How Penn State earned great win without playing great game

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Scoreboard. That's all that really matters. Penn State picked up a great win Saturday at No. 12 Wisconsin, but by no means did the Nittany Lions play a great game.

There are two positives that can come out of that.

First, while everybody's feeling good about the win, James Franklin and his coaching staff can watch the film with the players and still be able to point out a whole bunch of areas where things didn't go very well. This type of game provides a lot of wonderful teaching moments, which coaches love to be able to find after victories, obviously, rather than losses.

Second, if Penn State can beat a team like Wisconsin without playing anything close to its "A" game, then the team and its fans should be feeling really good about the potential of this squad if indeed it does play its best.

Let's break it down:

DEFENSE

We'll start here, because there's no doubt about it, this unit won the game. The Lions allowed only 10 points and came up with two huge interceptions late to protect the 16-10 lead and seal the deal.

Creating turnovers is a major focus of this year's team, considering that turnover margin was a big problem early last year when Penn State started 0-5. The Lions had a grand total of four interceptions last season, which is an amazingly low number, and they already have two after one game.

That's the good news. The bad news is that Penn State's defense allowed 29 first downs. And 174 yards rushing. And let Wisconsin move the ball all day, driving into scoring territory numerous times.

Penn State got lucky in some areas as the Badgers showed plenty of ineptitude in the red zone -- putting the ball on the ground, not showing a strong passing game and having a field goal blocked. (Of course, Penn State also gets credit for Arnold Ebiketie making a play with the block, so that was a positive.)

Regardless, when you give up 29 first downs and 180 yards rushing, you're usually going to lose that game.

Brent Pry will find a lot of teachable moments in the film to show that the defense actually could have played a lot better.

OFFENSE

Mike Yurcich might want to burn the first-half game film. If he does show it to the players, no one will like what they see.

The Lions managed only one first down and 43 total yards. With a three-year starting quarterback, an excellent group of running backs, an all-Big Ten caliber wide receiver, a tight end group that Franklin has called the best he's been around, and an offensive line that people thought would ne very good.

Even with all of that, Penn State got shut out in the first half.

That's unbelievable, really.

The offense showed how dynamic it can be right off the bat in the second half with a four-play, 86-yard TD drive, capped by Sean Clifford's 49-yard strike to a wide-open Jahan Dotson.

Penn State had 254 yards in the second half and scored 16 points, and more importantly, showed what this offense can be.

How are we to view Clifford's performance? He finished 18-of-33 for 247 yards and one TD. Those numbers look pretty good on the surface. But Clifford still was inconsistent, missing some throws badly to the point where even the announcers were saying that the guys on the Penn State offense just didn't look like they were on the same page.

This is going to be a big-play offense. I keep repeating over and over that Penn State needs to keep taking a bunch of shots down the field, just like Joe Moorhead had Trace McSorley do in 2016. Yurcich will have Clifford do that, too, because that's what his offense is designed to do.

But the Lions have to run the ball better, to say the least. They had 50 yards rushing on 18 carries, with 34 of those coming on one run by Noah Cain. In the other 17 runs, the Lions managed 16 yards.

That is terrible, regardless of how good of a defense you're playing, and yes, Wisconsin is very good.

We can't fault the running backs here. Penn State's offensive line was getting blown up on run plays, which was alarming. What we think this offense can be will depend very, very heavily on the O-line playing well against the toughest, most physical opponents.

The line pass protected OK and only allowed Clifford to be sacked twice, which you can live with. He wasn't running for his life like he had to early last season, and that's a very good sign.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Something bizarre happened Monday. This news came out early in the day, which was certainly a head scratcher.

From this view, Jordan Stout nearly lost the game when he inexplicably missed the PAT after Penn State took a 16-10 lead. That kind of thing simply cannot happen in this type of game, and as I wrote Sunday, it would be absolutely devastating had the Lions lost because of the missed PAT.

Stout also missed a 23-yard field goal, so his two huge mistakes cost Penn State four huge points in a close game.

Yet Stout was named Big Ten special teams player of the week?

Look, he was awesome punting. He booted a 76-yarder and averaged 53.9 yards on seven punts. That's a fantastic number that actually ranks second all-time for a single game at Penn State. Ralph Giacomarro averaged 54.75 yards at Syracuse in 1981 for the school record.

If all Stout did was punt, then yes, he deserved the Big Ten award. And yes, he does get credit for handling all of the kicking duties -- punting, place-kicking, kicking off.

But c'mon, you simply cannot overlook his poor place-kicking when considering him for this award, regardless of how well he punted. It's like, what if a special teams defender forced three fumbles on punt coverage, yet gave up three touchdowns with terrible tackling on kickoff coverage? A player's performance has to be taken totally into account when we're talking about awards.

This all leads to the question: What has happened to Jake Pinegar? He handled the place-kicking duties on short kicks last year and is still on the team and available, Franklin said after the game.

Stout won the job in preseason camp, probably by having better numbers than Pinegar. But when you pile on all three kicking duties for a kicker, you run the risk of the guy just not being fully ready for one of the three duties in a given game.

Stout was terrific punting and booted all four of his kickoffs into the end zone, all of which helped Penn State. But his missed kicks could have lost the game, and for that, the coaches are certainly going to have to re-evaluate the overall kicking situation.