Column: Explosiveness a preview of Penn State offensive potential
James Franklin rattled off his game-defining stats following Penn State football’s 38-15 win over West Virginia on Saturday night. The Nittany Lions, according to Franklin, had won or split all of the major statistical categories that are predictors of wins.
Field position is a complementary statistic, and Penn State came out on top in the category. Saturday night, that showed as a starting field position at their 33-yard line, despite opening the game with drive starts at their 6, 18, and 19-yard lines. West Virginia took possession at its 26, on average.
The penalty battle went in the same direction. Penn State finished with just one flag, a 5-yard false start charged to Cam Miller on punt coverage. The Mountaineers suffered 55 yards in setbacks over five penalties. And, in another anomaly for the first game of the season, neither team committed a turnover.
Wrapping his stat run-down, Franklin landed on one last point. Lasting all of 10 words, the sentiment is what will define the rest of the Nittany Lions’ season.
“Then explosive plays, we won that,” Franklin said. “We were 15 percent.”
By Penn State’s metrics, that meant out of the offense’s 65 snaps on Saturday night, 15 percent were considered explosive. Easing the standard slightly to passes of 15 or more yards, and runs of 10 or more yards, the Nittany Lions improved to 20 percent explosive plays.
In the passing game, Drew Allar and his targets racked up 239 yards on nine completions. On the ground, Nick Singleton ran for three carries of 10 or more yards. Quarterback Beau Pribula, meanwhile, tacked on another late in the fourth quarter. Their contributions were good for 45 rushing yards on four chunk carries.
Combined, 20 percent of Penn State’s plays from scrimmage accounted for 284 yards. Out of 478 total yards for the game, that’s almost 60 percent picked up over those 13 plays.
And, out of 38 points scored, 14 were directly attributable to two chunk plays. Of the other 24, Penn State had at least one chunk play on each of its four other scoring drives.
All of this, of course, without Singleton ripping off one of his patented dingers.
This is the way Franklin wants to win football games. In Allar, the offensive line in front of him, and the playmaking cast he’s surrounded by, the Nittany Lions just might have constructed another team capable of pulling off the formula offensively.
For each of the past nine seasons at Penn State, the equation for success or failure, and everything in between, has centered on the ability, or inability, to create explosive plays.
The early years of Franklin’s tenure were plagued by a lack of explosive playmaking at quarterback, receiver, and running back, and the offensive line’s ability to open the possibility for any of it to click. In more recent seasons, Penn State has had one-half of the run/pass equation, suffering without explosive runs in 2020 and 2021.
But, in gauging the best offensive output from Penn State in the past nine years, it has been the ability to hit home runs both through the air and on the ground that has defined the Nittany Lions’ success.
Speaking with offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich this summer, the framework of what was coming was there to see in his evaluation of the Nittany Lions’ two returning, talented tailbacks. In Singleton and Kaytron Allen, Penn State had a pair of weapons that could hit home runs themselves and, more importantly, could threaten opponents enough to free up explosive opportunities for others.
“At the end of the day, you have to stop them. And you may be in a really good call, but they’re talented enough to still win. That’s why you make them the heart and soul. They can be in a great call, in a good defense, a loaded front, and you still don’t know,” Yurcich said. “Everything that we do has to be efficient, and everything that we do, we’re working towards explosives. There’s a time to make sure that you’re equating numbers, whether it be in the play-action pass and trying to be explosive there, RPO world, or in the option world. So you have to be diversified. And at the end of the day, you have to put points on the board. That’s the most important thing.”
Laying a blueprint on Saturday night from which future opponents will have to pay attention, the reality for Penn State moving forward is precisely as Franklin and Yurcich would envision.
Big-play KeAndre Lambert-Smith backed up the name. Allar extended plays and made throws to break a defense hellbent on pressuring him and bottling up the run. In the process, the equation Penn State will ride to meet its offensive potential emerged.
Voiced by Singleton, thanks to the success shown against the Mountaineers, the stage is set for its next steps.
“Since what Drew did today, I feel like they’ll back up more. They gotta respect the throw, which helps us a lot,” Singleton said. “It’s very crazy, too, because now they gotta defend the throw and now they gotta defend the run. So, it’s going to be scary.”
Not unlike the same dynamic within the best seasons of the Franklin era, the Nittany Lions are counting on it.
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