Penn State will need Abdul Carter healthy to have a shot at the national championship

A dark cloud hangs over Penn State’s celebration of its Fiesta Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal victory over Boise State on New Year’s Eve. For the first time, the Nittany Lions are on to the CFP semifinal after dismantling the Broncos 31-14 in Arizona, but they may have to face the winner of the Sugar Bowl, either No. 7 Notre Dame or No. 2 Georgia, without their biggest superstar. 

Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Abdul Carter left Tuesday night’s win in the second quarter with a left arm injury after 18 defensive snaps. Penn State, always cautious not to divulge any unnecessary information, never officially ruled Carter out of the game, but he did not play after he was evaluated in the medical tent on the sidelines. Still, in the immediate aftermath of the game and the wake of the celebration, James Franklin did answer a question about Carter on a hit with ESPN’s College Gameday. 

Penn State will have a bit of extra time as the only advancing team that played on New Year’s Eve instead of New Year’s Day. The Nittany Lions will meet either the Bulldogs or the Fighting Irish in the Orange Bowl on Thursday, January 9. That leaves Carter, and any other injured Nittany Lions, eight full days between games and depending on the severity of the injury, could open the door for his return. And that would be huge because, without Carter, the Nittany Lions cannot win a national championship. 

Penn State bottled up Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty all game, holding him to 104 yards on 30 carries, but the Nittany Lions especially dominated the first quarter of play in the Fiesta Bowl. Boise State was able to move the ball through the air on its first drive, which ended in one of two missed field goals in the game by kicker Jonah Dalmas, but with a healthy Carter, Penn State built a 14-0 lead forcing two punts and a fumble on the Broncos next three possessions, all ending in fewer than five plays. 

Without Carter, Boise was able to punch back, manufacturing an eight-play 52-yard touchdown drive to cut the game to one score. The Broncos offensive line had no chance against Carter, even while sending a double-team or a chip to his side, and that extra attention allowed Dani Dennis-Sutton to make a bigger impact off the opposite edge. Once the double teams and chips were sent Dennis-Sutton’s way, his impact was lessened, as was the entirety of Penn State’s pass rush, which ended the night with a meager 22% pressure rate on Maddux Madsen’s 41 dropbacks. 

Madsen finished the game with over 300 yards passing and despite the worst performance of the season from Jeanty, Boise State managed 412 total yards and a positive EPA/play. Madsen averaged 7.32 yards per dropback and a 47% dropback success rate. When Penn State’s defensive line failed to apply pressure, Madsen averaged 9.3 yards per attempt and completed 71% of his passes. 

On a roster that lacks superstar wide receivers and shutdown cornerbacks, Penn State’s path to its first national title since 1986 runs through the trenches. If the Nittany Lions can dominate up front, they have a chance to beat almost any team in the country, but without Carter on the field, they may not. 

Carter is far and away the team leader in sacks, tackles for loss, QB pressures, and pass-rush win rate, ranking near the top of the country in all of those statistics. He's the type of edge rusher with his own gravitational pull, a player who must always be accounted for by the opposing play-caller and quarterback, and who changes the geometry of the field by his mere presence on it. To lose him is to lose the skeleton key that unlocks the best version of Penn State's defense, the version it needs to compete with the Notre Dames and Georgias of the college football world.

If Penn State continues to advance, it will inevitably face better quarterbacks than Madsen and it's becoming abundantly clear that if defensive coordinator Tom Allen’s unit can’t get them to the ground, it won’t be able to slow them down. Abdul Carter is the key, and in many ways, Penn State’s fate rests, not on his shoulders but on his injured left arm.