UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Wins against No. 12 Wisconsin and No. 22 Auburn at the time have gone a long way in the confidence of Penn State's football team and yet, the Nittany Lions have yet to play a complete game.
The defense has been better than advertised allowing a total of 43 points this season or 14.3 points per game. Special teams have recovered from a suspect opening game against the Badgers cleaning things up on the field goal unit to go three-for-four last week against Ball State.
Which leads us to the offense, which in the points column, is having a great deal of success averaging 29 points per game boosted largely by a 44-point outburst last week. The passing game has been a strong suit as well with quarterback Sean Clifford playing some of his best football as the Clifford has thrown for 757 yards and four touchdowns through three games. Where the Nittany Lions are struggling though is at establishing the run.
Coming into the season, the running back room was supposed to be the deepest it's ever been and on paper that looks to be the case, though the performances thus far haven't quite lived up to the billing. Of course, Penn State recorded 240 rushing yards against Ball State, but against the two ranked teams they've faced this year, well, the results have been far from good.
The Nittany Lions started the season against a vaunted defensive front by accumulating only 50 rushing yards at Wisconsin with Noah Cain leading the way with 48 yards and a touchdown on eight carries. Keyvone Lee rushed three times for negative four yards while Clifford ran six times for five yards against the Badgers.
Wisconsin would go on to allow only 16 rushing yards against Eastern Michigan last week, which might not seem like an impressive feat but holding any team to less than 20 yards on the ground is impressive no matter who the team is.
Against Auburn, it was more of the same from Penn State running backs as they just could not get the ball moving on the ground. The Nittany Lions rushed for 94 yards against the Tigers Saturday night with Cain leading the way rushing for 45 yards on 19 carries good enough for a 2.4-yard average. After that it was Clifford with five carries and 24 yards as far as the top rushers were concerned.
Lee spent most of the game on the sidelines after fumbling one of his only two carries, though he did recover said fumble. He managed 15 yards on those carries and in his place was John Lovett who missed the first two games for undisclosed reasons.
Lovett got two carries and nine yards and was a factor in the passing game with an 18-yard reception on Penn State's final scoring drive. The introduction of Lovett in the backfield is a welcome sight, but Penn State needs more from its running backs moving forward as the inch closer to conference play and continue climbing the rankings.
Opponents are forcing Clifford to beat them with his arm and he's doing just that which has paid off through the first three games, but will only go on for so long if the Nittany Lions can't run the ball.
It will get easier against Villanova Saturday, but following the Wildcats, it's all conference games to go for Penn State. The Nittany Lions get it started at home against Indiana before going to Iowa for what could be a top-5 matchup by the time kickoff is underway.
Indiana has struggled to a 1-2 record with a win against Idaho sandwiched between losses to Iowa and Cincinnati, but in those games, the Hoosiers have allowed 113.6 yards per game and gave up over 100-yards or more in both of their losses.
The Nittany Lions rushed for 250 yards in the first game of the season at Indiana last season, an overtime loss that was only the beginning of Penn State's struggles in 2020.
As far as Iowa is concerned, the Hawkeyes allowed 77 yards to Indiana, 87 yards to Iowa State and 79 to Kent State or an average of 81 yards per game. The Nittany Lions put up a miniscule 62 yards on the ground, though since that performance, Penn State has rattled off 7 straight wins.
It's imperative for Penn State to get the run established and established early to put defenses in conflict as well as keep them off-balance. It will be far from easy, but the ground game has to get going in some way shape or form no matter whether it's Lee, Cain or Lovett who's lining up in the backfield.
