The next drive stalled when LeShun Daniels was unable to gain the needed yard on a third-and-one play at the Iowa 38, forcing one of Ron Coluzzi’s six punts. The Lions, winners of five straight and ranked No. 12, don’t play a team with a winning record in the Big Ten to finish the season.
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The Nittany Lions have a mighty sweet spread offense with crafty run/pass quarterback Trace McSorley and running back extraordinaire Saquon Barkley.
The sluggish starts that dogged Penn State early in the season are no more and questions about the direction of the program under third-year head coach James Franklin have seemingly been answered. For his part, the 6-foot-2, 203-pound Beathard has thrown for 1,584 yards with a 13/5 TD/INT ratio through nine games played.
If you had to guess which team had a week off to get rejuvenated, you’d have sworn it was the Lions.
Barkley accounted for 211 all-purpose yards, scored two touchdowns and McSorley completed 11 of 18 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns.
Barkley racked up 167 rushing yards through three quarters, and his last touch of the night was a 44-yard touchdown catch. The Nittany Lions had to err again to give the Hawkeyes a chance, however.
And while Penn State’s offense deservedly got much of the attention from the 41-14 win, the defense set the tone early with Cabinda’s big play. Conliffe is a four-star, 6-4, 305-pounder who could player either end or tackle; he’s always been considered a heavy Alabama lean, so getting him to visit Penn State is a big deal. On the next possession, backup quarterback Tommy Stevens took a McSorley handoff and bowled over a series of Hawkeye defenders for one heck of a touchdown run to send the score to 41-7.
The defense was certainly an issue, but it didn’t help quarterback C.J. Beathard was sacked four times and was under duress for a good portion of the game. Still, Iowa, averaging nearly 170 yards per game on the ground, had 30.
Penn State will visit IN and Rutgers IN its next games, before closing the regular season with a Senior Day game against Michigan State on November 26 at Beaver Stadium.
The Hawkeyes averaged 1.2 yards per carry and collected just 30 total yards on the 26 times they attempted to run the ball, mostly before Penn State had opened a lead so large that the Hawkeyes were forced to put the ball in the air.
Although Moorhead’s offense is typically described as “up-tempo”, Penn State actually uses a good portion of the play clock rather than rush from snap to snap.
Penn State: Pays at IN (5-4, 3-3) where the Nittany Lions are 7-1.
“We will never be satisfied, ever”, Franklin said.
At the midway point of the season, the Lions identified redshirt sophomore Chasz Wright and true freshman Will Fries as the next men up at tackle.
“And when the opportunities have come, him and Paris have really stepped up big time for us”.
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IN enters next Saturday’s match-up coming off a 33-27 victory over Rutgers on Saturday. “But we’re getting better every single day, every single practice, in our trust, our hope and our belief in one another, our confidence”. The 42-3 win over archrival Iowa State seems like seasons ago at this point.
