Penn State review #12: MSU

It’s hard to talk about one like, the truth is, it was flat out ugly. Mistakes after mistakes just shot this team in the foot.

Review 

Penn State started the game with a promising drive that got to the MSU 31 yard line before Hackenberg threw an ill advised pass to the end zone intended for Geno Lewis that was intercepted. The Spartans didn’t waste much time as Connor Cook quickly led his team down for a score, the PAT was no good. A couple drives later, Penn State drove to the Michigan State 1 yard line, but as usual settled for a field goal. Half way through the 2nd quarter, MSU running back Gerad Holmes put together a few nice runs, which resulted in a 6 yard score for him. 13-3 at this point. And this is when things get ugly. On the following drive,  Penn State was driving, and Hackenberg threw an underneath pass to Carter who picked up the first down the MSU 20, the only problem was that he fumbled and the Spartans returned it for a touchdown. The Lions put together a nice drive before half that capped off by a 8 yard touchdown from Hackenberg to Chris Godwin, 20-10 MSU at the half. The Spartans came out of the half firing as Cook completed a big pass on 3rd and 9 to keep the drive alive, after completing another pass for 21 yards, he hit Aaron Burbridge who made a spectacular play spinning around two defenders and scored a 29 yard TD. On their following drive, Michigan State walked down the field and Cook hit Josiah Price for a 6 yard score. 34-10 at this point. Hackenberg and the offense got going on their next drive as he hit Saeed Blacknall on 3rd and 11 for a 77 yard gain to the 2 yard line, it took seven tries ( a pass interference call gave them a 1 St down) until Hackenberg hit Godwin on a slant for the score. The 2 point conversion was no good. I’m going to make this brief, Michigan State scored again, the following drive Hackenberg was picked off and it was returned for a touchdown, and on the following kickoff, Koa Farmer fumbled, MSU recovered, and they gave the ball to their senior center who scored a touchdown, yes you heard that right. And that’s all she wrote 55-16.

Last Thoughts

This wasn’t the way the Lions planned on ending the season. Carl Nassib and Garrett Sickles both didn’t play due to injury which hurt this team greatly. This game could’ve gone totally different if there were no turnovers and if Penn State punched it in from the 1 yard line. Considering MSU scored 27 points off turnovers, and with the four points left on the table, that’s a 31 point difference that could have easily gone the other way. The offense did go over 400 yards for the game, but the 4 turnovers destroyed any hope of a win. The defense was just flat without two of its stars and the tackle was poor again. Marcus Allen is a talented young player, but he needs to work on covering the receiver and tackling in space. If he can do this, he will be a fantastic player. Another young player is Saquon Barkley who went over 100 yards for the game and reached 1,007 yards for the season. Chris Godwin caught 11 passes for 109 yards and 2 TDs. What I’m getting at is that there is plenty of talent on this team, it’s just young talent. People are calling for Franklin’s head, but at this hour I can confirm that offensive coordinator John Donovan has been relieved of his duties.  We still have a bowl game to play, but the final regular season record for the 2015 Lions is 7-5. An improvement from last year’s 6-6.