Penn State football underwent their first loss of the season when they fell to Ohio State football 20-12. The Nittany Lions proved they weren’t quite up to the level of the No. 3 Buckeyes yet.
The biggest disappointment for the Nittany Lions in the loss was their offense. The offense only managed to put up 12 points after putting up at least 30 in every other game this year. Quarterback Drew Allar completed 42% of his passes and the Penn State offense went for just 240 yards. Their worst stat offensively might have been third-down conversions, where they went just 1/16. Following the game, coach James Franklin explained why this factor exasperater their offensive struggles.
“Yeah, a couple of things,” James Franklin. “I thought our identity was staying on schedule, converting on third downs, and then either converting on third downs or going for it on fourth down situations. I felt like that had been our identity for the season. We had a lot of respect for their short-yardage defense, and how they were defending it. But, we did not do that. We did not either convert on third downs like we’ve been doing or getting in the situation of fourth in short to go for it,” via Dan Morrison of On 3.
“I guess what I’m saying is, our lack of success on third down really kind of changed the game. We just didn’t have enough opportunities. We couldn’t get into a flow, get enough touches for people. When you have the lack of success that we had on third down, it’s hard to get anything going.”
Penn State football takes on Indiana at home Saturday. Their greatest remaining test this season is a matchup versus Michigan in November.
Leave a Reply