Sunday Column: Well-Timed Fireworks Help Penn State Make Inconsistency Moot in Rout of Auburn

The scoreboard don’t care how, only how many.

Penn State’s 41-12 smackdown of Auburn in Jordan-Hare Stadium will turn some heads around the country, and will leave the hosts with just as much collective doubt as it will fill the visitors with collective confidence. James Franklin will preach “1-0” until he’s blue in the face, but he knows this win will be enjoyed by his players more than most and, in his private moments, you know he’s enjoying it, too.

Before we start measuring the Nittany Lions’ hat size for conference or national crowns, though, it’s important to look at how Penn State won this game over an opponent that looked very much like it could have a long season in the SEC ahead.

Penn State played exactly the way a team needs to play to win in a hostile environment. The Lions took care of the football, took advantage of their red-zone opportunities and largely capitalized on their opponents’ mistakes. But although they were dominant on the scoreboard—particularly in the second half—they weren’t dominant on the field for much of the game.

Only when they needed to be.

Penn State edged Auburn in total yardage, but by a mere 62 yards (477-415). The Nittany Lions led in time of possession, but only by a total of 44 seconds. For all the pregame prep they did to steel themselves for the raucous atmosphere, they earned numerous false-start flags and wound up with nine total penalties to Auburn’s seven.

Sure, the Nittany Lions racked up an impressive 245 yards rushing, but 20 of their 39 attempts (including one of Kaytron Allen’s two touchdowns) netted 2 yards or fewer. Manny Diaz’s defense, aggressive all afternoon, had some major issues with finishing off third-and-forevers and tackling troubles throughout.

None of those statistics, in a vacuum, hint at a blowout. But the statistic that led to the wide margin was the statistic that was the missing ingredient in both of Penn State’s last two seasons—the number of times guys made a play.

Making a play, in this sense, means any time an individual player produces a result that is above and beyond what he is expected to do given what the rest of the guys on the field are doing—a perfectly thrown pass into near-perfect coverage, for example. An ankle tackle in the open field on a well-blocked play. A 50-yard touchdown run up the right sideline (stop me if you’ve seen this one recently) when multiple defenders appeared to have the angle.

Last season, Penn State hung around in most of its losses, and was about even on most statistics other than the points on the scoreboard. But it so rarely made a play on either side of the ball—when it counted, anyway—that when the plays kept coming on Saturday in Alabama, it was jarring to see.

Yes, Nick Singleton’s lightning-strike jaunts will be on the highlight reels, and they arguably broke open the game. But there were a number of instances where guys made a play in the first half, as the Nittany Lions quietly mounted a 14-6 lead and kept the crowd from being a factor when the Tigers still had some belief that they could win.

There was the broken tackle by Brenton Strange, who played arguably his best game in a Penn State uniform. There were some tough contested catches by Mitchell Tinsley (made of pinpoint throws by Sean Clifford) that kept drives alive. There was great pressure from Jaylen Reed leading to a diving pick by Zakee Wheatley, and Chop Robinson’s sack wiping out any chance of a last-minute Auburn scoring drive to close the half.

In the third quarter, when Penn State’s defense kept giving its offense the ball back with takeaways but the offense was having some trouble sustaining that momentum and running into some aforementioned penalty problems, it was Parker Washington who made a pair of tough catches in traffic, setting up the Allen score that made it 31-6.

That Penn State was able to move the ball in different ways, and move the ball in chunks in different ways (OK, so Clifford likely won’t catch many more passes this season, but that was a cool wrinkle, and suck it, Tom Brady) was important, as was the fact that its big defensive plays came from all three levels of the defense. What’s most encouraging as a takeaway from this one, though, is that this particular big-play formula could be Penn State’s best chance to unseat some of the top teams in the East Division.

Look, the Nittany Lions simply aren’t going to be better than Ohio State, or even Michigan or Michigan State, on the majority of individual plays. Not as currently constructed, not even with the young talent they have growing up quickly. However, if they can be exceptional on a handful of plays per game, if their playmakers can make the plays in the big spots that no one but Jahan Dotson made last season but that several made on Saturday, the numbers on the scoreboard can change quickly and the way the rest of the game is played can change from there.

Yes, this Penn State team still has some things to figure out, could still be far more polished and consistent. But, on any three hypothetical plays, would you rather pick up 5 yards three times? Or 2 yards, 1 yard, 40 yards? It’d be nice to force a three-and-out on every series, but allowing a few long drives or even scores while enjoying a plus-four turnover margin will get you a lot further. Ideally, this team can become more consistent and still make those tide-turning plays. It might not be four takeaways and two 50-yard Singleton pops each week. But the feeling that comes from making a play when your team needed one is an addictive one, and the Lions will head back home with several players who will chase that feeling the rest of the year.