Nittany Lion Football Film Study: How Penn State topped Wisconsin Saturday

Today, T-Frank kicks off his look at the Nittany Lions' 2021 campaign with a deep dive into what led Penn State to its season-opening 16-10 win against No. 12 Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon. James Franklin's first road win against a top 15-ranked program in 13 tries, what differentiated the first and second halves?

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Without further ado, T-Frank's Film Study: Wisconsin

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Penn State football cleared one of its biggest hurdles of the season on Saturday, beating Wisconsin 16-10 in Madison.

It can’t be understated how important of a win this was for the program, which had its first losing season in 2020 since 2004. Not even unprecedented sanctions brought the Nittany Lions as low as the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was also an important victory for James Franklin, who got a much-needed road win against a ranked opponent.

How did it all unfold? We'll break that down in today's film review of Penn State vs Wisconsin.

If you've read this series before, I do my best to watch the film and create a cohesive narrative of what happened, and why, each week. The problem with performances like Saturday, where the Penn State offense has five of its six first-half drives that ended in a three-and-out, is that there is no offensive rhythm because of an inherent lack of plays. The narrative derails into a sporadic collection of loosely tied events that have no common theme or problem.

In other words, if everything is the issue then it's hard to pick one reason things aren't working.

So let's boil down the first half of the game into a list of the clearest problems and address them one by one.

Penn State under head coach James Franklin is a program that typically follows the logical tenants of modern football. Explosive plays win football games and it is easier to create those through the passing game. Yet new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich has said several times this off-season that Penn State is going to be "tough up front and run the football," to paraphrase.

Sometimes you just need to listen to what people are saying.

An area I pay attention to every game is the first play call of a drive. To me, it sets the tone of what to expect, or at the very least, how you feel about the situation. On the first four drives to start the game, with three three-and-outs, Penn State ran the ball for the first play three times and threw a bubble screen on the other.

They simply were ineffective.

The Wisconsin front seven was aggressively attacking the line of scrimmage, ready to shoot gaps and get in the backfield. They were playing with such quickness and ferocity that the interior of the offensive line could not adjust. Franklin said it made it impossible to run their inside zone scheme.

“The linebackers were super aggressive, downhill, which made it harder to stay on double teams to get movement," Franklin said. "But then we didn’t get off on the downhill linebackers as well. (So) We knew we had to get the ball to the perimeter.”

From there, the play-calling was surprisingly conservative from Mike Yurcich, who is a notably aggressive coach. Penn State dialed up short screens to receivers Jahan Dotson and Parker Washington.

Again, Wisconsin was playing defense in the first five yards of the field and was not having it.