Penn State football has won all six of its games this season.
PSU has also started poorly on either offense, defense or both in almost all six.
Let’s break it down real quick:
- In the team’s 34-12 win at West Virginia Week 1, Penn State fumbled on its first possession
- The next week against Bowling Green, the defense allowed 24 points in the first half to a 34.5-point underdog
- Against Illinois Week 4, the defense gave up an 11-play, 75-yard, 5:24 scoring drive against Illinois and didn’t give up a point the rest of the way in a 21-7 win
- Penn State came into its Oct. 5 game against UCLA as a four-touchdown favorite and went into the second quarter scoreless
- In the best and most recent example, Penn State trailed 20-6 at the half at USC before coming back for a thrilling 33-30 overtime win.
Penn State outscored USC 27-10 over the second half and overtime, furthering the narrative that it’s a “second-half football team.”
But after the win, head coach James Franklin expressed his desire to get off to better starts.
“It’s good to be able to go in and say, ‘Guys, we’re a second-half team,’ but I prefer not to say that anymore,” Franklin said. “I prefer to be a four-quarter team. A start-fast team. A fourth-quarter team. All of it. And we’re going to have to be that to continue to win the games that we want to win moving forward.”
A few days later, Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki were asked about the slow starts. Here’s what they had to say.
TOM ALLEN
I think that’s a definite focal point for us. Even in the USC game while we started well the first drive, the very first play of the second drive we give up that explosive touchdown. We can’t have that happen.
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— Eric Mintzer (@MintSports) October 12, 2024
Some calls, the patterns that we start the game with and trying to make sure we do some things to help our guys that. We even look at it from a sports science perspective to make sure our guys are in all three phases, mentally and physically. Obviously, at the level we play at here, we can’t afford to start off slow. We’ve obviously played strong in the second half, which is a good thing. But we don’t want to be starting slow. You just want to have continued growth to get better mindset.
There is definitely a feel-out period in a game. I think early in the season, especially, when you’re relying a lot on previous year’s video…. You get less of that moving forward because you have more 2024 film on teams rather than try to rely on things they’ve done in the past.
So we definitely want to improve in that area, without question. We want to be able to start strong and finish even stronger. So we want to continue to do a great job of making adjustments at halftime and doing a good job with that.
ANDY KOTELNICKI
I never felt in the first half out of control or we weren’t sure what somebody was doing or ill-prepared. It maybe just came down to making sure we were executing on the play call here that could have been better to keep us on the field. Or one penalty that put us out of whatever it might be, scoring position. So I don’t necessarily feel like there’s reason for panic per se. Like things are broken. We just have to go out there and continue to emphasize (starting fast.)
