Penn State football’s run game is coming off its worst statistical performance of the season, and USC is looking to create more problems.
Although the team has a fairly easy time beating UCLA 27-11 this past Saturday, the run game struggled, gaining 85 yards on 30 carries (less than three yards per carry.)
A key distinction is that Penn State didn’t have its best running back.
Nick Singleton (408 yards, three touchdowns, 7.7 YPC) was a last-minute scratch. This week, Singleton is set to return, and USC coach Lincoln Riley knows Singleton can be a problem of an opposing defense. He also knows his defense needs to be better against the run than it was in Saturday’s upset loss at Minnesota.
Its top running back, Darius Taylor, had been having an ordinary season.
Aside from gaining 124 yards on 11 carries with two touchdowns against… Nevada, Taylor had yet to have a breakout game. His 64 yards against Rhode Island Week 1 didn’t impress many people, and after the Nevada game, he picked up a combined 70 yards on 23 carries in losses at Iowa and Michigan.
Against USC, he gained 144 yards on 25 carries.
When Taylor needed a blow, Minnesota got production from Marcus Major, who gained 37 yards on seven carries (5.3 YPC).
Riley knows the USC defense has to be better, and a key to doing that would be to limit Penn State early in the game like UCLA did.
“I thought they did a good job early in the game,” Riley told reporters via Zoom Thursday. “I thought that was important. They started off well defensively. I think any time you could do that, specifically in the run game, that’s very important. So I think getting off to a good start and doing the best you can to limit the explosive plays.”
Ahh, explosive plays.
Penn State fans have heard those words a lot.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.By PSU’s definition, an explosive play is 12 yards for a run, 15 for a pass.
By that definition, USC allowed four of those Saturday on the ground against Minnesota and four in its other loss at Michigan.
Taylor had a 40-yard run in Minnesota’s win and Michigan got a 63-yard run from Kalel Mullings and a 41-yarder from Donovan Edwards.
A 40-yard run is equal to more than three explosive runs, and a 63-yarder is equal to more than five.
“We know defensively for us, that’s going to be a massive key,” Riley said. So we have to play a better game up front certainly than we did against Minnesota.
Riley called the Minnesota performance “probably the least-effective game we’ve had on the defensive front this year.”
“We have to get back to playing the way we did in the other four games,” he said. “That will be incredibly important.”
Singleton and Allen are going to have chances to break long runs.
It will be big for USC if it can limit those runs.
“We have to do a great job,” Riley said. “Our second-level guys, our third-level guys of getting ball carriers on the ground and make sure that if they have a good run, its an eight-yard gain or a nine-yard gain, that will be critically important in the run game.”
