Preview: Penn State 2023

Essentials

Overview

It is November 10th. The season starts tomorrow. Jim Harbaugh is on a plane; the Big Ten hasn't said a dang thing. Welcome to the silliest of all seasons.

Michigan takes on a Penn State program that has consistently been the third best in the league post-COVID. For them this has meant a lot of beating up on minnows and failing to take down the Great White Whales of the Big Ten. Massive hype for the PSU-OSU game earlier this year petered out into a grim slog where neither team could move the ball unless Marvin Harrison Jr had it. MHJ does not play for Penn State. As soon as OSU got bailed out by a holding flag on Kalen King on what otherwise would have been a game-changing sack-strip touchdown, it was game over. OSU punched it in, and Penn State never looked threatening until the game was well over.

After that PSU got in a fourth quarter tie with Indiana before deleting Maryland football from existence. They enter at 8-1 but if they lose this game the grumbles from PSU fans about never getting over the hump are going to get loud.

[AFTER THE JUMP: same OL as always]

Run Offense vs Penn State

wither explosives [Fuller]

Last year you could have strolled into this game, asserted Ain't Played Nobody, and rolled up 400 yards rushing on these goobers. And there is a faint waft of that still. EPA/rush ranks of PSU P5 opponents: 40, 51, 64, 99, 103, 117, 130. (Guess which one's Iowa!) Michigan's problem is that they're currently 65th in that department.

While Michigan remains consistent on the ground, with a top-25 success rate, the explosives that Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards turned in on the regular a year ago are seriously reduced. Last year Michigan led the conference in 20 yard runs with 33, a whopping 50% better than #2 OSU with 21. This year things aren't exactly awful—they've got 11, second in the conference behind Nebraska's 16—but they've come back to earth in a major way.

Meanwhile Penn State has throttled everyone they've played save WVU, in the opener. Maryland's coming off a –49 yard performance that, yes, has sack yardage in it but also features a net negative performance from the Maryland running backs. OSU managed just 79 yards on 41 carries, though it should be pointed out that OSU is the 103 in the EPA/rush list above. This is one of the most statistically dominant run defenses in America, on par with Michigan's. PSU grades out in a dead heat with Iowa, OSU, and Michigan for the best-graded run defense in the Big Ten.

Even PSU's supposed weakness entering the year, iffy defensive tackles, is mostly working itself out. Both Zane Durant and Coziah Izzard have grades above 80 on PFF; Durant is actually an 85. Alex believes that non-Durant DTs are just guys after charting the OSU game, and that may well be true.

If there's a weakness it's actually at linebacker. Starters Curtis Jacobs and Abdul Carter are grading out in bleah territory on PFF. In Carter's case that's because he has eight missed tackles in 28 opportunities. Jacobs's issues are not as immediately clear in the statistics but it does seem like if Michigan is able to get to the LBs they could do some damage.

To do that Michigan is likely to engage the thing that eventually turned last year's game into a laugher: McCarthy's legs. McCarthy keepers should have led to two first-half touchdowns and indirectly led to two second-half explosive touchdowns when crucial pieces of PSU's run defense were concerned that McCarthy might have the ball. Part of the struggle on the ground for Michigan is that they have barely engaged McCarthy's legs this year. This makes sense in a wider context where you're beating everyone's heads in, of course; it does mean that Michigan's approach to using McCarthy in this game remains a mystery. Add in what has surely been a frantic Penn State effort to neutralize the expected QB run game without having incidents similar to last year transpire and this is a major X-factor in the game.

This is unlikely to be a blowout either way; Michigan is good enough to move the ball against this D on the ground, but neither is last year's romp likely to repeat. Michigan just has not had the explosion to manage it.

KEY MATCHUP: MICHIGAN RUNNING BACKS vs CMON DO SOMETHING. Please teleport 2022 versions of yourselves into this game.

Pass Offense vs Penn State

[Barron]

The crux. Penn State has an awesome pass defense. They've got Michigan's secondary, more or less, except CB #2 has a shot at going on day two of the draft. Collectively they have Michigan's pass rush, and it's in their favor that the bulk of it is aimed at Michigan's iffy tackles. The only teams to have efficient days against this D are Ohio State (8.2 YPA, 1 TD, 0 INT) and, bizarrely, Indiana (14.2 YPA(!?!), 3 TD, 1 INT). OSU has Marvin Harrison. Indiana, meanwhile, hit a 90-yard TD off of a fake bubble screen that turned into a slot fade and a 69-yard TD when the defense elected not to cover Donaven McCulley at all. Those huge outliers get you to 14 YPA when you only throw 19 times. Everyone else has gotten drowned in a bathtub. This will be JJ McCarthy's stiffest test of the year, by far.

