Monday Musings: Closing thoughts on Penn State football's regular season, basketball's first tests
Penn State football’s regular season came to an end in East Lansing on Saturday. The Nittany Lions suffered a 30-27 defeat, settling for a seven-win campaign.
It was a key weekend for Penn Sate basketball as well, splitting games with LSU and Oregon State at the Emerald Coast Classic.
Let’s dive into this week’s Monday Musings:
1. Running in circles
Penn State finished the regular season on Saturday without a 100-yard rushing performance in any single game. Keyvone Lee got somewhat close against Michigan State— bizarrely, I might add, considering Penn State’s succeeded passing the ball early in the game and moved away from it — but managed only 79 yards.
It is, undoubtedly, a system-wide failure. The blame cannot be concentrated solely on the running backs for an issue that everybody played a part in.
However, it is interesting to compare the situation in Penn State’s running back room relative to how many perceived it coming into the season.
With the way the Nittany Lions ran the ball to close out 2020, folks were questioning how Penn State could possibly get all five of its excellent backfield options involved in 2021.
Obviously, that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Now that loaded running back room looks like a collection of players who couldn’t get the job done.
What happens to it this offseason? Only John Lovett is certain to leave. With On3 five-star Nick Singleton entering the fray, will the remaining Penn State running backs all choose to stick around?
2. Kalen King shows well again
We’re starting to see why Penn State head coach James Franklin lauded true freshman corner Kalen King so heavily coming into the season.
King played 40 snaps on defense for the Nittany Lions on Saturday, the largest total of his career so far. Pro Football Focus graded him as Penn State’s second-highest rated defensive back, behind only Daequan Hardy, who delivered a pick-six.
Michigan State QB Payton Thorne targeted King three times without a completion, and King proved valuable against the run as well. He stuck Heisman candidate running back Kenneth Walker III in the backfield with a nice hit.
On the road against one of the best offenses in the Big Ten, King demonstrated that he’s up for the challenge.
That should excite Penn State fans moving forward.
3. The missing piece
Penn State finished the regular season with the No. 6 ranked scoring defense in college football, factoring in only games against FBS opposition.
Even if the results against Michigan State weren’t great, we all recognize this is was an outstanding defense. I wanted to know where it ranked in recent Penn State history,
Turns out, the Nittany Lions have fielded a top-10 defense 10 times since 2003, which is as far back as this particular trove of statistics goes.
More often than not, Penn State has been one of the stingiest teams in the country. Pretty remarkable.
But what about the offense? We know the Nittany Lion offense didn’t get it done this year. Penn State scored 25.2 points per game against FBS teams — 83rd in the country.
The Nittany Lions have only paired a top-10 defense with a top-30 offense three times: 2005, 2008, and 2017.
In each of those seasons they won 11 games.
This season’s elite defense needs a rebuilding job in the offseason. Graduation beckons for some and the NFL for others.
When will Penn State get its next opportunity to strike gold on both sides of the ball?
4. Penn State hoops gets ugly — and that’s a good thing
Penn State basketball encountered power conference opposition for the first time this season at the Emerald Coast Classic this weekend.
Micah Shrewsberry’s team gave us some useful insight on how they’re going to have to win against good teams — and it won’t be pretty.
Penn State first took a very good LSU team to overtime before ultimately losing steam in the extra frame. The score of that game after regulation was 58-58. The Tigers came into that game averaging 85.4 points per game and shot 35 percent in this one.
Penn State played slow, keeping the game to about 60 possessions each per 40 minutes. That was both teams’ lowest mark of the season to that point.
The next night, the Nittany Lions played even slower as they handed Oregon State a 60-45 loss.
The Beavers shot 31 percent from the floor as the Nittany Lions clamped down defensively for a second night in a row.
Big Ten play will be a different animal. It always is. But the fact that Penn State demonstrated a willingness — and a capability — to slow down a game and look to win with defense against an LSU team with plenty of great athletes is crucial.
Penn State will be less talented than many of the teams it encounters this season. It will need to find ways to grind out wins.
