Penn State football makes adjustments, but not fast enough
The voices inside Penn State’s locker room at halftime, by all accounts, carried an urgent tone.
The leaders were “riled up,” according to John Reid. Garrett Taylor said he could hear Sean Clifford’s message to the offense from across the room.
Trailing a Buffalo team most assumed they would easily brush aside 10-7 after 30 minutes, the Nittany Lions needed to make adjustments, and they needed to make them fast.
“Obviously you don’t want to be down at halftime,” Robert Windsor said, “but there was a lot of veteran leadership stepping up in the locker room saying some positive things to the younger guys and getting them prepared for the second half.”
Whatever adjustments the Nittany Lions carried out worked. They outscored the Bulls 38-3 in the second half, coasting to an easy win.
Against Buffalo, an athletically overmatched MAC team with a redshirt freshman quarterback, Penn State could afford to wait until halftime to turn things around.
The Nittany Lions won’t always have that luxury, and James Franklin made that clear in his postgame news conference.
“Typically, if you have looked at us, we have been able to make some good adjustments after our first couple drives once we see what people are trying to do to attack us,” Franklin said. “That’s where I think we need to improve with the young team. We need to be able to go to the sideline, get on the board and make the adjustments that we need to make to get things corrected. I think that is what we were able to do in the second half.”
The Bulls didn’t change much in the first half.
They ran the ball effectively, neutralizing Penn State’s highly touted defensive line with a solid push up front.
The Nittany Lion defense thrives on negative plays and getting the opposition off schedule. Buffalo’s offense ran 46 plays in the first half, and went backward only three times for a total of six yards.
So the Bulls dominated time of possession, using their running game to eat up yardage and keep the Penn State defense on the field. The Nittany Lions’ defense bent, but did not break, holding Buffalo to just 10 points in the half despite the Bulls driving into Penn State territory on five different drives.
“Obviously we made really good halftime adjustments, but finding those adjustments midgame is going to be really key for us,” Penn State punter Blake Gillikin said.
To do that, Penn State will lean on veterans.
PhilSteele.com rated the Nittany Lions as the ninth-most inexperienced team in the FBS, making the roles filled by players like Taylor, Windsor and Reid crucial to the success of the Nittany Lions’ defense.
Reid turned the momentum for Penn State Saturday, taking an interception back for a touchdown early in the third quarter. But the Nittany Lions will need those players to make a difference on the sideline, too.
“We come off the field and we get together as players to try and see what happened during a drive,” Taylor said. “Coach Pry will come over, he’ll tell us what he saw. Once we hear what they saw and we tell them what went on on the field, we make corrections off of that.”