Penn State-Villanova Matchups: Lions look to answer questions on offense, defense

By Greg Pickel

Penn State football plays its final non-conference game of the season on Saturday when Villanova comes to Beaver Stadium. The Nittany Lions will be at least a six-touchdown favorite once a point spread for the game is up at BetMGM later this week. Head coach James Franklin’s team is 2-0. Mark Ferrante’s Wildcats are 1-0 after beating Colgate 24-17 last Saturday in their season opener.

“Villanova coming in here, in-state foe that we got a lot of respect for,” Franklin said Monday. “I’ve known the head coach, Coach Ferrante for a long time. Pretty cool. He’s been there 39 years. Former O-line coach, now been the head coach going on nine years, ten years.

“But the consistency that they’ve had in their program has been awesome, and it’s led to really good things for them.”

Each week, Blue-White Illustrated reviews the matchups ahead of kickoff to see who has the edge on offense and defense. That is hard to do this week, given the FBS vs. FCS nature of the contest. So, we’re tweaking our format a bit this week and instead looking at questions Penn State is facing on offense and defense ahead of kickoff.

What is the top question facing the Penn State offense before the Villanova game?

Can the Lions be explosive this week? And will the rushing attack look more like Kaytron Allen’s long touchdown run or more like it did when it struggled throughout the rest of the team’s Week 2 win over FIU? We realize that most fans won’t consider anything fixed, no matter how this game goes, because of the caliber of opponent that Penn State is hosting on Saturday. That’s fair, in our view. But, if you rewatch the FIU game, you see more progress on tape than you might have felt like you saw watching the game live. The next step for Andy Kotelnicki’s attack is to show it in real time. That means fewer mistakes, more explosive plays, and perhaps above all else, a positive presence from Drew Allar in the consistency department.

We don’t need to belabor the point here. You and I both know what success will look like for Penn State on Saturday against the Wildcats. The question is whether or not we will actually see it after two weeks of erratic play from this group.

As an aside, here are the Villanova defenders who stand out to Franklin:

“Defensively, Coach [Ross] Pennypacker has been there for 11 years, four years as the defensive coordinator. You guys remember we had Ola [Adams] with us for a few years. He took over for Ola when Ola left. Three-down scheme. They’ve stayed with the same scheme by promoting from within.

“They do a lot in the back half. Like a lot of people do, they’re going to play middle of the field open, two and four and try to disguise the two. Then they’ll play cover one and cover three and try to disguise the two.

“Overall blitz about 38%. Linebacker Shane Hartzell. We’ve been impressed him. Kid out of Perkasie. Defensive lineman No. 98, Obinna Nwobodo, senior defensive tackle from New Jersey; and then defensive back No. 2, Zahmir Dawud, kid out of New Jersey doing some nice things for them.”

What is the top question facing the Nittany Lions defense?

James Franklin put this one on a silver platter by mentioning it once after the FIU win and then again on Monday during his first news conference of FIU week.

“I do think we can be more of a suffocating style defense,” the head caoch said on Monday. “We’ve given up some yards that I think Jim would prefer obviously us being a little bit tighter and reacting. I still think our defense is thinking and not playing as fast as maybe we have in the past, and that’s what’s going to be important this week and then obviously moving forward as well, just getting these guys playing fast and confident in some of the tweaks of the new system.”

The first-team Penn State defense has yet to give up any points this season, although it mostly has Zakee Wheatley to thank for that. Overall, Jim Knowles’ unit has been pretty stout. But, there are moments when you see busted plays and, to Franklin’s point, it has been more bend but don’t break and not as suffocating as it can be.

Will that change this week? It’s our top question for this group.

Here are Franklin’s thoughts on the Villanova offense:

“They’re a spread team that are primarily going to operate out of the gun. They’ll use some pistol backfield sets. When we say pistol, we are talking about the tailback being behind the quarterback. Primarily a zone and gap scheme team. They’ll use inside zone, wide zone schemes, quarterback draws, and third down situations.

“Pass game, heavy RPO team with a little bit of dropback pass. 11 personnel and 10 personnel they’ll base out of. Quarterback is a transfer from Nicholls State, Pat McQuaide. Their running back, No. 24, David Avit, a kid out of Frederick, Maryland, a sophomore. The quarterback is a graduate senior. And then the offensive lineman that we been impressed with Stephane Voltaire, who’s a senior, 6’5″, 315 pounds.”

What is the top question facing the Penn State special teams?

Can Justin Lustig’s group eliminate key mistakes? That’s the obvious place to start here. Gabe Nwosu put two second half kickoffs out of bounds. And, the Lions had a first half field goal blocked, which really grinded Franklin’s gears because it was the same mistake — a player blocking out instead of in — that led to the issue. Can they put together a clean game this week? Perfection is hard to reach, of course. But some slopiness is all that is standing in the way of saying that this group is taking a major step forward in 2025.