Sunday Column: Studs Sharp as Lions Hand Hapless Opponent Expected Blowout

Dispatches from Beaver Stadium following the Kent State game, aka the Liam Clifford Breakout Party …

First off all, it should be noted once again that the Nittany Lions are both at fault and not at fault for the level of opponent. College football schedules, for reasons known only to Mark Emmert and the CIA, are put together several years in advance. And they do get a pass for the pandemic wreaking particular havoc on this particular opponent scheduling. But while Penn State couldn’t have known the Golden Flashes would be this bad in 2024, they had to figure they weren’t going to be great. But hey, Kent State gets its paycheck, Penn State gets a dub heading into the Big Ten season, and on we go.

I don’t think the Nittany Lions played particularly well, nor were they particularly bad. They arguably could have beaten this Kent State team — even before it lost its top two quarterbacks to injuries — by 30 or 40 points with a random mix of first- and second-stringers playing the entire game. At least initially, they didn’t look particularly crisp on offense, and the defense continued its early season trend of silly penalties, including a couple more neutral zone infractions.

But one of the things you look for in games like this is how the best players on the team look, regardless of the degree of difficulty the opponent presents, and the Nittany Lions did well here Saturday.

Drew Allar, the most important player on the offense, played one of the most well-rounded games we’ve seen from any Penn State quarterback in recent years. He took his time. He extended plays. He threw with power, precision and touch, and he took care of the football. Getting some more receivers besides Tre Wallace and Tyler Warren involved was a nice perk but the guy tossing them the balls was the headline, with stunningly efficient stats (309 yards on just 21 attempts) and a quiet confidence that has to be scary for defensive coordinators who’ll have to prep for him. Now, is he going to see a defense that soft again this season, or in the remainder of his college or pro careers? Of course not, but Allar is lining up his physical tools with the poise and smarts he hasn’t always showed on the biggest stages, and those reps are going to matter later in the year, even if they were earned against a unit that got smoked by St. Francis. (Side note: Can we stop trying to make the Pribula plays happen when Allar is in the flow of the game?)

Andy Kotelnicki is also continuing to utilize the two best weapons Allar has — Warren and Nick Singleton — by moving them around the field, hunting mismatches and big patches of open space. Enjoyed the Wild Tight Lion (apologies to Tommy Stevens) packages but, Andy, maybe save the sweet little swing pass out of it for a better opponent?

On defense, we saw some more, ahem, flashes from a guy who had been relatively quiet the first two games but will need to carry more of the weight on defense later in the season. Abdul Carter had another offside penalty, but he also recorded four tackles and a sack and came very close to racking up a few more quarterback takedowns. Carter should still be given some time to adjust to a new position, but that’s time this defense, which hasn’t yet had a true pass rusher fill the shoes of Chop Robinson and Adisa Isaac, doesn’t really have. Dani Dennis-Sutton hasn’t taken the leap that some had hoped, and while Amin Vanover and Smith Vilbert are quality rotation guys that you need to last four quarters, they nor anyone else on the line have the game-breaking ability that Carter does. If he continues to clean up some of the discipline issues in his game and refine his rushing repertoire, the rest of Tom Allen’s defense (which was on the whole quite solid Saturday after an alarm-sounding performance against Bowling Green) will benefit.

James Franklin will probably take some pride in the numbers — the 718-67 disparity in total yardage, and the 56-point disparity on the scoreboard, which coincidentally (cough, cough) exceeded the 49-point spread for the game. But again — just about any grouping of Nittany Lions, or (checks notes for St. Francis’ mascot) Red Flash could have put similar numbers against this lethargic and banged-up group from Kent State. That the players who will most need to be sharp against the much tougher opponents looked to be in form was vastly more important.