Film Study: Needing elite performance, Nittany Lions fall short in Columbus

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Once again, Penn State football's hopes were dashed against the rocks of the Ohio State Buckeyes Saturday.

This time it was a 28-17 defeat in Columbus that sealed a spot for the Buckeyes in the Big Ten championship game, eliminating the Nittany Lions. Fueled by their dynamic duo of Justin Fields and J.K. Dobbins, Ohio State ran their way to an early lead, and then survived late mistakes to win.

We’ll start with how the Penn State defense got off to a slow start, but played one of their best games of the season down the stretch.

ATHLETES IN SPACE

Let’s start from the big numbers and work backwards.

Penn State's defense allowed only 3.8 yards per rush on Saturday. The obvious problem is that they allowed Ohio State to rush the ball 61 times. The Buckeyes' approach was surprisingly conservative given Penn State’s struggles to stop the pass in recent weeks and Field’s propensity for throwing touchdowns. In fact, Fields threw the ball only once on the team’s opening drive and scrambled on another called pass.

We’ll break that drive down because it was indicative of what Penn State’s struggles were in the game.

Let’s start with the first third down for Ohio State:

OSU's best plays were when they could either get to the edge of Penn State's defense or get Fields and Dobbins in one-on-one situations with a defender. Here, Fields gets a called draw play.

Think of this a little bit like basketball. Ohio State called an isolation play for Fields on Cam Brown. So it’s Brown one-on-one with Fields and a bunch of green grass.

As always, Brent Pry isn’t satisfied to sit back and let fate decide which way the wind blows. Instead, he sends Brown on a blitz, trying to catch Fields in the backfield before he can get into open space and become a threat.

The front of the pocket holds and Fields is able to find a lane out of trouble and get the first down.

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