Ah, yes, the week 3 bye. A chance to reflect on all we’ve learned about Penn State through the first two games, which is to say: Not much. Are the Nittany Lions the balanced bullies we saw in Morgantown or the flawed playoff pretenders that scratched out a one-possession win over a middling Bowling Green team at home? Or, perhaps, something completely different than either of those two versions?
We won’t know for a few more weeks. But there were a few things that hinted at what the Lions’ immediate future might look like, and a few that are unlikely to stay that way, good or bad, for the remainder of the year.
Third-down struggles: Yes, Penn State’s third-down conversion rate (35%, 94th in FBS) is mildly disturbing when you consider it hasn’t exactly faced world-beating defenses, and if that trend continues, it will mean fewer plays for the offense to be on the field and more plays for a suddenly suspect defense to have to be on the field. However, this is a small sample size, and third-down conversion rate, while not something you want to disregard entirely, is not a be-all, end-all statistic. Why? If you can pick up first downs, or even big, chunky, sexy touchdowns, on first or second down, there’s no need to convert on third. The Nittany Lions have, thanks to their crafty coordinator and a revitalized Drew Allar, more explosive punch than we’ve seen recently (more on this in a bit), and have shown the ability to score points despite the third-down misfires. Expect this stat to improve a bit as the season progresses but also for the offense to deliver the chunk plays that will mitigate it even if it doesn’t.
So, uh, 1-0?
Penn State put together all the ingredients for a feel-good Saturday after an occasionally sloppy but largely impressive opening win at West Virginia: a beautiful, sunny September afternoon, a MAC opponent they should handle without much difficulty, and a large home crowd full of fans who were ready to be optimistic about this team’s long-term chances, and perhaps drink a $12 beer or three.
Instead, the Nittany Lions learned some hard truths about themselves, the first and most significant being that the perceived easier path to the expanded playoff won’t matter much if they don’t figure some things out along that path the next few weeks, and the second being, for the first time in a while, that most of those things concerned the defense.
Sisyphus was a king in ancient Greece who ruled with an iron fist. The gods, angry at him for killing visitors to his land, punished him by forcing him to push a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down each time it approached the summit, for eternity.
James Franklin has now ruled the kingdom of Penn State football for more than a decade, and each time the Nittany Lions appear as though they’re about to reach the summit of college football’s elite, they backslide. The 52-year-old coach has proven quite adept at pushing the proverbial boulder most of the way up the hill, as evidenced by both the four top-10 finishes in the past eight years and the team’s current preseason ranking of No. 8. That he hasn’t gotten it the whole way up, and down the other side, is an increasing sore spot for his kingdom, and each year that passes causes a few more observers to wonder how close to Sisyphus’ plight Franklin truly is.
The coming 2024 season, however, threatens to break the cycle, one way or the other. There is a chance, a not-that-crazy chance, that a few things that haven’t clicked for Penn State during the last few years will click, and a spot in the expanded playoff is there for the taking. The Nittany Lions have one of the nation’s most talented running back rooms, a quarterback who at least has the potential to be more dynamic than he showed in a productive but frustrating first year as a starter, and an offensive coordinator who has a proven proclivity for getting dudes into open spaces with the football. The defense is once again deep and athletic, dotted with potential All-Americans and led by a savvy veteran defensive coordinator who has, like that aforementioned offensive coordinator, done some impressive stuff with a lot less talent than he’ll have at his disposal this fall.
The Nittany Lions are landing commitments from the Sunshine State, but is the juice worth the squeeze?
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Another one bites the dust.
The timeless Queen lyric can describe any number of Penn State depth players who recently managed to slide through the closing “transfer portal window” just before it snapped shut, departing a Nittany Lions squad straining to conform to the NCAA’s (quasi-fictional) 85-scholarship roster limit.
Sadly, it also applies to yet another Florida native choosing to leave Happy Valley and seek his fortunes elsewhere: King Mack, a sophomore defensive back, who with due respect to State’s other portal entries, represents the biggest and most painful transfer casualty of the offseason so far. A former top-100 recruit in the class of 2023, Mack very much looked the part in limited snaps as a true freshman, and even with a crowded safety room heading into 2024, he figured to be a contributor this season and beyond.