Week 2 Wrap Up

Wow.  When my first prediction of rain didn't come true, I should have known it was going to be a bad day.  A win is a win, and Penn State even covered the spread, but this game was downright ugly.  Thankfully, teams like Akron would need a full fledged meltdown by Penn State to get the upset, but I think the coaching staff knows that their work is cut out for them this week as the Nittany Lions prepare to welcome Rutgers to the Big Ten and open up conference play.  Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's rewind and take a look back at how things went down against the Zips.

Let's start with the play calling.  It was very suspect, but I’m going to give Jame Franklin the benefit of the doubt and assume that his offensive staff was just using Akron as a laboratory.  They're still a new staff and they're still trying to figure out exactly what they have on this team, so a little experimentation is to be expected.  However, the running game in particular was all over the place!  Charles Huff's crew showed occasional flashes of brilliance, but they were much too few and far between.  Give them credit for creativity, though.  In one game we got to see Bill Belton attempt a pass and end the day with more receiving yds than rushing yds, Zach Zwinak carry the entire defense on his back to turn a 4 yd gain into 18 yds, Akeel Lynch lead all rushers from the wildcat formation with Hackenberg spread out wide at receiver, and TE Mike Gesicki used as a fullback.  Needless to say, it was weird and rather unproductive.  Now that they got all that out of the way and had their fun, I hope they have a better idea what they need to fix moving forward because right now the running game is a mess.

As I predicted, Hackenberg threw for more than 300 yds (319 to be exact), tying the record with Matt McGloin for most career 300+ yd passing games at 6.  He also had 3 TDs, which was even more than the 2 I expected!  However, he threw 2 interceptions on the goal line, costing Penn State 14 potential points, and he probably should have had upwards of 5 total interceptions on the day.  Hack continued to force throws and was visibly frustrated numerous times on the sideline.  Even when James Franklin tried to coach him up, he rolled his eyes and walked away.  QB Coach Ricky Rahne will need to clean that up before next week because unlike Akron, Rutgers should be able to take advantage of mental mistakes like these…  Although, remember when I said that Akron’s 41-0 win over Howard wasn't impressive because any FBS school would have done that?  Well Howard, who couldn't even manage a FG against Akron, hung 25 on Rutgers and only lost by 13.

One good thing about the offense is that for the second week in a row Lewis and Hamilton, attorneys at law, put their skills on full display and came up with big plays whenever they were needed.  And for the second week in a row, Hamilton had more catches but Lewis had more yds, proving that they are a formidable tandem of every-down reliability and big play excitement.

The Defense had another strong showing, holding Akron to just 3 points.  The defensive line was good and got pressure on Zips QB Kyle Pohl, but had a little bit harder time stopping the run.  Linebacker U appears to really be gelling now, especially the starting 3 of Wartman, Hull, and Bell.  Finally the secondary looked competent enough, but struggled against Akron's up tempo dink and dunk strategy at times.  They also relied on plenty of drops by the Akron receivers.  All things considered, if they keep improving this defense could be really special.

Speaking of special, on Special Teams, last week’s hero Sam Ficken didn't really have an opportunity to shine this week as he was relegated to extra point duty.  However, redshirt freshman punter Chris Gulla had his coming out party.  The inconsistent offense forced Gulla to punt 5 times, which he was clearly more than willing to do, averaging an astounding 48.8 yds with a long of 53.  Who was afraid we'd miss Alex Butterworth?  I sure wasn't (actually I was).  Having a strong punter will be useful in tight games when we need a change in field position and it looks like we found one.  The coverage teams also looked much improved from last year with Grant Haley having another decent day and Von Walker breaking tackles on a nice 35 yd return.

Ok, so what about my prediction?  Well first of all it didn't rain and the game was too close to put in either backup QB, so I was wrong there.  Jesse James didn't just get 1 TD, he scored 2, but Hackenberg's 3rd went to Belton not Hamilton.  Speaking of Belton, his TD counted towards receiving not rushing, so I really dropped the ball in predicting the rushing attack's resurgence, whoops.  Zettel did in fact have another good day picking up 3 tackles and a sack, but it was back up DEs Parker Cothren and Carl Nassib, not Olaniyan and Barnes, who combined for a monster sack in the 2nd quarter.  A big swing and a miss on Da'Quan Davis who not only didn't get an interception (no one did) but he didn't register any relevant statistics at all.  So much for him taking the 2nd CB spot.  The game was close at half time and Penn State didn't need Ficken's heroics, but I overestimated the offense of both teams after strong week 1 performances.  Credit to the defenses, and I still picked the winner so I'm happy.

I'm back tomorrow with the grades so check in then.  Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @PSUOptimus, and as always, go State!