BWI Live: Will Penn State offense get its groove back this weekend?
The Penn State football team takes on UMass on Saturday for its final non-conference game of the season. While no one expects this to be a challenging game for the Nittany Lions, it’s important to examine how the team can prepare for the second half of its season with this contest. Today on the BWI Live show, we’ll examine five things we’re looking for when Penn State takes the field against UMass.
If you want to get your thoughts on how you’d like to see the Penn State offense and defense play, join the show live and discuss the game! We’ll be taking live questions from the chat and discussing season-long trends in how the team has played so far this season.
Penn State getting its groove back
The Penn State running game is productive but hasn’t had the feel-good plays they wanted this season. Despite that, running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider is happy with how his tandem of Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen have played so far this year.
“I really like where we’re at. Contrary to belief, we run the ball effectively. We haven’t had a long runs. Everybody knows that. But if you watch the film, you watch the defense the week before they play us, and the week when they play us, we are getting different defenses every week,” Seider said.
However, we’ll discuss what head coach James Franklin said earlier in the week about how great running backs can get off their groove. Does Penn State need to re-establish that?
We’ll check in with Seider, who again puts that on the coaches and the defenses paying extra attention to his dynamic duo.
“Well, I mean, talking about instincts, I think a lot of that is on us as coaches, being able to get back to who we are in our running style and what plays we want to carry out the week. You know, we probably added some stuff in there that we wish, as a coach, you wish you’d maybe take back and get back to our fundamentals. But it’s also a defense a lot of time, dictate what type of scheme we run throughout the week.”
UMass making things happen for both sides of the ball
We discussed earlier in the week that UMass’s offense is explosive but plays with a risk-reward style. We’ll dive into some numbers that illustrate what kind of day it will be for the defense if they can be opportunistic with their chances.
Next, we’ll examine how the UMass defense plays and how it might be tailor-made to get Penn State’s struggling passing game back on track this week.
Join the BWI Live show at 10 a.m. on YouTube, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of our other live content coming up on game day!
