Penn State Football vs Illinois: Nittany Lions’ Reasons for Optimism, and Worry

Reason to Worry – Penn State Football’s Run Defense

Penn State Football’s weakness on the defensive side of the football has been stopping the run, and that plays into Illinois’ strength of running the ball. This becomes increasingly magnified by the loss of PJ Mustipher along the defensive front.

Illinois averages a very respectable 4.4 yards per carry, better than more than half of the teams in the Big Ten. This number is skewed a little and does not do their running game justice, as they are also a team to takes a lot of sacks, which counts for negative rushing yards.

Their primary running backs (top 5 backs in terms of carries) are averaging nearly 4.96 yards per carry. They are led by two very underrated running backs, Chase Brown (6.9 yards per carry) and Joshua McCray (5.3 yards per carry).

These two backs have good vision, run through arm tackles, and are constantly fighting for every possible yard. We saw against Auburn that the Nittany Lions can struggle to get powerful, hard-running ball carriers to the ground, as Tank Bigsby broke numerous tackles that night.

Penn State’s defense will need to match the physicality of the Illini’s running game, and rally to the football. The defensive line will need to stuff runs around the line of scrimmage and not allow their talented backs to get into space in the second and third levels, and the linebackers will need to be disciplined in their gap assignments.

Illinois does not have a good passing attack, meaning that they will run the ball as much as possible and try to wear down Penn State’s defense. The Nittany Lions lack for depth at most defensive positions, so they will need to help themselves by not allowing the Illini to sustain long drives by continually running the ball for positive chunks of yardage.

Outside of a complete lackluster offensive performance by Penn State, Illinois’ only chance at winning this game is if they can “ground and pound” the football all afternoon, controlling the tempo, time of possession, field position, and the football. If the Nittany Lions allow them to do that, this game could come down to the wire…when it shouldn’t.