Penn State football’s pass rush shines in victory over Purdue
Penn State football’s offense cooled down early on Saturday, but their pass rush on defense kept Purdue off the board for most of the game.
Homecoming weekend turned out to be a successful one for Penn State football as Beaver Stadium packed in over 106,000 fans strong. With the Purdue Boilermakers in town, Penn State expected to win and planned to win with authority.
It felt like we were going to see a repeat of last week when Penn State dominated Maryland 59-0. As the Nittany Lions offense got off to a red-hot start on Saturday with 21 points in the first quarter, the defense followed up by keeping Purdue from moving the ball pretty much throughout the entire first half.
Eventually, Penn State cooled down a bit, though. The defense let up seven points, and the offense stalled out on a couple of drives before heading into halftime with a 28-7 lead. By the time Penn State came out for the second half, their offense couldn’t get anything going. However, we couldn’t say the same about the defense, who absolutely dominated rushing the passer.
Sacks were coming at a premium…
Perhaps Yetur Gross-Matos and Shaka Toney made a bet before the game on Saturday, because they were dueling with sacks left and right. Shaka Toney led the pack on Saturday with three total. Gross-Matos trailed him by one with two total.
The rest of the sacks came from a variety of players, and eventually, the Nittany Lions nearly broke the total sack record for the program, but ended up just one sack shy with ten total by the time the game concluded. Had it not been for the miraculous pass rush, this win probably wouldn’t have felt as satisfying.
Next. Tommy Stevens back in Happy Valley. dark
The Penn State offense surely has some work to do, but the team as a whole can walk away from this one feeling really good. As the Lions advance to 5-0 on the year, they have now outscored their opponents 235-37.
The competition gets tougher down the road, but at least PSU heads into next week with a ton of confidence in their elite defense. Now, if the offense can fix up their mistakes from the second half against Purdue, then this team is in good shape to make a run.