One thing that could disrupt expectations from the previous paragraph: is Chop Robinson good to go? PSU published some videos of Robinson practicing where he looked ready, but James Franklin has been cagey about both Robinson and his backup Amin Vanover. Both ended up leaving the OSU game and have not played since. A dollar says they're more or less full-go if they've returned to practice and are on camera doing things.

If so: Michigan has some decisions to make. Michigan tackles collectively picked up 12 pass pro minuses against Purdue's excellent DEs and now faces a team that seems to consist of nothing but ravenous edges. In addition to Robinson, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Adisa Issac, Curtis Jacobs, Abdul Carter, and Vanover all have at least 50 rush snaps and a PFF grade of 74 or higher. On passing down PSU throws out a five man front with three edges and two of their very good pass rush linebackers. Suggestion: avoid passing downs.

In the secondary, South Carolina transfer Johnny Dixon has emerged into a star who's on NFL draft radars next to Kalen King, who entered the year being touted as one of the best CBs in the country. It hasn't quiet worked out like that. PSU tried to stick King on Marvin Harrison Jr in the Ohio State game; King got cooked. But also:

…more concerning was King's performances against non-MHJ receivers. Hardy and Dixon were locking up Julian Fleming, but King got cooked by him too:

CB #4 to the bottom

There was another play in which Fleming beat King that was called back due to a hold. … Among all regular rotational players on this PSU defense, King is PFF's worst graded player by a country mile. … You don't want a potential 1st round corner to have a 53.0 grade over nearly 232 coverage snaps!!

Maybe he's nursing a nagging injury that saps his ability to compete, but the only game in which PFF has a solid grade for him this year is UMass. This will be a situation to keep an eye on.

If Michigan thinks they can attack King then things get easier. They can beef up, help the tackles, and let Wilson or Johnson go to work. Beefing also pulls nickel Daequan Hardy off the field—probably—for Kobe King, Kalen's linebacker brother. Those guys have similar coverage grades but stressing the LBs with Michigan TEs might be an option. None of these guys stand out as particularly adept in coverage except maybe Dom DeLuca, who's sparingly used for a reason.

The other thing to watch out for: how responsible is Penn State about rushing lanes? Purdue bottled McCarthy up with 3 DTs pushing the pocket and keeping McCarthy contained. Manny Diaz defenses historically do not do this. The passing down package is a perfect example. Diaz wants to hit dingers on every play, and when he gets the kind of talent advantage he's had this year his defenses are devastating because of it. But if you have equal talent, and a quarterback who is lethal when he breaks the pocket, well… McCarthy is going to eat.

KEY MATCHUP: JJ MCCARTHY vs BOWLING GREEN STATE UNVERSITY. If Michigan does not turn it over they win.

Run Defense vs Penn State

Kaytron Allen is the more effective RB but neither is burning it up [Barron]

This has been fine, more or less, for the bulk of the year. Dump out games against Delaware and UMass and PSU has consistently ground out YPC around 4, with two exceptions. One was Indiana holding them to 3; the other was OSU holding them to 1.9. That OSU game may even have been worse than the raw stats because early successes appeared to be mostly Ohio State guys blowing it rather than anything PSU was doing, and PSU's approach bore that out as the game went along. Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton, PSU's hyped 1-2 combo, got nine carries each despite the fact that Drew Allar was under siege.

In a vacuum, 215 yards against Iowa is impressive but it took 57 carries to get there and the bulk of that production came in the second half, well after the Iowa defense was gassed and dispirited after Penn State took an insurmountable two-score lead.

It's hard to watch this team and not get the impression that the run game is a flat-track bully, except for the bullying part. The running theme of the James Franklin era's offenses is that the OL is just not good enough in crunch time, and this year is no different. PFF likes TE Tyler Warren and thinks a couple OL are decent, and after that it's a sea of yellow shading to red. Alex issued cyans to both starting guards:

Sal Wormley gets the cyan at RG, while the tandem of JB Nelson/Olaivavega Iaone at LG do as well. In defense of Nelson/Iaone, they are filling in after Landon Tengwall hung up his cleats and decided to medically retire in late August, forcing these two reserves into a competition to fill one spot on the line. Center Hunter Nourzad, a one-time Cornell transfer, narrowly avoids the cyan, but he was put on skates numerous times by the defensive tackles of Ohio State.

