Sunday Notebook: Underlying problems surface in Nittany Lions loss

Hobbled from a 23-20 loss to Iowa two weeks ago, Penn State football returned to action Saturday a heavy favorite to push past a similarly beleaguered Illinois program at Beaver Stadium.

It didn’t happen.

Unable to stop a ground-and-pound Illini offensive approach that dictated the game’s pace, with a Penn State offensive attack suffering from many of the same problems that plagued its performance against the Hawkeyes, the Nittany Lions found themselves on the wrong end of a 20-18 decision for the second time in as many tries.

Afterward, Penn State head coach James Franklin acknowledged simply that the program “did not have (its) guys ready to play.”

“I think there was a difference between playing Iowa on the road and having that type of loss with the type of injuries we had going into our bye week,” Franklin said, “But at the end of the day, all that matters is that we get the job done and we did not today, and I did not today.”

Let’s take a postmortem look at what went wrong:

For as complicated as football can be, more influences than just about any other team sport playing a role in who wins or loses each week.

But, at its heart, the outcome is dictated by a fairly straightforward formula in modern college football:

Limit opponents’ scoring opportunities by creating turnovers and forcing field goals instead of touchdowns. Use special teams as a weapon to gain an advantage in that regard.

And, maybe most critically important in today’s game, score points on offense. The methodology to that aim can change, though at Penn State it has been a consistent proposition under Franklin to do so by relying on explosive plays and having the versatility to take advantage of vulnerabilities opposing defenses offer up.

Trotting out a hurt fifth-year senior starting quarterback Sean Clifford Saturday, Penn State was unable to fulfill its offensive piece of the equation in any respect.

Though the Nittany Lions’ offense was dictated by explosive plays, its only touchdown scored that way and 141 of 227 total yards accumulated via chunk plays (62.1 percent), the overall deficiencies of a unit neutered by its limitations came to fruition.

“We were struggling on offense all day long,” Franklin said. “Those same issues showed up in the overtime periods with the two-point plays, very similar to some of the issues that they had that our defense did a good job. We didn’t get the job done. There were plenty of plays and plenty of opportunities for us to end it and either we did not execute or we did not make plays when we had the opportunities to do and that’s on offense and defense.”

In a zero-sum world in which every facet of the game is expected to pick up slack as necessary to ensure a win, that is true.

But given Penn State’s sheer offensive ineptitude at finding answers for a quarterback who was hobbled (with no reliable backup available, in the judgment of the coaching staff), for a running game that has had a myriad of issues this season, and for wet conditions that made the passing game less of a sure thing, the consistency with which Penn State failed offensively cemented the program’s fate.

On their face, the numbers are staggering.

Illinois had one path to any offensive success Saturday, its quarterbacks extremely limited, and executed it throughout the afternoon. It did so to the tune of 357 yards rushing to 38 yards passing discrepancy (388 yards adjusted for sacks, actually), picking up a whopping 27 first downs on the day, running 88 plays, averaging just 4.8 yards per pass completion, and holding a 36:25 to 23:35 time of possession advantage.

Realistically, those statistics don’t tell the story that Penn State believes wins football games defensively, though.

Staring at a scoreboard that showed the Illini as having just 10 points at the end of regulation, with the Nittany Lions winning the turnover battle 3-0, twice doing so well into Illini territory, Penn State put itself in a position to win the game.

Nick Tarburton’s response when asked about those factors, specifically about whether he would expect to win a game holding an opponent to 10 points despite the gaudy rushing numbers, spoke volumes to that end.

“Yeah, I mean, you would think,” he said. “It’s tough. I think we created turnovers, which were big, It helped keep us in this game.

“But rushing yards, that can’t happen. We can’t afford that.”

Leaning in on the assertion that his defense would learn from the experience and improve because of it, realistically, that’s a big ask. Against any of Penn State’s remaining opponents, the Nittany Lions offense will presumably need to produce more than 10 points to allow itself to win.

If Penn State’s predicament Saturday hadn’t been compelling enough on its own, what the Nittany Lions do from here should be that much more captivating.

Already down a crucial senior captain for the season in P.J. Mustipher on a defensive line that already sustained a critical season-ending loss of Adisa Isaac before the year began, the program’s thin standing is not limited to that one unit on the field. Rather, with an easily identifiable calculus that Penn State has decided a hurt Clifford is preferable to a situation in which it would have to play either of its backup quarterback options in Ta’Quan Roberson or Christian Veilleux as an absolute last resort, the biggest question going into the Illinois game remains the biggest question coming out of it.

To Friday’s 3-2-1:

The reality for Penn State football coming off the 2020 season is that it wasn’t positioned to withstand many personnel losses. Now the program is experiencing some, particularly at critical positions, and Franklin is pointing at them as a contributing factor to the team’s performance Saturday.

“We just had way too many guys that played significant roles in that game that did not practice full speed, full-go all week long,” he said. “Practice is obviously really important. We had way too many guys that missed, and Sean was one of them.”

Taking that statement at face value, the issue isn’t whether or not it is the reason for the loss Saturday.

The issue for Penn State is what that means for the program moving forward this season if the pieces in question are unable to make a full return or participate in practices to remain on course with preparations.

Specific to Sean Clifford, that’s the ballgame:

If he can’t be himself, Penn State has no options it believes can do enough to win (or, maybe more important, can avoid enough mistakes to rule out a loss). And if he is playing, but can’t be himself, Penn State’s offense is one-dimensional and remarkably easy to defend.

No quarterback, no points.

No points, no wins.

No wins, no good.

*******

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