Sunday Column: New Year’s Resolutions for Penn State Football? Offense, Offense, and More Offense

There is a simple path for Penn State to return to football glory after a weird, wild and abbreviated 2020 season the Nittany Lions and their fans can only hope was an aberration:

Get in the damn end zone. As many times as possible.

If you watched Penn State’s strange and maddening autumn odyssey, from the stunner in Bloomington to the beatdown of Illinois, you saw both dysfunction and gradual improvement from the Nittany Lions in all three phases. You might have heard James Franklin profess one or two or 40 times over the years the importance of “complementary football,” and, yes, a stout defense and at least average special teams play are crucial for any team to have a chance to win at this level.

But, as Friday’s national semifinals, and the teams that played in them, have revealed this year, and for several years now, offense – elite, persistent, potent offense – is the name of the game today and the area in which the Nittany Lions must make the most improvement.

This season, the top 10 scoring offenses in FBS had an average scoring average (read that twice if you have to) of 44.5 points per game. And the CFP Top 10 reads very much like that Top 10 offenses list – Alabama (49.7) and Clemson (44.9) ranked second and third, respectively, in scoring, with Oklahoma (43.0) and Ohio State (42.5) also in the top 9. Only three of the Top 10 ranked teams finished outside the nation’s top 21 in scoring offense.

Yes, defense is important, too – but not as important. Of those top 10 teams, only Cincinnati (which ranked 51st in strength of schedule) was ranked among the nation’s top 10 in scoring defense, though seven others in that group were ranked in the top 30 in the category.

Again – great defense and special teams will give an offense more opportunities and better field position than weak units will, and the nation’s best teams have playmakers at every position. But when the season turns to postseason, if your offense fizzles, you won’t be carrying (or, in Wisconsin’s case, dropping) any hardware in January. 

In the 14 national semifinal games since the format began in 2015, the winning team has averaged 39.7 points per game and has scored fewer than 30 points just twice. The winners of the six national finals in that span have averaged 39 points and scored fewer than 35 points just once.

Ohio State knocked off Clemson for the first time on Friday not by shutting down Trevor Lawrence (though the Buckeyes’ defensive front did make it fairly miserable for him in the second half) but by putting him in a multiple-touchdown deficit and consequently dictating Clemson’s playbook. Thirty-one points and 437 yards for Alabama’s mighty offense seems a disappointment until you consider the Crimson Tide possessed the football for just over 26 minutes in its win over Notre Dame; both teams finished with 24 first downs but Alabama averaged 7.9 yards per play to the Irish’s 4.7.

Penn State was nowhere near those levels of efficiency or potency this season. The Nittany Lions finished 55th in FBS in scoring at 29.8 points per game, including just 24.6 during the 0-5 start. It was an aggressive defense and much better care of the football that turned things around in wins over Michigan (27-17) and Rutgers (23-7), and the Nittany Lions had just 10 points at half in the 39-24 defeat of Michigan State before a series of quick strikes opened things up late, and their throttling of an injury-depleted and head coach-less Illinois defense to complete the season had a bit of an asterisk on it.

The Nittany Lions were 37th in the nation in total offense (430.3 yards per game), which highlighted both the talent and potential of the group as well as its mystifying red-zone ineptitude (they ranked 106th out of 127 teams, with a mere 19 touchdowns in 37 trips) and tendency to part ways with the football (tied for 104th in turnovers lost).

At its offensive best this fall, Penn State leaned on its deep and veteran offensive line and the powerful legs of last-back-standing Keyvone Lee to move the chains and gave Sean Clifford and Will Levis more opportunities to make plays with their legs than to roll the dice with their arms. Jahan Dotson and Parker Washington made the most of the chances they had but saying the Nittany Lions left some points on the field is like saying Alabama has produced a few good wide receivers.

The good news? Kirk Ciarrocca, the team’s fourth offensive coordinator in six seasons, was the architect of a Minnesota offense that put up 34.1 points per game in his final season with the Gophers and, even with some of their most dynamic skill players out with injuries and the inconsistent play of their quarterbacks, the Nittany Lions began to look more comfortable with his offense during the second half of the season. And though there isn’t a Devonta Smith in the group and Jahan Dotson might have already played his last game as a Nittany Lion, Penn State has quietly assembled an impressive group of wide receivers and tight ends who could make this offense start humming if and when the quarterback play improves (or the QB options improve via the transfer portal). Another offseason of Franklin, Ciarrocca and the team’s other new offensive assistants, Phil Trautwein and Taylor Stubblefield, getting to know each other and their players won’t hurt, either. There is more in the playbook, and the coaches wisely didn’t over-feed a young offensive core this season, even if that meant making the offense less dynamic.

The scoreboard doesn’t care if the touchdowns were a product of a 13-play, 80-yard drive or a one-play, 80-yard drive, whether they came from designed QB runs or wide receiver screens or (inhales) a well-placed fade. But no matter who the personnel is, no matter what sort of offensive wrinkles are inserted, and no matter what the defense or the special teams do, Penn State’s offense will need more of those touchdowns in 2021 and beyond if it intends to earn a playoff spot and especially if it finally lands one.