Penn State Football: revisiting some preseason bold predictions for the defense

Second half bold prediction #2 – Penn State Football finishes the season allowing less than 100 rushing yards per game

Now we’re really stretching the imagination.

The Nittany Lions are currently sixth in the country in rush defense, allowing just 82.2 yards per game on the ground. Sure, they haven’t yet gotten to the most difficult stretch of their schedule, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t faced some great rushing attacks.

At Auburn, they faced one of the better running back tandems in the country and held them to just 55 combined yards that day. They also faced the nation’s leading rusher from a year ago in Lew Nichols III from Central Michigan, and held him to just 67 yards. Finally, they faced a very underrated Evan Hull from Northwestern last week, as he was a 1,000-yard rusher in 2021 despite having little to no help around him on offense. They were also to limit Hull to just 45 yards rushing for the game.

So, Penn State has faced plenty of strong ground games so far, and to this point, they’ve been up to the test. However, along with facing probably the three best teams on their schedule in the next three weeks, they’ll also face three great rushing attacks.

Michigan’s Blake Corum is fourth in the Big Ten is rushing yards, Minnesota’s Mohammed Ibrahim is second, and Ohio State’s Miyan Willaims and TreVeyon Henderson are sixth and ninth respectively.

Though I expect their rush yards allowed per game average to go up over the next three weeks, I think this defense is good enough to not let any of these backs completely take over a game. Plus, even if these next three opponents do bring the average up over 100 yards per game, I think the weaker rushing attacks that Penn State will face in November will be enough to bring the average back down into the 90s.

Penn State’s defensive line has been playing great, led by PJ Mustipher on the interior; and the linebacking corps has shown continual improvement throughout the first five weeks and will help this defense continue to shut down the run. Finally, the secondary has shown a willingness to step up and make plays in run support, and they have the athleticism and physicality to contribute in a big way in that department.

I think when the book is closed on this 2022 Penn State Football season, they will go down as having one of the best run defenses in the country: allowing less than 100 yards per game on the ground.

To put into perspective how difficult that is to do, only seven Power Five teams accomplished that feat in 2021. Those teams were Georgia, Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma State, Pitt, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.