OP, I think your sample size is too small to make any conclusions.

Interesting take.  I wonder if the fact that so much of our offensive game is based on the O-Line gaining leverage and it is more difficult, or at least different, on grass than turf making it harder to bash people the way we often do on turf. 

On the other hand, the teams we played likely had a lot to do with how those games ended.  Walker had no problem cutting through our D on a grass turf, UGA would likely have beat us on any and all surfaces and grass didn't make us fumble on the 1 or throw 2 pick 6's against TCU.

Footing is definitely an issue going from artificial turf to grass, and depending on consistency of the field (amount of moisture in the sod, length of grass etc) getting the right cleat length can be tricky. A team whose home field is grass will always have an advantage in footing over a turf team when playing on a grass field.

I’m assuming we’ve done our due diligence on this so no significant in-game adjustments are needed. 

Need longer cleats on grass, in my experience.

Isn't Sparty's turf management program allegedly good?

Allegedly.  I did not go calling other B1G schools saying Sparty's turf school is trash and their field is trash.  I do remember seeing a trash tornado there a few years back though.

This ultra silly concern trolling. In 2021 ar MSU natural grass vs turf didn't make the refs reverse the fumble for a TD or cause Corum to run the wrong play and miss the handoff and fumble or make the refs refuse to call the obvious DPI on our last-gasp drive or make Walker break tackles and run like the All-American he was.  Anyway, both PSU and MSU were really good teams that year. Also, a close game on grass that we won proves nothing. Michigan had close games/relatively close games on turf that we won, too, like Rutgers and Nebraska in 2021 and Maryland and Illinois last year.

this was an ongoing discussion back in the 70s. 

if i recall correctly, at that time, minnesota and purdue may have been the only grass fields in the big ten.  weird things seemed to happen at minnesota (that reputation lives on to this day), and when we lost as #1 at purdue in 1976 it became a thing.  plus, we tended to suck at the rose bowl, so voila - bad grass team.

Home teams can leave the grass longer to slow down faster teams.  Team has to select the right cleats to avoid injuries or slipping.  I think Michigan is familiar with State’s grass field. 

GRASSping for an explanation of those losses?

2 of the 3 were in the national semifinal!  If you want to build a narrative it’s that we’ve had bowl game problems since time immemorial.  Bowls are usually in warm places, such as Miami and Phoenix, and grass grows better in warm places.

I think a much larger sample size exists, or could be constructed.

This issue was often raised back in the Bo era.  If we lost a regular season game to someone other than the Bucknuts, it would be Purdue (a grass field) or Sparty (ditto).  And we lost a lot of Rose Bowls.  In fact, after the original Tartan Turf field was pulled up, there was an effort to install natural turf.  The 1997 Natty team played on a grass field in the Big House.  Alas, the effort to maintain the grass was, in the long run, a losing game, and in the early aughties the shift was made to today's Field Turf.  (Came up for my 25th reunion in 2000 and watched us beat Antwaan Randle-El; there was a lot of slipping and sliding as the turf often slid out under a strong cut.)

I think this is an issue for a lot of teams that have artificial home fields, but not as much of one with the Field Turf kind of surface. 

And I thought this as going to be about weed

I was at UM 1981-85 and remember this very argument even back then, starting in the late 70s with losses at Purdue 1976, 1979, three RB losses, etc.. For starters, I don't buy it. We won at Purdue 1981 26-10. The loss at ND in 82 was because Steve Smith played a pathetic game and ran into his RB and fumbled the ball away. We lost a Purdue in 84 with Bo's worst team in 21 years at UM. We won handily at South Carolina on grass 34-3 in 85. We won at Ohio to deny them B1G title in 1990 when they switched back to grass. 

The loss at MSU was mostly due to three things: (1) KWIII was a generational talent and got hands-on Mel 95 million till it didn't, (2) overturned strip sack TD was a huge momentum shift, and (3) 4th and 7 turned to 4th and 2 due to an offsides helped Sparty score down 30-14 (cut lead to 30 22). We stop that play and we win.

TCU game was just UM playing like Bo's 1970s teams in bowl games. This was a repeat of the 1978 RB loss to UW and Warren Moon but more points. This is 100% on JH to have an aggressive starts and finish to his next playoff game. UGA was just way better team. 

I 100% agree with you. 

I was thinking of posting something like this, but you beat me to it and I like what you did.

We do not play well on grass (at least in comparison to how we play on turf), especially in our running game. 

We saw it again last night at MSU.  They were keying on the run, but if the game was on turf I don't think they would have been nearly as successful as they were in slowing down our run. 

The grass surface takes away, in particular, the micro-cuts that Corum makes that lets him escape the phonebooth.  I would have been curious to see what Mullings what have looked like out there.

There is nothing about Penn State that scares me except one thing . . . the grass surface.

One thing that does help mitigate it a little bit is that the game is in November at noon.  Why does this help?  Because the weather in the hills of Happy Valley, especially the overnight weather, is quite cold then.  This firms up the ground underneath the grass, making it more turf-like.  And a noon game does not give it much time to warm up.

I do wonder if the PSU groundskeepers will fool with the grass the way they do in pro sports to make it longer and moister/softer so that it will play slower and looser.  Especially after what PSU saw Corum do to them on turf last year.  

Yeah, so ... about those problems playing on grass...