Cyans are relative; PSU's guys aren't UNLV level. But they're certainly not OSU level, or Michigan level, and unlike last year Penn State does not have a Sean Clifford to paper over the holes. Allar is emphatically a pocket passer.

Meanwhile, the book on Allen and Singleton is that both guys are Edwards-ish in that they will hit the jets when given lanes but are not Mike Hart-style magicians who can rescue a busted play. Alex:

Singleton may not be a terribly instinctual runner, but when you give him a gap and open field, he can hit it … Kaytron Allen is better than Singleton between the tackles [but] he's not Kenneth Walker reincarnate at making something out of nothing. Like Singleton, when you give him space it's awesome:

Unfortunately, he seldom has space and I don't anticipate him having space against Michigan.

A pocket passer, a shaky-to-bad offensive line, and two backs that don't generate the first few yards on their own is a recipe for getting shut down by the nation's #3 EPA/rush D. Penn State's overall numbers look fine—Michigan-esque, in fact—at #52 in EPA/rush and #20 in success rate, but while Michigan has another gear they can go to by involving McCarthy and doing Harbaugh stuff with a legitimately good OL, Penn State just can't block well enough to expect that their junk is going to work in this game.

KEY MATCHUP: PENN STATE vs SHE LET ME HIT IT BECAUSE I'M GOOFY. You gotta get weird if you're PSU. Whatever jet sweeps, end-arounds, subtle tweaks, and what-have-you all have to hit the field in this game.

Pass Defense vs Penn State

Tinsley isn't on the team but we have no pictures of Lambert-Smith [Barron]

This is a good(?) MAC passing offense. Drew Allar is a strapping five-star pocket passer who's currently playing like he's a pop-gun arm two-star at Akron. Allar's air yard stats are boggling. Adam Rittenberg:

[Allar] is 122nd nationally in air yards per attempt (6.67) and tied for 99th in completions of 20 yards or longer (17). The Lions might try to ride their defense and run game and grind out a low-scoring win, but it's hard to see them winning without calling some shot plays for Allar -- and hitting on them.

"He's not very accurate down the field," a Big Ten coach told me. "They've got a couple of good receivers, he's got arm strength and potential there, but his deep ball accuracy is very average. He hasn't proven to be a threat in that area."

It's hard to parse out who's responsible for what, exactly, but PSU's rate of deep shots (20+ air yards) is miniscule and their successes even rarer. Just 9% of Allar's passes are 20+ yards (McCarthy doubles that rate) and he's just 8/27 on those shots. Combine that with an equal lack of explosion from the PSU ground game and that means Penn State has to drive the field if they're going to score.

Allar is efficient and productive under twenty air yards—when kept clean. And here we come to the other Issue. On the season Allar's completion percentage drops from 70% to 39% once he gets pressure, and the vast majority of defenses those stats were racked up against were miles worse than Michigan. Anyone who watched the PSU-OSU game had to marvel at Allar turning into a puddle as soon as he had to move off his spot, and that was near-constant. Allar was pressured on 48% of his dropbacks against OSU, which feels low as someone who watched the game. Alex has a reason why that might be the case:

What stood out to me the most in watching Allar against OSU was his feet. There were snaps where protection totally broke down and he was under siege, but the much more interesting snaps were the ones where it wasn't a five-alarm fire, but a squeezing pocket, with tackles being gradually bullrushed into his lap. In those instances, plays with pressure but not a QB hit, his footwork was a mess.

Allar had a severe case of happy feet in good-enough pockets; a version of what happened to McCarthy last week but much worse and much more frequent.

It's not hard to see Michigan replicating the same level of pressure. Michigan pips PSU for #1 in the Big Ten in PFF's pass rush grading; Ohio State is 4th, seven points adrift. Michigan at least pressured Hudson Card on two-thirds of his dropbacks last week. Michigan's DTs are the sort who are capable of wreaking havoc against iffy interior OL, particularly Mason Graham.

PSU's other issue against OSU is that their receivers are just guys. KeAndre Lambert-Smith is solid; ideally he would be a #2 or #3 on a team with a prolific passing offense. He's functioning just fine as a #1 (68% catch rate on 75 targets) but you can overplay him if you're a good defense because he has triple the targets of #2 WR Dante Cephas, a MAC transfer who's meh, and it drops off past there.

