Penn State's offense, special teams among nation's worst
Through three games, Penn State's defense has been the bright spot of the team. The Nittany Lions offense and special teams, on the other hand, didn't help a whole lot in their loss to Alabama and is the main reason they only barely escaped with a 14-10 loss at Temple on Saturday.
Penn State's offense, special teams among nation's worst
Through three games, Penn State’s defense has been the bright spot of the team. The Nittany Lions offense and special teams, on the other hand, didn’t help a whole lot in their loss to Alabama and is the main reason they only barely escaped with a 14-10 win at Temple on Saturday.
Among the 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), Penn State (2-1) is 103rd in total offense (306 yards per game) and is 106th in passing offense (158 yards per game). Both marks rank last in the Big Ten.
The Nittany Lions have run 210 plays on offense with just 918 yards (4.37 per play) to show for it. They are 90th in the nation in scoring offense with 22 points per game, also worst in the conference.
Led by signal callers Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin, Penn State is a lowly 115th in pass efficiency with a 47.92 completion percentage and a quarterback rating of 85.23. Only Army, San Jose State, Florida Atlantic, UAB and Kent State have worse grades in that category. Bolden and McGloin lead one of six offenses yet to have thrown a touchdown pass this season.
On to the special teams: Penn State’s 1-for-6 (16.7 %) on field attempts is the worst in the Big Ten. Northwestern ranks second-to-last, having gone 1-for-3 (33.3 %) on field goals thus far.
Minnesota is the only other Big Ten team to have missed more than two field goals this season. The Nittany Lions are also one of four conference teams to have missed an extra point.
Penn State’s average of 33.1 yards on punts is 108th in the country and worst in the Big Ten.
Luckily for Penn State’s offense, the defense is second in the conference in total defense and among the Big Ten’s best in most other defensive categories.
--Jake Kaplan
Comment removed.
If there was ever a year that Temple could beat Penn State, this was the year. Penn State is not very good, however, Temple's QB play was awful.— PortCity- the offense is only as good as the offensive line. and the offensive line is, ironically, offensive. they've been awful for years...maybe they should replace the 84 year old head coach and the 75 year old offensive line coach. something needs to change...— nyphilliephan
- Nothing new here. They were 68th in total offense last year, and have only gotten as high as 14th one year this decade. Normally they run in the 50's on average. In 2004, they were 108th.
The numbers would be much worse of course if we focused on big games, where the offense usually fails to even make it to the stadium. Not for nothing are they 3-12 against top ten teams in the last decade.
Since the talent changes every year, but the numbers don't very much, there isn't any doubt that bad caoching is what's repsonsible.— banned
This season is Joe's fourth season on the paper's Penn State beat. He previously covered the Nittany Lions for United Press International from 1976 to 1984.
Emily Kaplan is the Inquirer’s fall intern covering the Nittany Lions. She is a senior at Penn State and has covered a variety of sports for the university’s student-run paper, The Daily Collegian. Over the last two years, she has reported for The Associated Press from State College.
A Montclair, N.J. native, she has also interned at MLB Network, NHL.com and covered the 2012 Olympics in London. Follow her on Twitter here @EKaplan24.
