When Penn State hired Jim Knowles to be its defensive coordinator, the headline of my story confirming the transaction was “You don’t mess around with Jim.”
‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim’: Penn State Set to Hire Jim Knowles as Defensive Coordinator
This was done mainly to pay homage to the great Jim Croce, and his song seems to fit with Knowles’ personality.
Knowles is no-nonsense, direct, and, as described by one source to Nittany Sports Now shortly after his hiring, “a football machine.”
It takes a “football machine” to lead a national championship winning defense, and that’s what Knowles did last season at Ohio State. So, yeah, “You don’t mess around with Jim” certainly applied to Knowles, and hiring Knowles away from the champs was a sign that Penn State wasn’t messing around, either.
Through his three games at Penn State, it seemed Knowles could do no wrong.
While fans worried about Drew Allar, Nick Singleton and Andy Kotelnicki on the offensive side through Penn State’s 3-0 start, Knowles and the defense were hardly a concern.
The first team defense made it through the first quarter of the season without allowing a touchdown.
That’s dominance.
Even through the fallout of Penn State’s loss to Oregon, nobody blamed Knowles, nor should they have.
Although Penn State did allow touchdowns on both of Oregon’s overtime possessions, that was clearly a case of players being exhausted from the offense forcing it to spend so much time on the field more so than any fault in Knowles’ scheme.
Then, UCLA happened, and with the exception of James Franklin, nobody deserves more blame for that fiasco than Jim Knowles.
I’m not ripping on Knowles to excuse Franklin of anything.
Another one of our writers, Austin Bechtold, wrote all about the head honcho, and there’s no use writing two columns with the same theme.
Bechtold: Most Embarrassing Loss in Penn State Football History Means One Thing
I’m ripping on Knowles because, when the highest-paid assistant coach in the history of college football leads a unit that gives up 42 points to what had been (and might still even be) the worst team in Power 4, that can’t be ignored.
It’s even worse when you consider that the offensive coordinator Knowles was going up against, Jerry Neuheisel, had never called plays at the college level before.
Penn State does have one alibi, with that being linebacker Tony Rojas’ injury. Franklin said after the game that Rojas would have been used to spy UCLA QB Nico Iamaleava, who ended up rushing for 128 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries.
Rojas is a key player, and his absence shouldn’t be dismissed as a non-issue.
With that said, does anybody believe Penn State’s linebacker situation without Rojas is worse than that of New Mexico, which held UCLA to 10 points, or Northwestern, which held it to 14?
I haven’t scouted those rosters much, but I would say no.
With the amount of talent Penn State has on defense— even without Rojas—, it should take UCLA, which scored a total of 57 points in its first four games and just 24 in its two against Power 4 defenses, weeks to score 42 points against a coach like Knowles.
Instead, all it took was one afternoon.
The people most responsible for the previous Saturday’s loss to Oregon did their jobs for the most part.
Allar played his best game of the year, completing 19 of 26 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns and rushing for 78 yards on 11 carries.
It’s hard to blame him.
Kotelnicki’s unit scored 37 points, which should be enough for a guy like Knowles to hold.
It’s hard to blame Kotelnicki.
Singleton… well, uh, my house is on fire, can I get back to you?
That was a joke, and so was Penn State’s defense Saturday.
Knowles is a great defensive coordinator and has nothing to prove on that front. He’s had success at smaller Power 4 programs (Duke), big-time programs (Ohio State) and even in the Big 12, where defensive is optional (Oklahoma State.)
His tenure at Penn State might indeed end up being a success.
But Penn State just suffered what may well have been the most embarrassing loss in program history, certainly the most embarrassing in the Franklin era.
Whether or not UCLA tugs on Superman’s cape, spits in the wind or pulls the mask off the old Lone Ranger is unconfirmed.
But it certainly messed around with Jim.
