Penn State Football: Week 8 Studs and Duds against Indiana

Penn State Offensive Play calling

I really do understand that Coach Franklin and his assistant coaches know more about football than I do.  So let’s get that out of the way up front. Still, I can’t help but wonder what the coaches were thinking when they had the ball up 12 points (33-21) with 4:30 remaining in the game.  The Nittany Lions used a mere 24 seconds off the game clock in going three-and-out. The series comprised two incomplete Trace McSorley passes sandwiched around a pass to Miles Sanders that gained no yards, but it did force Indiana to use a timeout.

Franklin addressed the series at the end of the game in a testy exchange with a Penn State beat reporter (video courtesy of bluewhiteillustrated.com).

For contextual purposes, let’s go back to last week against Michigan State.  The same general scenario confronted Penn State, they had the lead late and simply needed a first down to either put away the win.  The Nittany Lions ran Sanders twice which forced the Spartans to use two of their timeouts. On third and long, McSorley ran the ball out of bounds, thereby stopping the clock and preserving a timeout for Michigan State.  After the Penn State punt, the Spartans would take the next possession the length of the field and score the winning touchdown.

So, to prevent a repeat of last week’s ending, Penn State wanted to stay aggressive and put the ball in the air to get a first down.  However, instead of safe passes designed to gain some yards and still keep the clock rolling, the offensive coordinator, Ricky Rahne, decided to have McSorley drop back and throw downfield.  Both resulted in incomplete passes. McSorley’s only completed pass was to Sanders as a safety valve which was immediately sniffed out by the Hoosier defense resulting in no yards gained.

Perhaps the Nittany Lions always had the deodorant to cover up the funk of poor play calling the last two seasons, but this year questionable offensive play calling has hamstrung Penn State.  The coaching decisions made against Michigan State directly lead to the Lions losing and they nearly cost them against Indiana.

In many cases, games against superior teams like Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin, will come down to play calling and execution.  Right now, those two aspects are lagging behind for Penn State. They need to fix those areas if they are going to win those games.