Penn State Football: Game Grades for the Game Against Akron

Sep 6, 2014; University Park, PA, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions running back

(1) runs with the ball during the third quarter against the Akron Zips at Beaver Stadium. Penn State defeated Akron 21-3. Mandatory Credit: Matthew O’Haren- USA TODAY Sports

Running Backs

I’ll start off by saying I really expected Penn State to come out and work hard to establish a ground game. While they tried, and I believe it was an improvement from last week, the run game still isn’t anywhere close to where it needs to be.

The supposed third man in the rotation, Akeel Lynch (45 yards), looked like the best back in terms of finding his holes and getting up field. Lynch averaged over six yards a carry, whether it was in the wildcat or taking a handoff, Lynch looked quick and did a nice job of hitting holes hard.

Bill Belton (36 yards) also was able to find a few holes, but there were times where I believe he was dancing too much instead of hitting the hole. However, Belton established himself as the pass-catching tailback and found himself wide open on his early touchdown catch. Zach Zwinak (30 yards) was given the most carries, but wasn’t able to do much with them.

The majority of the bruising running back’s yards came on an 18 yard carry in which he looked like the powerful, explosive runner from 2012. However, Zwinak found himself without holes to hit or was caught trying to bounce it outside.

It’s still early enough to attribute the struggles to the inexperienced offensive line, but to this point I find myself unimpressed by the run game.

Grade – C+