Column: There's Something Different About This Penn State Offense

The Nittany Lions looked a step ahead of West Virginia. The key now is maintaining that pace.

Penn State running back Nicholas Singleton runs the ball for a touchdown during the third quarter against the West Virginia Mountaineers. / Ben Queen-Imagn Images

To a certain extent, that Penn State rolled over West Virginia this past weekend was not particularly surprising considering how last season’s game went, and in many respects how both teams' 2023 seasons went. On the one hand, the Nittany Lions were generally as solid as ever, backed by an elite defense, eyeing a playoff spot. Meanwhile, West Virginia’s season boiled down to a regularly stated fact that “they weren’t as bad as everyone expected,” which is only sort of a compliment.

On the other hand, you could have convinced yourself that the Mountaineers had a chance in this one, and they did. But you still had to convince yourself.

The more noteworthy aspect of Penn State's 34-12 victory was how its offense looked. Sure, everyone can look great at times against average-to-bad teams, but it has felt like pulling teeth with the Nittany Lions for a while now. They had become the masters of scoring 35 points that felt like 14. Everything was a grind, and blowouts against bad teams did not bring about as much of a sense of “that was pleasant to watch” as you might have expected.

But on Saturday, there was something different about how things unfolded. Penn State looked like it had answers to problems. It looked a step ahead of West Virginia. There were plays that you could enjoy watching unfold like a magic trick, exclaiming in appreciation when they finished. There’s something physically pleasant about watching good offensive football.

'He always had the answers'

Some of this goes back to a conversation I had with Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki’s college coach, Tom Journell, who eventually ended up coaching against Kotelnicki later in their respective careers.

“I go back to when I went against Wisconsin-Whitewater,” Journell said of the school where Kotelnicki was the offensive coordinator. “He did a lot of things that had multiple formations and personnel groupings. But at the same time he was able to manipulate formations based on personnel and what personnel you've got in the game. It was always a guessing game. He always had the answers.

“He was always a step ahead. I was always trying to catch up, and he was always doing something. He always kept me off balance. There was one game I had him figured out, and he came across the field [after losing] and he's like, 'Nobody's done that.' And he goes, 'I expected that you would be the one that would do it.'”

Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki listens to a question from a reporter during an interview in Holuba Hall. / Dan Rainville/USA Today Network - PA / USA TODAY NETWORK

It stands to reason that, of all the teams Penn State will face this year, West Virginia won’t be the one to have posed the most difficult test. In turn, you always have to take Week 1 success with a few grains of salt. It’s not a lot of data.

That said, you caught glimpses of what this Penn State offense could become down the road against even better teams. An offensive attack that can run the ball, block, create explosive plays and generate open looks for Drew Allar to complete in his sleep. Sometimes you have to take advantage of arm talent, but there’s also something to be said for just making things easy on the guy, too.

“When you’ve got a really good receiver going against a poor defensive back, and you throw it up to him and he goes down the field, and he runs right behind [the DB], and he catches it, that's good coaching," Kotelnicki said before the season. "But doing it over and over again, against somebody who's as good, and it's not working, that's bad coaching. You can never just assume that you'll be able to do that. So what you do schematically, how you try to get players open, how you try to get creative in the run game, you have to kind of operate on the assumption that your chess pieces aren't as good as other teams' chess pieces. And I think that's where the strategy comes into play. Don't blame the guy just because they could win a one on one over and over again.”

A 'tentative optimism' about Penn State's offense

Fast forward a few days, and there was a tentative optimism present during James Franklin’s weekly press conference on Monday. Franklin tried to alternate between an undeniable sense of satisfaction with how Saturday unfolded and a head coach's wiring to look constantly for ways to improve. Penn State wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but for a team that has done no small amount of self loathing over its offensive flow in big games, there’s something to be said for leaving a big game with a sense of confidence.

Franklin used the word "better" on 30 occasions during his press conference. He used the words "fix" and "improve" zero times. Semi-arbitrary word clouds aren’t the best way to measure the state of a program, but getting through that first test and feeling good about where things stand is a good first step on a long road. Penn State won’t leave the state until the middle of October, when it will visit USC. Prior to that, there may not be a bigger opponent on the schedule other than Penn State avoiding the complacency.

Because that’s really the challenge now. Penn State has over a month to continue to improve before the rubber starts to hit the road. In many ways, that makes the least stressful games on the schedule the most important. A chance to improve before everyone finds out if last Saturday was a sign of things to come or a red herring cooking on the hot country roads.

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Ben Jones has been covering Penn State athletics for 13 years, having been to countless home and road games for Nittany Lion sporting events spanning from the Rose Bowl to the NCAA Tournament. He's also the author of the book Happy Valley Hockey. You can read his work at https://benjonesonpennstate.substack.com and follow him on X (Twitter) at Ben_Jones88