Penn State effectively ended USC’s inaugural B1G season Saturday afternoon with a 33-30 (OT) rodeo ride in SoCal.
My lovely lady friend and I drove 10 hours to Norfolk, VA and back yesterday to see John Mulaney so I enjoyed this game from the pilot’s chair of my Toyota Camry (shoutout to YoutubeTV).
Rest assured I’m rewatching as I write – partially because of my journalistic integrity, but I’d be lying if I said I weren’t mixing business with pleasure.
I love a good pitchers’ duel and I’ll fight anyone who says that style of sport is boring, but I have to admit: shootouts are fun! Fun to watch, and fun to write about.
Let’s talk Biggest Winners:
Drew Allar
30/43 passing – 391 yards
2 TDs/ 3 INTs
4 rushes – 32 yards
I lost the feed for this game briefly during halftime and by the time I got it tuned back in Drew had erased USC’s first half advantage with two quick, efficient touchdown marches. Each of those drives featured a stretch of three consecutive plays that each resulted in passing gains of 10+ yards:
1st Drive (20-6 USC)
- 19 yards to Wallace
- 10 yards to Singleton
- Warren ➡️ Pribula ➡️ Allar ➡️ 32 yard TD back to Warren
2nd Drive (20-13 USC)
- 25 yards to Wallace
- 34 yards to Warrren
- 16 yards to Evans to 3 yard line (took 2 rushes to finish)
We really hung this one on Drew’s shoulder but he stepped up under the bright lights. He had some fluky INTs (and one head scratcher) because of the increased sample size but he erased all of that coming through when all the chips were down – TWICE on Penn State’s final TD drive.
Every week it’s looking more and more like he’ll be able to get to bed early next April on draft night.
Tyler Warren
17 rec – 224 yards – 1 TD
1 rush – 4 yards
1/1 passing – 9 yards
What can you even say about Tyler Warren at this point?
Coach Kotelnicki has been everything advertised as far as injecting new life and wrinkles into this offense. Superfans will remember the center-eligible play from that time Iowa blew out Ohio State (I wanna say 2018?) – except Coach K added the pass-back element, and a misdirection run element (which they ended up hitting early on the next drive).
Ryan Barker
4/4 FGs
3/3 XP
FG’s have to be a given. You have to absolutely convert those three points because you’re taking 7 potential points off the board.
After Sander Sahaydak missed three FG tries in Penn State’s first four games it appears the kicking unit has stabilized.
Barker is perfect both in FGs (6/6) and XPs (8/8) since taking over FG kicking duties after Sander’s second miss against Illinois. Seven of those 14 makes came this afternoon – including a clutch 36-yarder to walk off the Trojans (another big shoutout to Drew for getting that ball to the middle of the field just before the final play).
Julian Fleming
2 rec – 33 yards
Fleming was on the receiving end of both of those 4th down conversions I mentioned above. It says a lot about a guy when your quarterback repeatedly comes back to him on fourth down. That confidence Drew Allar has in Julian Fleming is why we don’t have to worry about that drop becoming a “thing” for him.
Fleming was flagged for offensive pass interference early, taking a Tyler Warren TD off the board. Come to think of it, that was actually a 4th down play, too – so technically Allar was 3/3 on 4th down last night.
It may not be showing up on the box scores for Fleming but he’s putting out teach tape left and right. I’ve highlighted his blocking before, his work habits are evident to even the untrained eye, at a certain point the Football Gods are going to reward him for his selfless efforts.
Dani Dennis-Sutton
6 tackles – 2 TFLs
DDS bookended this game with a pair of TFL’s: one on the first play of the game, and the second helped politely usher the door shut at the end.
Speaking of bookends, the Penn State D – playing tight, physical coverage – hung a couple of goose-eggs on either side of Dani’s big play. The defense turned out the lights; the offense thanked their gracious host and locked up for the night.
Hindsight being what it is the Trojans would have been better off just trying a 1st down field goal.
CamBlackburnWrites 