Sunday Column: Big Dud in The Big House Leaves Few Indicators that Penn State is close to Elite

The worst-kept secret in college football is that there are the haves, and the have-nots, and that the gap between them seems more likely to expand than to contract.

One of the teams in Michigan Stadium moved a step closer toward cementing itself as a “have” on Saturday. The other left little doubt that, at least for the time being, it remains in the other category.

Penn State lost 41-17 to Michigan and the game was not that close. Read that sentence again for emphasis. The Nittany Lions won the turnover battle, did not give the ball away, and converted all of their red-zone opportunities — all key parts of the formula that had led to their 5-0 start.

And none of it mattered.

The Wolverines dominated the first quarter, weathered a short but potent surge of momentum from Penn State (Sean Clifford’s 62-yard jaunt that set up Kaytron Allen’s touchdown and Curtis Jacobs’ pick six), allowed a field goal by the Nittany Lions to start the second half, then exerted their will in every phase the rest of the way.

The final stats — 563 total yards to 268, 418 rushing yards to 111, 11-of-17 on third downs to 4-of-12, 42 minutes to 18 in time of possession — illustrate the story fairly well but do not paint the entire picture. They don’t show that Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards often ran 7, 8, 12 yards before they were even touched by a Penn State defender, that on the few occasions a Penn State linebacker was in position to make a tackle, he was dragged by the ballcarrier or whiffed entirely. That the majority of Clifford’s 19 pass attempts (and the 10 thrown by Drew Allar) were made outside pockets that didn’t exist, if not while he was running for his life, or that the terrific freshman duo of Allen and Nick Singleton (a combined 12 carries for 35 yards) ran into walls almost immediately after they took the handoff.

Michigan looked the part of a top-5 team, pushing the ball down the field in chunks or deliberately, mostly on the ground but through the air on the few occasions it got into a third-and-long, and its defense was generally a step ahead of the Penn State offense all afternoon. The Wolverines didn’t do anything fancy and they didn’t have to; their control of both lines of scrimmage kept the offense on schedule — they did not punt once — and kept the Nittany Lions’ playmakers harried all day.

In short, the Wolverines dictated the flow of play, and Penn State, allegedly a top-10 team, was on the defensive in every phase. If not for the pick six and the Wolverines settling for three field goals inside the 15-yard line — uber-conservative decisions Jim Harbaugh could afford to make because of how in control his team was — rather than touchdowns, this blowout would have been even more embarrassing.

As it was, the Nittany Lions are left to pick up the pieces, and quickly, before they return home to face a decent Minnesota team and an Ohio State squad that could well be even better than Michigan. The offense, with or without a possibly injured Clifford, must find things to hang its hat on—run or pass plays the coaches know they can call and execute in tight spots. That they didn’t develop those plays during the first five games should have been a warning sign, but such was Michigan’s dominance Saturday that even the old reliables would have likely been shut down.

The defense needs to tighten up some communication issues that led to chunk plays and brush up on its tackling technique. The linebacker issues that Penn State got away with against less potent offenses before being exposed by Michigan probably aren’t going away this month or even this season, but there is room for any sort of improvement.

Really, though, it’s hard to put this one too much on the coaches; the players were simply dominated. And it’s hard to put this one too much on any individual player either; no one stood out as playing that poorly because the guy next to him was typically just as ineffective. And it’s important to remember that Penn State has shown that it can play at a level that will allow it to defeat most of the remainder of the teams on the schedule, the Buckeyes notwithstanding.

But ay, there’s the rub. The people reading this, or hammering out their frustrations on message boards today, and the players and coaches themselves, aren’t satisfied with being able to beat Rutgers and Indiana or even Purdue and Minnesota. They want to be able to, if not win all of the big games, at least show up and compete and prove that they belong on the same field as the 1.5 teams in the Big Ten that can truly qualify as haves/elites/whatever word you want to use.

The Nittany Lions did not belong on this stage Saturday, and it was evident immediately. It’s getting harder to remember the last time they did.