PFF Comments for UM-PSU

PFF was not so high on Jake as we were with eye test.   Somehow he got a negative grade after leading the nation the prior 2 weeks (thanks Indiana and rutgers!).  Main takeaway was he did well when not under pressure; when under pressure he only had 50% completion rate and 39 yds passing.  Considering he played an actual competent defense unlike the prior 2 weeks, I thought he did more than enough myself!

Quarterback Jake Rudock (-1.3 game grade) came into the day coming off his best two starts this season (he led the nation in our PFF QB grades the last two weeks), but against the Nittany Lions he had a mixed day. When he was not under pressure he was very consistent, going 19 of 26 with 217 yards and a PFF grade of +2.0. However, the storyline was flipped when the Nittany Lions’ pass rush got to him; he was pressured on 15 dropbacks, and on those he only completed 50 percent of his passes for 39 yards and a QB rating of 22.6 and a -2.0 PFF grade.

The breakout game for Taco? PFF loved our DL again which has been a theme most of the year.  Opponent caveats aside (PSU OL is crap) but it was nice to see secondary contributions from Taco Taco Man -- I gotta be a Taco man.  Hope to see more Taco smothering OSU QB(s) this week to build up to the 2016 season.

The story of the game was the consistent pressure the defense was able to create on Penn State QB Christian Hackenberg (-0.8). The Wolverines managed to get pressure on 65 percent of Hackenberg dropbacks. The most successful pass-rushers were DE Taco Charlton (+4.6), who had seven total pressures with two sacks, and DE Chris Wormley (+3.7), who had 10 total pressures also with two sacks.

After the early blip to Barkley, the rush D settled in quite nicely sans Glasgow.  Again, caveats for competition level but it was nice to see domination even against a motley crew.

Penn State only attempted 17 run plays, but outside of the first run to Saquon Barkley (+0.6), which went for 56 yards, the Wolverines held the Nittany Lions to just 17 yards on 16 designed run attempts. Both of the Wolverines’ starting defensive tackles created havoc in the run game, especially Maurice Hurst (+4.0), who had an outstanding run-stop percentage of 23.1 thanks to three stops on 13 run snaps. The Wolverines won this game thanks to their overwhelming talent on the defensive line against the weakness of Penn State’s offensive line.

While the last blurb is from the PSU section, UM's pass protect seems to continue to be "well above average" while the run blocking is (redacted).   It did help Nassib went out of the game early (didnt realize he only played 2 snaps) but the interior of the line seemed to keep Zettel and Johnson at bay in the pass rush which is all you can ask of the unit at its current performance level.  It appears Cole kicked the a$$ of the non Nassib DE.

Entering into this week, the Nittany Lions had been able to hang their hats on the defensive line trio of Austin Johnson (-0.6), Anthony Zettel (+0.1) and Carl Nassib (who only played two snaps in this game). Neither Zettel nor Johnson were able to get much going versus the Wolverines’ offensive line, with Zettel getting four pressures and Johnson zero. The loss to injury of Nassib, who currently has PFF’s highest pass-rushing productivity by a 4-3 DE at 19.1 (the second highest is Oklahoma State’s Emmanuel Ogbah at 15.9), the Penn State pass rush was significantly weaker.

Bad boys bad boys...whatcha gonna do?

Top performers:

DE Taco Charlton (+4.6)

DT Maurice Hurst (+4.0)

DE Chris Wormley (+3.7)

OL Mason Cole (+2.8)

LB James Ross (+2.0)