but something tells me this team was destined for purgatory either way. It was somehow fitting that, on Allen’s last touchdown run of the day, the ball was snapped about a second after the play clock had expired, which the officials missed. The Nittany Lions, as they’ve been for the majority of 2025, were a step behind. But 13, as he continues to do, made the play anyway.