jahan dotson

Michigan and Penn State are slated to do battle this week in a game that has huge stakes, with the Wolverines having the ability to keep their B1G East hopes alive if they can notch a win in Happy Valley. Last season was a disappointment for Penn State, finishing 4-5, and this year hasn't quite gone as planned either, despite the Nittany Lions starting the season 5-0. They now sit at 6-3 and have a difficult close to the season with Michigan and Michigan State in the final three weeks. Today we will look at the offensive side of the equation for Penn State and will attempt to sort out the strengths and weaknesses for this team. 

The Film: We're using PSU-OSU. Earlier in the season I had planned to use Wisconsin due to its schematic similarity to the Michigan defense, but ultimately I decided that that game was simply too long ago to be optimal. Instead, the Ohio State game was only a few weeks back and in terms of advanced metrics, the Buckeye defense is ranked in the same ballpark as the Michigan defense, so there's a decent comparison to use here. Penn State played Ohio State surprisingly close in Columbus, with the game being a one possession contest until late in the fourth quarter, so the tape of the entire game is very much informative. 

Personnel: Seth's chart, click for big. 

For the third straight season, the Nittany Lions are running out Sean Clifford as the starting QB. He's dealt with some injuries this season and it's not clear how close he is to 100% at the present, but Clifford is mostly the same player he's always been. We'll see plenty of him in this piece. At RB, Noah Cain is the starter, but there is plenty of rotation among the backups, particularly John Lovett and Keyvone Lee. Farther down the depth chart you'll find Devyn Ford and Caziah Holmes, as PSU's RB room is still a clown car, but they are less notable. 

WR revolves around the star Jahan Dotson, who has become the next great Penn State receiver, following in the footsteps of KJ Hamler and Allen Robinson. His partner in crime Parker Washington isn't bad either, and KeAndre Lambert-Smith rounds out the top three names at this position for the Nittany Lions. There's a hefty drop off beyond the three starters, with Cam Sullivan-Brown's four catches constituting the nominal "#4 receiver" for this team.

Instead of using a fourth WR, PSU goes to its TEs, who look a little bit different without Pat Freiermuth around any more. Brenton Strange and Theo Johnson are the two who see a lot of snaps, with two TE sets not being unusual to the PSU offense. Strange and Johnson have nearly an identical number of catches, as both get real run in the passing attack, but neither have emerged as major impact players yet. Tyler Warren is the only other TE to get snaps this season, but he's more of a blocking TE used in running-specific situations.  

Penn State has a pretty consistent starting five on the OL, rolling with Rasheed Walker at LT and Caedan Wallace at RT, a tandem that has been rough, to say the least. On the inside, the grades are a little better, but I couldn't honestly tell from watching the tape of this one (as you will see). The starters at guard are Eric Wilson at LG and Juice Scruggs at RG, with C Mike Miranda in the middle. Leftover snaps on the interior go to Bryce Effner and to Olumuyiwa Fashanu on the outside, but they are not going to see much time, barring injury. The story of Penn State's season offensively has been the profound problems along the offensive line, and so we will talk a good bit about this group in the piece. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: An OL Massacre]

Now we get to part three of our series ranking opposing teams that Michigan will see on their 2021 schedule based on positional group. So far we've covered QB and RB, and today we arrive on the receivers. For receivers, we're talking about both WR and TE, but not RB's who catch passes. They were included in our last piece on RB's specifically. As always, this ranking is based on a mixture of both star players who headline the positional group, as well as the quality of depth, since injuries and football go together like peanut butter and jelly. At the top of the list, well, you know what's coming: 

1. Ohio State 

Yep. Because Ryan Day has been attending Tom Izzo's classes on how to hold the grandparents of key players hostage as a way to coerce them to return to school, the Buckeyes returned Chris Olave, despite him being considered a lock to go in the first round. Olave was a nondescript freshman who I didn't even have on my spotting board when I broadcasted the 2018 Michigan-Ohio State game on the radio, a game that then saw Olave torch Michigan for two TD catches + blocking a punt that was returned by Sevyn Banks for a TD. My reaction when the first TD pass happened was to furiously comb through the roster and look for the number 17 because my overriding thought was "who the hell was that guy?". Well, nearly three years later and Michigan fans— and B1G fans broadly— are very aware of who Olave is. After that coming out party, he caught 48 passes for 840 yards in 2019 and then 50 passes for 729 yards and seven scores last season in just seven games. Olave's blazing speed and NCAA production made him seem guaranteed to depart to the NFL... until he came back to Columbus. As a senior this fall, you can pretty much guarantee Olave to be 1st team All-B1G again so long as he's healthy. 

