Buffalo Preview: Coming on Strong
The last time Buffalo visited Penn State, the day’s breakout star was a young running back named Saquon Barkley. A true freshman at the time, Barkley was playing in only his second collegiate game, but he finished with 115 yards on only 12 carries, including a leaping 18-yarder on which he seemed to pedal an invisible mountain bike overtop of a would-be Bulls tackler.
With that game, which the Nittany Lions won, 27-14, in September 2015, Barkley served notice that he was going to be an impact player for a team that was desperate to develop any kind of offensive identity as it struggled overcome the lingering effects of the NCAA sanctions.
This Saturday, Buffalo will be making another visit to University Park, and Penn State is not quite as bereft on offense as it was a few years ago. Since these two teams last met, the Nittany Lions have sent Barkley into the NFL, where he won Offensive Rookie of the Year honors a year ago. They’ve also developed a number of other All-Big Ten players, such as quarterback Trace McSorley, tight end Mike Gesicki and wide receivers Chris Godwin and DaeSean Hamilton.
Buffalo coach Lance Leipold has watched the Lions’ transformation from afar and has been impressed with what James Franklin and his staff have accomplished since that Barkley-led surge that helped propel them to victory on a rainy September afternoon four years ago.
“You can see now, they’re back at full scholarships, they’re much deeper and probably more athletic as a whole,” said Leipold, who was in his first season at Buffalo when the Bulls visited in 2015. “I’ve heard [Franklin] say this is one of his more athletic teams. The team speed is there. I’m really impressed with their length and athleticism. The combination of the two really makes this a huge challenge for us. I don’t know what the scholarship count was when he inherited things and where it was heading into that game, but you can definitely see that it’s changed in [terms of] where they are as a program.”
Those changes were evident this past Saturday. Barkley, McSorley and company may be gone, but a new stable of offensive playmakers has been recruited, and those players helped the Nittany Lions open their 2019 season with a 79-7 thrashing of Idaho.
So with the Bulls set to visit Penn State on Saturday for a prime time showcase, one of the questions facing the Nittany Lions is, which of those youthful skill players are poised to build on their early momentum?
The list of possibilities is lengthy. The Lions used five running backs in their win over the Vandals, and all scored touchdowns. In addition, wideout K.J. Hamler had 115 receiving yards and two scores, while Justin Shorter surpassed his yardage total from his entire freshman season with three catches for 36 yards. Also, after an up-and-down first quarter, new starting quarterback Sean Clifford settled in and threw for 280 yards and two touchdowns, while backup QB Will Levis hit 11 of 14 throws for 62 yards and a score.
Of course, those numbers all come with a caveat, as they were compiled against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent. Buffalo, which last year won a school-record 10 games and claimed the Mid-American Conference’s East Division championship, is sure to present a more formidable challenge.
Like Penn State, the Bulls opened with an FCS opponent, easily defeating Robert Morris, 38-10. Their defense had a big night, holding the Colonials to 240 yards and 11 first downs. Redshirt freshman safety Cory Gross led the way with seven tackles, while sophomore outside linebacker James Patterson had five tackles, including 1.5 tackles for loss. The Bulls didn’t have a lot of sacks, but the Colonials didn’t do much passing. RMU quarterback George Martin threw only nine passes, and Buffalo sacked him twice. Said Leipold, “Defensively, we did some good things.”
The Bulls did some good things on offense, too, almost all of them on the ground. Seven ball-carriers combined for 285 rushing yards. Jaret Patterson, James’s twin brother, led the way with 90 yards on 12 carries.
The Bulls used their rushing attack to build a 28-10 halftime lead, and as a result, redshirt freshman quarterback Matt Myers didn’t have to pass very often. Myers went 5 of 10 for 69 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions.
“I don’t think it’s any secret where our experience lies. We were trying to establish a run game, and I thought we ran the ball extremely well in the first quarter,” Leipold said. “Until they could really slow you down, there wasn’t a need to throw it.”
They’ll most likely need to lean a lot more heavily on Myers this Saturday, especially if the Nittany Lions are able to build an early lead. During his Monday presser, Leipold admitted that it might have been wise to give his inexperienced quarterback a few more passing reps against Robert Morris to better prepare him for the kind of pressure he’s going to face when Yetur Gross-Matos and Shaka Toney are bearing down on him this Saturday. Then again, as Franklin noted this week, the Bulls could simply have been trying to avoid showing their hand heading into a big game. “That’s what you’re not sure of,” he said. “These early-season games can be challenging like that.”
Whatever the case, when Leipold zooms out to look at the big picture, he’s pleased with the improvements his program has made since its previous encounter with Penn State.
“I think we’ve made strides,” he said. “When we went into Penn State that year, we had some experienced players offensively, and that really helped us. At that time, we were transitioning our defensive scheme. We were trying to increase our team speed, and I think we’ve been able to do that. We lost some players off of last year’s team, and we’re pretty young and inexperienced at the wide receiver spot right now, which is going to be a huge challenge for us in a game like this. We’re playing a younger quarterback as well. But I like the depth of our offensive line, what we’ve been able to recruit and develop there. I like the way we’re developing our team as a whole to be competitive in the Mid-American Conference. But we know that this [game at Penn State] is going to be a huge challenge for us.”