Penn State post mortem: 2024 has gone as well as it could, except for one thing
Penn State is 5-0, fresh off a stretch of four straight home games against manageable competition that amounted to a prelude to the big stuff.
The Nittany Lions will enter week six ranked a heady fourth in the country, according to AP.
More importantly, a remarkable number of the teams generally considered to be in the hunt for a spot in the college football playoff have lost: Georgia, Alabama (to Vanderbilt), Tennessee, Notre Dame (to Northern Illinois), Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU, Utah, etc.
Of the top-tier unbeatens, No. 1 Texas still faces rival Oklahoma, Georgia and a week-12 trip to resurgent Texas A&M, plus the SEC championship game.
No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Oregon play each other at Oregon Saturday. No. 6 Miami is still unbeaten, but with escapes over Virginia Tech and Cal the past two weeks so narrow and wobbly they almost count as losses, for assessment purposes. And somebody's got to win the ACC anyway.
Further, Penn State's two wins against legit competition (West Virginia and Illinois) are holding up. West Virginia's other loss is to undefeated Pitt (38-34), and the Mountaineers housed Oklahoma State 38-14 Saturday.
Illinois is 4-1, and its schedule appears to have 9-10 wins on it.
Penn State will have to play better, of course, and get healthier, to get where it wants to go. But other than the injuries, the first phase of the schedule could hardly have gone gone better.
The phrase "other than the injuries,'' is carrying a lot of baggage there. Penn State is a beat-up team now, and has been pretty much since the games began. It has averaged over 14 players per week listed as "out,'' on the availability reports required by the Big Ten. No other team in the conference has had nearly that many. Some weeks, some teams have had zero. Penn State has never had fewer than 13.
The Lions played without star running back Nick Singleton this week, and are without safety Kevin Winston, apparently, for the long haul. But it's not just the absence of stars. It's the downstream impact.
James Franklin has used wide receiver Kaden Saunders as a punt returner even though he hasn't been healthy enough to play a snap on offense. Until Saturday, that is, when Saunders watched from the sidelines in a protective boot and a couple of guys, Jake Spencer and Zion Tracy, did it for the first time in a real game.
Saunders' injury has meant Penn State is compromised at two positions where, apparently, there aren't a lot of alternatives. Similarly, No. 3-4 quarterback Jaxon Smolik has missed the entire season. For the Bowling Green game, Ethan Grunkmeyer, the other 3-4 QB was listed as questionable.
Beau Pribula, the No. 2 QB behind Drew Allar, touched the ball only twice in that game, even though he's generally been used often in a specific package of plays that feature his running ability.
It seems reasonable to conclude injuries limited the playbook in that game, just as it appears that the defense has been limited, schematically, by Winston's absence and the fact that his replacement, Dejuan Lane, is a true freshman.
It's reasonable to think the quality of special teams and even the ability to practice at peak efficiency have been compromised by the sheer volume of missing bodies
And so on.
On the Lancaster-Lebanon League front, an injury created extra work for Warwick grad Nolan Rucci in the UCLA game. Starting right tackle Anthony Donkoh left the game with what appeared to be an upper-body injury late in the first quarter Saturday.
Rucci, a redshirt junior who has played at both tackle sports since transferring from Wisconsin last offseason, got the nod and played for Donkoh the rest of the game. It was his longest sustained stretch on the field at Penn State, although he played 39 snaps, at both tackle spots, during the romp over Kent State Sept. 21.
Of the other L-L alumni on the roster, only Wyomissing grad J'ven Williams, also an offensive tackle, got in the game, per the participation report.
