Report Card: Penn State vs Navy

OFFENSE

Quarterbacks:  A-

After going 13-21 for 231 yards and 4 touchdowns, Matt McGloin was named named VBR’s Offensive Player of the Game. After a fast start, he slowed down a bit and you’d like to see a higher completion percentage after starting 10-11, but I think everybody would sign up for 231 and 4 with no turnovers before every game, if given the option.

Running Backs:  C+

Belton and Day didn’t play so O’Brien leaned heavily on senior fullback and team leader “John Capelletti…I mean Mike Zordich.” Zordich responded pretty well, averaging 4.5 yards per carry on 11 rushes. He added two catches for 25 yards and Dukes had 47 rushing yards of his own. Still, the run to pass ratio was in favor of the RBs and they failed to deliver 100 yards on the ground. Strong effort and hard running, but production counts.

Wide Receivers:  B+

I tweeted this yesterday, but Allen Robinson is well on his way to an All Big Ten season. 5 catches for 136 yards and three touchdowns is just about enough to carry the whole unit. Brandon Moseby-Felder had a terrific catch inside the 10 yard line and freshman Trevor Williams had his first grab of the season, seeing plenty of action.

Tight Ends:  B-

For the first time this season, the tight ends weren’t asked to do much. Or it could be that Navy was keying them. Either way, no tight end had more than one catch. However, Garry Gilliam and Paul Jones had their first receptions of the year and Jesse James scored his first career touchdown.

Offensive Line:  C+

I may be being a little hard on the line here. Missing their starting left tackle, some shuffling went on and it seemed that Farrell did pretty well. Still, you’d like to see a group of linemen like this be able to create better running lanes against a smaller front seven like Navy. It’s not all the running backs faults that they didn’t reach 100 yards. Notre Dame rushed for 293 yards against Navy in the opener.