News & Notes: Penn State's dominant win sets tone for upcoming slate

NEWS: Coming off a less-than-convincing, 17-10 win against Pitt, with a bye week for fans to wring their hands over it, a young Penn State team marched into Maryland Stadium and blew the doors off the Terrapins, 59-0.

JAMES FRANKLIN: “I thought it was probably one of the more complete games that we have played in our six years… in all three phases. We played at a high level,” Franklin said. “Defensively, that team has been putting up a bunch of points against a bunch of different people. Challenging schemes, challenging personnel and our defense played lights out. Offensively, I thought Sean was on fire. (He) handled being on the road for the first time and a Big Ten environment. Thought the environment there to start the game was challenging as well and I thought we handled it really well.”

VIEWS: If you could bottle up a game and point to it as the identity that Penn State football wants to have, Friday night was it. The storylines for this season remain the same: A young offense with new pieces trying to crawl, walk, and run before the end of the season, relying on a veteran, fast defense and a kicking game that has become the ultimate backstop.

So Penn State’s defense hit the field first, the Nittany Lions winning the toss and deferring until the second half, it gave up a few short gains and a first down. And, without notice, for a young team that thrives when it is confident, veteran linebacker Jan Johnson stepped in front of a Josh Jackson pass and effectively ended the game.

A splash defensive play, aided by a Maryland team that simply could not help itself from drawing needless penalties all night, set up an 8-yard Sean Clifford touchdown carry the next play.

And the rest simply moved from there, Penn State’s defense setting the tone and giving its offense a chance to shine - including but not limited to OC Ricky Rahne - with the knowledge that the approach could be aggressive with a defense that wasn’t going to be scored on.

More on this, below.

NEWS: Penn State’s defense, maligned and critiqued at times through the first three games of the season, also demonstrated who and what it wants to be.

JAMES FRANKLIN: “Our defense, I think, is playing with a lot of confidence right now… What I thought was so impressive tonight is we played seconds and we played thirds and we played fourths, and they went in and executed the defense at a really high level. That's really good progress,” Franklin said. “I thought the turnovers were significant early in the game got the crowd out of it allowed us to swing the momentum, and go from there.”

JESSE LUKETA: “(Stopping the run is priority) number one. That’s something we pride ourselves on doing,” Luketa said. “We had three takeaways today, so we met our takeaway goal and that’s something we pride ourselves in doing so. I feel as if, the aspirations that we have for this year are stopping the run and making sure we meet our takeaway goals from week to week, I feel like that’s the top of the priority for us.”

VIEWS: Throwing out the fact that Maryland hasn’t produced a touchdown against Penn State in any of the past three meetings, each team its own entity, the Nittany Lions’ defensive dominance of Maryland is the blueprint to its future success.

Beyond Johnson’s game-setting play, with the game still at least somewhat in doubt, Penn State again did what it has done all season on Maryland’s third possession of the night.

Starting at their own 25, the Terrapins moved 64 yards on 14 plays, chewing up 6 minutes, 17 seconds of clock in the process, to set up a second-and-10 at Penn State’s 11-yard line. This, of course, after Micah Parsons got tossed for a needless roughing the passer penalty. The scoreboard then reading 14-0, a Maryland touchdown at the moment might have salvaged what was left of its home crowd and atmosphere.

By the time Tariq Castro-Fields stepped in front of another Jackson pass, the Maryland signal-caller’s second interception in three possessions, however, that was it. Penn State’s offense then moved 95 yards the other direction over 5:01, and the Nittany Lions were ahead 21-0.

“If we’re able to pressure the quarterback and make him uncomfortable in the pocket, that’s going to turn out well for our (defensive backs),” Johnson said.

Taking away the run, the key to Maryland’s offensive success, Penn State forced the Terrapins to try to pass and, with pressure, turnover opportunities eliminated any possibility of it being a game.

NEWS: Entering the game, Penn State’s offense was criticized for lackluster performances in the first half against Buffalo and throughout the afternoon in the win against Pitt. Playmaker K.J. Hamler was lamented as having not been utilized enough by Franklin, the running back position appeared cluttered and cloudy with four vying for carries, and what was thought to have been a deep rotation of receivers had only three with more than three receptions through three games.

