Penn State Football: Position grades versus Ohio State

Coaching

There hasn’t been much to say about the coaching staff this season, but the performance from the group on Saturday night was nothing short of atrocious. In fact, it was the worst coached games in recent memory for Penn State.

To start, Penn State had more yards, more first downs, less penalties, and more time of possession than Ohio State, and still lost this game. That is hard to do. The game was managed poorly from the start. It was a disaster that Penn State had to settle for field goals at the beginning of the game, and couldn’t score a touchdown after driving all the way down field.

Penn State also punted twice while they were inside Ohio State’s 40-yard line. You have to be more aggressive than that to win a big game like this. Furthermore, as mentioned before, the defensive coaching staff didn’t adjust to the screen passes. It was obvious that the Buckeyes were going to primarily run screen passes and not one adjustment was made. It wound up being a huge factor in the result of the game.

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room, the play calling. First off, as much as everyone loves Tommy Stevens, the trick plays with him need to be minimized. It’s way too obvious that when Stevens is on the field, the ball is going to go to him. That was a major reason why Penn State was unable to capitalize at the beginning of the game. They dug themselves into a hole with those types of plays.

Furthermore, the two-point conversion call was pitiful. The coaching staff was on a high after going up 26-14, and tried to get too cute by running a reverse play to the fifth wide receiver, Mac Hippenhammer. That wouldn’t be the last time the coaching staff took the ball out of Trace McSorley’s hands on an important play.

Later in the fourth quarter came the play call that no one will ever understand, a play call that silenced the stadium and exploded Twitter. With the game on the line after two timeouts, Penn State ran the ball with Miles Sanders on fourth-and-five only to get stuffed without gaining any yards. The Nittany Lions didn’t even give the best player in the game a chance to make a play. Running on fourth down and five is unheard of, let alone running a draw play right up the middle.

While James Franklin took the blame following the game, the last play of the game for Penn State was inexcusable. James Franklin has done an incredible job building this program back up, and a fantastic job recruiting top talent, but the game management needs to improve. It’s as simple as that.

Due to major blunders on both sides of the ball from the coaching staff, they get the first F grade of the season.

Grade: F