Nittany Lions blown out by relentless Michigan
six times, had one turnover on downs and ended the game with an interception and a fumble on their final two drives.
In all, that equated to 199 net yards to Michigan’s 515 and a 16.7 percent thirddown conversion rate. Franklin put it best. “We didn’t play well.” The first few minutes of the game seemed to spell out Penn State’s destiny. A holding call on the opening kickoff. Two sacks, one narrowly avoiding a safety, on the opening drive en route to a three-and-out. A near punt return for a score from Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers and an eventual touchdown with 9:51 left in the first to start Michigan on its way.
“I can’t say it’s nerves. I can’t say big games because a lot of us were in big games last year,” Penn State sophomore running back Saquon Barkley said. “We’ve got to start a lot better, I would say, all around, including myself.”
Barkley, though, pretty much was Penn State’s whole offense. His 59 rushing yards and 77 receiving yards accounted for all but 63 of the Nittany Lions’ total.
And Penn State didn’t help itself on offense with some inconsistent fourthand-short calls. Ahead of redshirt junior kicker Tyler Davis’ early third-quarter field goal on fourth-and-2 — down 28-0 — Franklin burned a timeout as the play clock dwindled only to come out of it to still kick. In the first quarter, the team had gone for it on a fourth-and-5 at the Michigan 42. And later in the third quarter, Penn State elected to punt on fourthand-1 at its 37 but then later went for it on fourth-and-1 at the 34.
“That was not a good decision on my part,” Franklin said of the field goal choice. “Second-guessed ourselves there and thought maybe we should go for the touchdown. … Everybody felt like we need to take the points at that point with a lot of time left in the half. If you’re going to kick the field goal, obviously, we should have took the penalty and kicked the field goal [without using the timeout].”
McSorley struggled postgame to find even one immediate good takeaway from the trip to the Big House, saying he’ll probably see something when studying film later this week, but, “Right now, it’s tough to look at the positives after that.”
Franklin said his players and coaches were emotionally hurting in the locker room, his players physically hurting as well with continued issues on defense that saw another linebacker, redshirt freshman Jan Johnson, leave with a season-ending injury after he already had come in for an ejected redshirt junior Brandon Smith for targeting.
So, the positive at this point might be that at least this game is over.