Penn State Football: Position grades versus Indiana

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BLOOMINGTON, IN – OCTOBER 20: Head coach James Franklin of the Penn State Nittany Lions celebrates with his team in the first quarter of the game against the Indiana Hoosiers at Memorial Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Bloomington, Indiana. Penn State won 33-28. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

Coaching

Despite a good win on the road for Penn State, there were still a few coaching errors in this game. The first one is the one that was most important, and one that I couldn’t wrap my head around.

Last week, against Michigan State, Penn State refused to throw downfield against a team ranked 122nd in the FBS in passing yards allowed (at the time of the game). In the Indiana game, where there were 45 mph winds, they wouldn’t give Miles Sanders the ball. All Penn State wanted to do was throw the ball down field.

Even when Penn State was up 12 in the fourth quarter Penn State refused to give Miles Sanders the ball. The Nittany Lions got the ball back up 12 with eight minutes left, and managed to run less than two minutes off the clock because Miles Sanders had no rushes on that drive. The only rush on the drive was from Trace McSorley.

On the next drive, with 4:30 left in the game, Penn State ran less than 30 seconds off the clock, not running the ball one time. This is the same problem Penn State had against Ohio State and Michigan State. They couldn’t sustain a fourth quarter drive, and run some clock off.

Other than this, the timeout by James Franklin on the onside kick was overthinking it a bit, could have cost Penn State the game. I’m not sure I’ve seen many timeouts called right before the onside kick.

The coaching staff has a lot of work to do in order to prepare this team for the next three games, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Grade: C+

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