Jim Knowles made Nico Iamaleava’s life a living hell last December when Tennessee visited Ohio State in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Iamaleava returned the favor nearly 10 fold for Knowles last Saturday in the Rose Bowl.
He combined for 294 yards of total offense (166 pass, 128 rush) and five total touchdowns responsible for (two pass, three rush).
I have said it to Nittany Lion fans ad nauseam and Iamaleava channeled Vince Young Rose Bowl memories as Penn State had no answer for containing Iamaleava.
“Obviously we lost a significant player for us last week (Tony Rojas). Normally that would be his responsibility,” head coach James Franklin said following the 42-37 loss to UCLA.
“But at the end of the day, we spied, and he ran away from the spy. We spied and he made the spy miss. And a couple other times, they caught us in man coverage without a spy, and we got out of our rush lanes. He made a ton of plays.”
The debacle against UCLA should not have happened.
The sad thing is both Franklin and Knowles knew for a long period of time they didn’t have the depth to operate a two-linebacker approach on defense.
The demand on the linebacker to cover sideline-to-sideline and have the ability to operate in space with maximizing leverage outclasses the ability Rojas’ replacement Dominic DeLuca can do.
It pains me to write the last part, DeLuca is the embodiment of everything Penn State, came as a walk-on and became a three-time captain.
DeLuca did everything possible to make up for it.
When DeLuca made contact, he rarely missed, his 9.1% Miss% per PFF is in the elite range, but where DeLuca came up short was making the key stops.
A stop is simply the defense preventing the offense from having a successful down, regardless of down or distance.
DeLuca was graded by PFF 7.3%, the low end of average and PFF grades anything below 7% as Below Average and Poor.
In comparison, Rojas finished last season at 22.1%, anything over 15% is considered elite.
That measures the blow Franklin is describing, but understand Franklin since the spring has talked about depth needed at linebacker, especially after Blue-White Game.
Franklin’s wish was granted when Amare Campbell appeared.
But the biggest thing is both Franklin and Knowles seemed stubborn about flexing to a three-linebacker formation.
I asked Knowles at Penn State local media day if we will see three linebacker sets this year, he said that we would.
In the Big Ten schedule, only three linebackers have participated in games: Rojas, DeLuca, Campbell.
In the Oregon game, DeLuca only participated in eight snaps at linebacker.
Penn State seemed pretty set on rolling with two linebackers, another fatal flaw.
When you go back to essentially was Penn State’s preseason, here was the number of snaps linebackers outside Rojas, DeLuca, Campbell participated:
Anthony Speca – 45
Keon Wylie – 34
Alex Tatsch – 21
Each of these players saw the same amount of snaps against UCLA as you, the reader participated in: zero.
Each were available to participate as none of them were on the Big Ten Availability Report as being out.
It is mind-blowing that a staff that recognized how thin they were, didn’t prepare to be able to augment their defense to get more participation to be able to withstand a storm.
Here is what linebacker coach Dan Connor said about true freshman Alex Tatsch two weeks ago:
“He’s wired the same way I was at that age,” Connor said. “He’s probably a lot more mature than I was, but it’s similar wiring to what Tony (Rojas) has. I was incredibly hard on myself. I was highly competitive. I wanted to be not just the best on the team. I wanted to be the best linebacker in the country, and that was the goal through my whole process. It’s nothing I would say out loud or talk about, but I had my mind set on that. A lot of the guys have that similar trait, but there’s something with Tatsch that does remind me of a younger version of me, aside from the fact he looks like me and acts like me somehow. It’s kinda creepy.”
Knowles gave a similar assessment of the efforts to bring Tatsch into the fold:
“We’re trying to bring Tatsch into the mix. You know, again, he’s a true freshman, so that’s difficult, but we think he has the skills to do it. So we’ve been really trying to get him into the mix, you know, to see how far he can progress this year.”
Receiving zero snaps for a player receiving these praises when you have an issue, you have a need, and have already thrusted two other true freshmen in defensive end Chaz Coleman and cornerback Daryus Dixson, what exactly are they waiting for?
It isn’t like I am calling for LaVar Arrington II, who hasn’t seen the field.
Tatsch has.
Franklin admitted Monday that more players are going to be getting involved to find a solution, including another freshman.
“So, more reps for Amare and more reps for DeLuca. And then, obviously, the plan is we’re going to have to start playing guys like Cam [Smith], who played a little bit, but not significant reps the way the game was going.
“So yeah, we’re going to have to play those guys. We’re going to have to continue to develop them. Cam is part of that discussion. Speca is part of that discussion. There are times we did some really nice things. There’s other times where we didn’t, [we] had some mistakes, had some missed assignments, and, most importantly, just playing with confidence right now. So that’s a challenge.”
I don’t want it to be skewed about going to a primary 4-3 base defense, I don’t think that is wise with how teams are spreading it out, but having some packages would not have hurt to aid DeLuca in the coverage situations where he wasn’t able to create stops.
At the junction, ‘Linebacker U’ has a linebacker crisis, it was manufactured and a known issue that was either ignored or was decided to not better leverage the talent they had and mold packages to accrue experience and build success.
That is what is unfortunate about the whole thing. They had an option and made wrong decisions.
