Keyed by solid execution vs. Idaho, Nittany Lions' OL builds confidence

Michal Menet spent his Saturday evening watching film.

Fresh off a 79-7 destruction of Idaho at Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions’ redshirt junior center said he wanted to see what had happened in two relatively unsuccessful possessions to start the afternoon.

Though every one of Penn State’s running backs had reached the end zone in a 10-touchdown afternoon, not to mention three possessions capped by field goals, the veteran offensive lineman was determined to squeeze every ounce of value out of the Week One win.

“(I’m going to) see what happened and where we can grow from that as an offensive line, as an offensive unit altogether,” said Menet. “I think it will be crucial for us to look at.

“(It’s important to) still be able to look at the tape and be very critical of yourself and learn, because obviously, nothing's ever going to be perfect. I feel like some teams will kind of overlook things because hey, we had 79 points, only gave up one touchdown, that kind of stuff. But I think us coming in (Sunday), being very critical of ourselves still, making sure we've learned something from this game is going to be the biggest part.”

On an afternoon in which Penn State’s offense produced wildly successful results, landing on the all-time list in school history for total points (second since 1921) and margin of victory (10th all-time and biggest since 1991), the Nittany Lions’ weapons pointed back at the line for their successes.

Working in the trenches against an outmatched Idaho team, the Nittany Lion offensive line helped produce a total of 673 yards of offense, the most since 1994 and third-most dating back to 1947.

“The O-line did their thing today. The receivers and running backs, or Cliff, couldn't have done what they had to do without the O-line,” said wide receiver K.J. Hamler. “So I think the O-line was the biggest piece of the puzzle today. Just give the credit to them and being smart with their choices and the decisions that they make on the field.

“You can't do all that without the O-line. We appreciate them because they're in the trenches 24/7, getting beat up for us. I think they're the reason why we were so successful today.”

Confident that the line’s execution went well throughout the afternoon, Menet drew encouragement - as did many of Penn State’s other offensive pieces - at the potential that could come to fruition through the rest of the season.

To get there, though, he insisted that the first few jittery possessions - 6 plays for 23 yards on the first and 4 plays for no yards on the second, each ending in field goals thanks to prime starting field position - will be important to improve upon.

“It was encouraging to see us come together with pretty quickly. We still ended up having a pretty good first quarter and first half as a whole. So I think just getting those first three drives… under our belt helped us grow just in those first three drives to allow us to have the finish of the game that we did,” said Menet. “But we definitely need to correct that because we can't start slow in this conference. That's definitely something we're going to have to improve on offense.”