But what makes this group so good is the fact they also returned Garrett Wilson, who caught 43 passes for 723 yards and six touchdowns last season, en route to also being 1st team All-B1G. Wilson was a true sophomore in 2020, so Day didn't need to abduct Wilson's grandma to get him to return to OSU. Wilson had the honors of torching Michigan in 2019 and both he and Olave are hyper athletic, lightning fast receivers with the ability to stretch the field vertically and blow by 99% of NCAA CB's. That tandem is probably the best WR tandem in the country, but they also bring back TE Jeremy Ruckert, who isn't used all that heavily but has the combo of talent and size to be a mismatch for most defenses. Oh, and OSU's next three WR's on the depth chart are all five stars, sophomores Julian Fleming and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, as well as true freshman Emeka Egbuka. And just for kicks, the Buckeyes have Marvin Harrison Jr., son of that Marvin Harrison, farther down on the depth chart. 

This positional group both has the wickedly good talent at the top, and the quality depth, and is a school with a track record of churning out NFL WR's (Michael Thomas,Terry McLaurin, etc.). They were #1 on our list by a wide, wide margin. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Progressively less speedy dudes]

Resources: My charting, PSU game notes, PSU roster, CFBstats

It's a Franklin team: some ludicrous skill position players, a questionable offensive line, and five-stars all over the place. The main differences versus last year is the pass protection is a bit better, they have a ridiculously tough new top-100 running back we all remember from when Michigan was trying to get him, and the Speedy Eaglet is loose. A concern is the Joe Moorhead Space Ferrari stuff still looks very hard to defend, and Ricky Rahne is starting to get more comfortable at sticking to a few of them he understands instead of randomly punching buttons. Also the new "pocket" quarterback has transformed himself into a true dual threat. Also it's a white-out night game—yes, for the fourth time in five visits—because the rest of their home schedule is Idaho-Buffalo-Pitt-Purdue-Indiana-Rutgers, and heaven forbid Pitt ever think they're a rival.

The film: Iowa. At Kinnick. At night. Where they avoided getting Kinnick'd. Which might be the scariest thing. Also this was last week, Michigan is now a Cover 2 team, and even I wouldn't want to touch that game when they got outgained by Pitt at home and won because Narduzzi thinks math is for nerds.

For this they drew the notorious John O'Neill officiating crew, who were their usual, game-overshadowing selves. I usually try to avoid these clown shows because the players know how bad they are and start using it to get an edge. I did my best to try to ignore things that would get flagged normally unless it got too egregious.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

I charted the running back rotation because they're trying to find snaps for four guys. True freshman RB Noah Cain (+23/-2 on 44 snaps) got the slight majority of snaps due to taking over the 4th quarter. He's the next one of Those guys. Classmate Devyn Ford (+1,-0 on 17 snaps) is a high-acceleration complement, and Journey Brown (+2/-0, –1 pass pro in 15 snaps) should settle into a 3rd down back role—he's a quasi receiver already and the most effective blocker the rare times an RB stays in the backfield for that. Former five-star Ricky Slade (+1/-0 on 4 snaps) appears to be the odd man out. For now Franklin's going to try to keep them all happy until circumstances force him to use Cain.

The receivers are hyper-talented, starting with slot KJ "Speedy Eaglet" Hamler (455 yards, 65% catch rate, 5 TDs, 11.4 YPT, +9/-0, one drop in this game), who is justifying every time we've had to hear Ace bitch in our Slack chat about Michigan not pursuing the slippery local prospect these many years. A lot of the offense goes through him or the tight ends. The #1 is "Baby Gronk" Pat Freiermuth (203 yards, 68% catch rate, "3" but really 4 TDs, 8.1 YPT, +7/-2 as a blocker) a very lengthy New England dude with a nose for the end zone who's maybe another offseason of weights away from Mackey-level. The comparison gets senior TE Nick Bowers (136 yards, 1 TD, 17 YPT, +2.5/-2, –1 pass pro) called a blocker, which is unfair to a 60/40 receiver-type who flexes outside a lot. Shortish sophomore WR Jahan Dotson (261 yards, 67% catch rate, 3 TDs, 12.4 YPT) is effective at finding spots underneath coverage. He's very different from classmate Justin Shorter, the composite 8th overall prospect last year because he's a tight end-sized person with the speed of a 4-star outside prospect. Shorter occasionally lines up as a tight end as well. The backups only get a handful of snaps; Chisema was stolen from the track team.

[after THE JUMP: Happy trails]