mike hull

Previously: Penn State Offense

Anthony Zettel had himself a day.

While Penn State's offense isn't faring well this year, the opposite is the case for the defense, which ranks 17th in Football Outsiders' S&P+ rankings—9th in rushing and 21st in passing, so they're balanced, as well. They looked the part against Rutgers, picking off Gary Nova five times, shutting down a Rutgers running attack that still boasted Paul James at the time, and ultimately holding the Scarlet Knights to a mere ten points.

Personnel: Unlike the offense, this is a very experienced group, with only one underclassman even cracking the starting lineup. DE Deion Barnes is, in fact, a returning starter (his circle is left unfilled in the diagram, but that's a mistake on our part), while both DTs saw extensive action and a couple spot starts in 2013 [click the diagram to embiggen]:

There's plenty of talent on this group, too, with three former top 250 recruits and a couple others who didn't miss that distinction by much.

Base Set? 4-3 under, though PSU doesn't bother to denote a strongside and weakside linebacker. OLBs Brandon Bell and Nyeem Wartman are pretty much interchangeable—both will line up as the nominal SLB and they can each play over a slot receiver—so they just stick to the left and right side, respectively. When PSU goes nickel, usually against 4 WR sets, strong safety (and former corner) Adrian Amos moves into the slot, with backup safety Malik Golden taking his place on the back line, like so:

For the most part, PSU keeps their base set on the field—they run enough zone coverage that it isn't a big issue for their outside linebackers to play over slot receivers.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]