FRANKLIN: “I think it goes back to what we talked about before. We have to get more plays. I think yards per play, we're one of the best teams in the country in yards per play,” Franklin said during his pre-Maryland Tuesday press conference. “We have to get more plays. Being more successful on third down will create more opportunities for everybody on our offense and put us in a situation where we are going to need to play more players and rotate more players in there because of the number of reps we're getting per game.”

VIEWS: Coming into the game, Penn State had the second-fewest plays run from scrimmage this season in all of FBS. At just 57 per game, the Nittany Lions led only Georgia Southern’s 47.5, while Missouri was first in the country with 87.0 while Maryland entered the game second nationally with 86.5 plays per game.

Expertly executing their game plan on both sides of the ball, those trends were blown up.

“Thirteen different receivers caught balls, which is great spread and spread the love around,” Franklin said after the game. “I thought we did a better job in this game early on and getting KJ Hamler (wide receiver) the ball. I think the more times KJ can touch the ball, we're going to like what happens.”

The occasion has not been frequent through Penn State football history, but the “scoring too quickly,” phenomenon for a team that now has the nation’s fifth-ranked scoring offense at 50.0 points per game, had and has some merit to some of the other critiques and ills it has experienced to date.

If Hamler’s best attribute is that he can break one at any moment, the reality is he needs opportunities to do so. How can running backs with, at most, an average of seven carries per game through the first three games be judged fairly? How can Sean Clifford spread the ball around if the Nittany Lion offense is simply not on the field, a result of both the unit’s own inability to convert on third downs as well as untimely breakdowns of the defense on their third downs?

Friday night’s performance, one that saw the Nittany Lions pick up 30 first downs, with 81 offensive plays (maintaining its explosiveness at 7.6 yards per play) against Maryland’s 58 plays, offered a bellwether for the future.

NEWS: In a hyped-up, game-of-the-year environment for host Maryland, a Penn State team given its first opportunity to travel this season immediately took control of the game and set a foundation for future experiences.

JAMES FRANKLIN: “I thought I thought our guys did a really good job of preparation, we need to build on that,” Franklin said. “Our culture's really good right now. Our chemistry in our locker room is really good.

“I was very confident going to bed Friday night that the staff, players, trainers, and everybody involved in the program, we maximized that bye week the way we should have and we balanced the time to work and time off the right way. I thought we were fresh. I thought we were excited. I thought that we were prepared. Fundamentally, scheme-wise, all of it… I think we came into this really confident, based on our preparation. That's why I talked to them about all week long is, ‘You talk about confidence. What is the key ingredient in confidence? Preparation. You want to do well on an exam, you study like crazy for a week and a half to two weeks before the exam. Then the exam takes care of itself.’ And it's the same way with football. It's the same way with life.”

VIEWS: Ultimately, this could prove to be the most important point of any.

Recalibrating after a challenging 2018 season that fell short of many expectations, with a significant portion of roster turnover that meant more players with less experience in line for bigger roles this year, Penn State’s performance Friday was another step toward the real end game. And no doubt, the schedule has helped the Nittany Lions tick off those boxes one at a time this season as the group makes its way toward becoming the best version of itself by the end of the year.

Trailing at the half against Buffalo, the Nittany Lions regrouped to blow out the Bulls in the second half. For a game in which the offense was a hair away from being really good, Pitt offered an opportunity to rely on a gritty bend-but-don’t-break defensive performance. And in the first road test of the 2019 season, a Penn State veteran helped set the tone with a game-changing play that inspired confidence for everyone else to play their best.

Think those won’t come back into play at other points the rest of the way? Inevitably, they will. And whether or not this group can pass every test and obstacle that it has so far isn’t the point, let alone a fair expectation.

Allowing for the opportunity to develop and mature, with confidence building alongside those processes, these are the elements that will be key to handling a schedule that only gets more challenging from here.