By The Numbers: A look at Penn State's red zone offense

In 2020, Penn State has managed to find ways to lose games in the margins.

Despite outgaining its opponent in four of its six games this season, Penn State is 1-5. One major reason for that is turnovers. Only seven teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision have a better turnover margin than the Nittany Lions.

Another factor, which this story explores, is Penn State's red zone offense.

The Nittany Lions are leaving points on the table in the red zone consistently.

Below, we'll take a look at the red zone offense, how it differs from the offense in general, and get a sense for what is and is not working inside the 20-yard line.

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Let's start with the basics. Penn State has entered the red zone 25 times this season, and has come away without points eight times, although one of those failed entries came last week against Michigan while the Nittany Lions were running out the clock.

That's not a good number, obviously. In 13 games last season, Penn State entered the red zone 52 times and failed to score just five times. The Nittany Lions' fail rate in the red zone is more than double what it was just a year ago.

Even when the Nittany Lions do put points on the board, they're settling for field goals more often.

Last season, Penn State scored a touchdown on 71 percent of its red zone entries. This year, the Nittany Lions have scored touchdowns on 44 percent of their red zone entries.

As you can see in the table above, there's a variety of things going on here.

Somewhat surprisingly, only one of Penn State's 13 turnovers has come in the red zone. But Penn State has turned it over on downs three times and also missed three field goals.

Overall, leaving PATs out of the equation, the Nittany Lions have left 66 points on the table inside the red zone this season.

"We haven't been as good in the low red [zone] that you'd like to be as far as being able to punch it in, whether it's running or passing," Penn State offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca said Thursday.

"I think as coaches, you've just got to look at your player strengths, and how you're expecting the defense to play down there," Ciarrocca added. "And do a better job of trying to play to your strengths down there. The field's shrunk down there, you don't have as much space to work with anymore, the defense has less space to defend, so it's always tight, it's always going to be contested down there in the low red [zone]."

There hasn't been much difference from a yardage perspective when it comes to the run and pass game in the red zone this season.

The Nittany Lions have been only slightly more effective throwing the ball once you adjust for sacks.

What's interesting though is the discrepancy between these numbers and Penn State's overall offensive numbers.

While the Nittany Lions clearly favor running the ball in the red zone, they only run the ball about 52 percent of the time overall — and, as you'll see later, it hasn't been a case of Penn State spending several plays near the goal line trying to bulldoze into the end zone.

Penn State's most common ball carrier in the ground game is still its quarterbacks, despite Keyvone Lee's excellent game last week.

Sean Clifford and Will Levis have 22 combined carries in the red zone, while the Penn State running back corps as a whole has the same total.

Even when you adjust for sacks, Lee has been the most efficient running back in the red zone, mostly thanks to his performance last weekend. It will be interesting to see if the Penn State coaching staff decides to feed him the ball more often in that part of the field.

Now, let's move on to the passing game, which has been utilized far less than the run game in the red zone, as we discussed earlier.

Jahan Dotson and Parker Washington have been the favorite targets of Penn State's quarterbacks — a fact that might be influenced by tight end Pat Freiermuth's injury and subsequent unavailability.

Notably, Penn State has been without Freiermuth for two weeks now, and no other Nittany Lion tight end has been targeted in the red zone.

We'll end this with a look at the most important chart. Touchdowns are the goal for every offense inside the 20-yard line, right?

The first thing that jumps out is the distance that Penn State is scoring from.

The Nittany Lions have only scored from inside the 5-yard line once all season, and, even stranger, two of those were passing plays.

The only rushing touchdown of fewer than five yards came last week, when Levis entered the game to power the ball in from two yards out.

Another trend of note is Dotson's production from outside the 10-yard line. He's got two red zone touchdowns of 20 yards, and another one of 14 yards.

Finally, you'll notice that, despite the fact that Penn State's quarterbacks run the ball just as often as its running backs do in the red zone, four of the Nittany Lions' five rushing touchdowns from inside the 20-yard line have come from running backs.

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