Penn State Football: Yikes

The year was 1941, that was the last time Temple beat Penn State, that is until yesterday. Going into the game I didn’t think Penn State’s offensive line could be any worse than the 44 sacks they gave up last year, that is until yesterday. Junior quarterback Christian Hackenberg was sacked 10 times, yes, 10. Many of those sacks coming from the left side of the line anchored by junior college transfer Paris Palmer. The 6 for 7 Palmer looked slow, lacked confidence; basically he looked like a junior college transfer. If the offensive line is going to play like they did yesterday then Hackenberg might as well take out an insurance policy and sit out this year to prepare for the NFL. As for the running backs, junior Akeel Lynch led the team with 78 rushing yards on 11 carries including a 42-yard touchdown run.

I’m not going to sit here and bash head coach James Franklin and his coaching staff for yesterday’s loss as it’s a team game, but that ‘team’ looked like complete shit to be honest.

Replacing linebacker Mike Hull was already going to be difficult, now replacing his replacement Nyeem Wartman-White is going to be even more difficult. (Wartman-White is out for the season with an undisclosed left knee injury.) Junior Gary Wooten was the next man up as he recorded 3 tackles. The rest of the defense played well, the offense didn’t give them much help with their struggles leading to Temple having great field position. Defensive end Carl Nassib led the way with 10 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, and a sack. Having said that, there were too many missed tackles. I have far less concerns about the defense than I do the offense so that’s all I got for the defense.

Special teams have been somewhat of a mystery at Penn State over the years. It seems that the Nittany Lions are the only school in the country that just throws random players back to return punts who really have no business being back there. One thing that James Franklin has done well is recruit speed; Penn State teams have usually been about having football players who are good athletes, now it’s about having athletes who are good at football, if that makes sense. We have the speed now and flashed a little bit yesterday in the return game. Freshman Mark Allen only had 33 return yards on 4 punts but he showed some quickness, as did freshman Koa Farmer. Farmer is a 6 foot 2, 220 pound safety that runs a 4.4. The converted safety to linebacker who converted back to safety averaged 25.6 yards per return. Then there is the story about Joey “Big Toe” Julius, Penn State’s 260 pound place kicker. (In comparison, Julius weighs 25 pounds less than All-Big Ten defensive tackle Anthony Zettel.) The freshman kicker was 1/1 on field goals, and 1/1 on extra points. The special teams unit was maybe the lone bright spot for the team.

 

It was an all around ugly performance for the team in a game they should have won. If you want to be a great team you need to beat teams like the Temple’s of the world. Then again, to be a great team you need to have an offensive line that can block a two-man rush. The Nittany Lions opens up as an 18 point favorite against Buffalo next weekend at home, if they don’t cover the spread and show us that they can score more than 10 points, it’s going to be a long season and we’re looking at a potential 3 to 4 win season.

But hey, We Are….right?

Side note: Temple head coach Matt Rhule was a former Penn State linebacker and State College native so good for him.