Penn State shouldn’t be worried about USC’s big win over LSU in Week 1

Once Penn State finally took care of business in Morgantown, after a lengthy thunderstorm delay, it was time for the Nittany Lions and perhaps more importantly for the fanbase to do some scoreboard-watching across the rest of the Big Ten. Ohio State rolled over Akron 52-6 and in the late slate Oregon surprisingly struggled to mesh its new pieces together against Idaho in a 24-14 win while Michigan deliciously struggled on offense against Fresno State, needed a Will Johnson pick-six to cement a 30-10 victory. 

Dodging Oregon and Michigan, heading into Sunday Ohio State was the only Big Ten title contender on Penn State's schedule. That was until No. 23 USC met No. 13 LSU at a neutral site in Las Vegas and redshirt junior quarterback Miller Moss engineered a flawless two-minute drill for a game-winning Woody Marks touchdown with eight seconds remaining. Moss threw for 378 yards and a touchdown in the 27-20 win, so USC doesn’t just have a Caleb Williams replacement it looks like the Trojans might have a defense. 

This offseason, Lincoln Riley finally ended his blood oath with Alex Grinch as his defensive coordinator and miraculously, the blackmail we all assumed Grinch had to have on Lincoln never came to light. With the worst defensive coordinator in football gone, USC poached D’Anton Lynn from UCLA and while it wasn’t Jayden Daniels he was facing in his debut, holding Garrett Nussmeier and the LSU Tigers to 20 points is a step in the right direction. However, it's not the end of the Trojan's problems on that side of the ball.

A few weeks before Ohio State’s trip to Beaver Stadium, Penn State will head out to the LA Coliseum to play the Trojans. Suddenly, with USC’s win another huge game is on the schedule for James Franklin who has a long-standing phobia of ranked opponents. Still, Penn State and its fanbase shouldn’t be too worried about the first Big Ten trip out west. 

He'll steal the Monday-morning headlines, but Lynn wasn’t the biggest coordinator upgrade in the country that produced immediate results in Week 1, it was Andy Kotelnicki. USC’s bend-don’t-break style of defense produced a noteworthy result on the scoreboard, but the Trojans still allowed 421 yards to an offense that lost the Heisman Trophy winner and two first-round receivers. In 2023, the Trojans finished 119th in total defense by allowing 432.8 yards per game. They’ll make massive strides in that category by playing a Big Ten schedule, but this defense isn’t quite fixed. 

In the opener, LSU gained 6.6 yards per play which would have ranked as the 15th-best offense in the country a year ago. Nussmeier, in just his third career start, went 29/38 for 304 yards and two touchdowns with a desperation interception on the final drive of the game. LSU's lead running back, John Emery Jr. averaged 6.1 yards per carry but was only handed the ball 10 times.

With the efficiency that Kotelnicki and Allar displayed at Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday, the Nittany Lions can match that. Penn State averaged 7.5 yards per play against a West Virginia team that won nine games a season ago, racked up 457 yards, and Allar, who was notoriously risk-averse in his sophomore season, completed six passes over 10 yards downfield through the air and two that went for 50+. 

The problem for Brian Kelly was that his offense made four trips to the red zone, scored two touchdowns, and settled for one field goal. On the very first drive of the game, the Tigers were stopped on a fourth-and-goal from the three-yard line. A 50% red zone touchdown percentage would have ranked 121st in the country in 2023 and even under Mike Yurcich Penn State ranked sixth at 76.5%. At Kansas, Kotelnicki's offense was 26th at 68% in 2023, and in 2022 when his quarterback Jalon Daniels was mostly healthy, the Jayhawks converted 74% of their red zone trips into six points.

It was a small sample, but also a bit of a flukey result for USC. A defense that is “fixed” wouldn’t allow well over 400 yards and more than 6.5 per play. Penn State’s trip out to LA will by no means be an easy victory, but now it’s something of a win-win situation. 

If Penn State beats USC, as Franklin’s team should be expected to do, then the Nittany Lions have knocked off a Big Ten contender with either one loss to Michigan in Ann Arbor, coming up in Week 4, or an impressive undefeated record and a top ten ranking. If it goes USC’s way and Kotelnicki’s offense still needs work, Penn State can still make the 12-team CFP. 

In the latter case, the Nittany Lions would have to make it competitive against Ohio State at home, but a two-loss Big Ten team will almost certainly have a spot in the CFP. A big win for the Big Ten is better for all the teams in it, and that’s what USC scored in Week 1. 

Lincoln Riley has a good team out in LA, and an improved defense, one that, unlike his previous renditions, appears to practice tackling, but USC is not a national title contender. Penn State, with an improved defense and Kotelnicki’s solutions for Allar’s problems, better be.