It's hard to envision PSU getting enough time for Allar to break out of the mold in this game. If PSU is unable to hit deep shots against teams that aren't swarming Allar in the pocket, how does that change? Who is breaking out deep? A steady diet of underneath stuff and the occasional slot fade is in the offing, but Allar's accuracy plummets when he gets pressure, and that's not a recipe for converting third and five consistently.

The previous paragraph worries me because it feels very arrogant and please-God-strike-me-down. But… what's the mechanism via which PSU is efficient here? I cannot envision it. I can easily envision PSU throttling the Michigan offense. I don't necessarily think it will happen, but it is solidly within the realm of possibility. Allar putting up 7 YPC seems impossible without some sort of galactic breakdown on an 80 yard screen pass.

If that's jinx city, sorry.

KEY MATCHUP: MASON GRAHAM vs MO HURST. +30. DO IT.

SPECIAL TEAMS

PSU is 19th in special teams FEI, largely on the strength of their #1 punting unit. It is unclear why FEI loves the punt unit so much, though. Riley Thompson is averaging 44 yards a kick but his punts are pretty returnable, with 15/35 non-touchbacks coming  back. Opponents have picked up 78 yards on those returns; Thompson's net average is fourth in the Big Ten. Seems like that FEI ranking is built on something that doesn't show up in the stats; muffs or maybe fakes converting? Anyway.

Punt return Kaden Saunders wasn't doing much so PSU turned to CB Daequan Hardy in the UMass game; Hardy immediately ripped off two touchdowns. He hasn't replicated that feat since and Tommy Doman has allowed a total of 4 returns for 24 yards on the season, so a big play here is unlikely.

Kickoffs barely matter; Singleton returns them for Penn State and will enjoy a view of the ball going over his head into the endzone.

PSU's kicking situation is better than FEI makes it appear; they're dead average but when Sander Sahaydak missed two in the opener against WVU PSU put in Alex Felkins, who has gone 13/16 on the season. Two of his misses are from 50+; expect anything shorter to go in.

KEY MATCHUP: AHHH YOU PUT IT THROUGH THE UPRIGHTS

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if...

• PSU DEs are teleporting past Michigan tackles.
• PSU can man up on Roman Wilson.
• McCarthy is throwing interceptable passes.

Cackle with glee if...

• Drew Allar is under the same amount of pressure he faced against OSU.
• McCarthy is breaking the pocket.
• Frames Janklin jankles it up.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 6 (Baseline 5; +1 for Hey, A Real Team, +1 for Beaver Stadium Road Experience, +1 for Ye Gods Y'All Got Six NFL Edges, +1 for Sign Related Paranoia, –1 for Same Old OL, –1 for Clifford Safety Blanket Gone, –1 for Frames, –1 for WR Talent Is So Meh, +1 for FEI Knows Something About Penn State Punting That I Do Not And It Terrifies Me)

Desperate Need To Win Level: 11 (Baseline 5; +5 for Burn It All Down, +1 for And Then Piss On The Ashes.)

Loss will cause me to... quit social media, become a monk, develop incredible powers, use them to photoshop Tony Petitti's head onto Bert Bielema's body IRL.

Win will cause me to... be extremely annoying on the internet.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

I just don't understand how PSU is going to move the ball. This approximately is the least explosive offense in America, and they can't pass protect against elite teams, and their quarterback turns into a pumpkin when he gets pressure. They do not have a player to go downfield and moss a guy. I guess they could scheme up a way to get one of their backs in space. But I don't see much of a gap between this offense and Purdue. Expect similar results.

On the other side of the ball, Michigan will likely be cautious. PSU is #1 nationally in turnover margin and expected turnover margin; OSU narrowly escaped a very different world when a Kalen King holding call overturned a strip-sack TD. I would expect a lot of tight ends, a lot of max pro play action, and a concerted effort to strangle the game out. That won't eliminate situations where McCarthy is banking on his tackles to not get him whacked but will minimize them; I expect Michigan to make enough plays to steadily distance themselves over the course of the game.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid tomorrow: 

• An old-timey Michigan game with 25 Blake Corum carries that go for 120 yards.
• PSU drives the field once. They also get Michigan on a trick play.
• Michigan, 30-9