A win is a win right? Penn State slipped past Army 20-14 to improve to 4-1, but the play was as bad as the weather.
Without Barkley and Lynch, the running game suffered. The offense totaled 264 yards, 108 of them on the ground. Nick Scott had 54 yards rushing a touchdown. Christian Hackenberg was 10-19 for 156 yards and a touchdown, most of it coming on one drive. Hackenberg completed a 33 yard touchdown to Mike Gesicki to make the score 20-7.
The defense went by the motto bend but don’t break. Army ran the ball on all but one play today. They rushed for 261 yards and QB A.J. Schurr rushed for 75 yards and 2 TDs. The defense was able to get 3 fumble recoveries which lead to 10 Nittany Lion points. Army had a 4th & 5 from the Penn State 43 with 1:22 left. Schurr went back to pass, Jason Cabinda chased him down for the game saving sack.
It was a close one, one that shouldn’t have been nearly as close as it was. You can make the argument that if Barkley played it would have been a different story. The bottom line is that when Hackenberg takes chances down field, good things usually happen. Before the touchdown to Gesicki, he completed a 46 yarder to Godwin. Hackenberg was sacked 3 times. The defense wasn’t itself, it was on the field for over 31 minutes and often had to play with two waves on defensive linemen. Brandon Bell not playing obviously hurt stopping the run.
At the end of the day, Penn State is 4-1 with a tough task against a surprising Indiana team next week. Hopefully the team gets healthy and we can improve to 5-1.
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