Oct. 25, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. ââ'¬" Win your one-on-one battles.
Those have been the words uttered by everyone in Penn State's offensive team meeting room for the past few weeks.
When Maryland's defense lined up in man-to-man coverage on snap after snap on Saturday afternoon, the Nittany Lion receivers knew it was time to make the most of the opportunities to make plays.
The receiver unit, along with quarterback Christian Hackenberg, answered the bell in a big way during a thrilling 31-30 victory over Maryland inside M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday.
"They basically said that we are going to go high-risk, high-reward," said head coach James Franklin. "They basically said they were going to force you to beat you with the vertical passing game. Basically they said your receivers won't beat us (consistently)...But we made big plays tonight and a number of guys made big plays."
The Terps loaded the box from the opening Penn State possession forward, limiting the running game's opportunities to find holes. The Nittany Lions countered with a day filled with vertical passing.
Penn State finished with nine passing plays of 20 or more yards out of Hackenberg's 13 completions. That list included five plays of more than 30 yards. Four Nittany Lion receivers had at least one catch of 27 or more yards. And Penn State's all-time leader in passing yardage and completions finished the day with an average of 24.2 yards per completion.
"They challenged us with a lot of looks we hadn't seen before, and we went out there and made plays. It was a lot of fun to be in a game like that," Hackenberg said.
It's one thing to take shots down the field, and it's another thing to complete them on a consistent basis. Give Hackenberg a tremendous amount of credit for putting balls in positions for the receivers to make plays, but the entire corps of receivers played their best game to date by making contested catch after contested catch.
"I think they came out and challenged us early on, and it was up to us to respond to the challenge of man-to-man coverage to go up and make plays," said Chris Godwin. "It's definitely awesome because you realize you have to go out and make some plays that you're capable of doing and we were able to do that today."
Godwin led the way with four catches for 135 yards, including a 37-yard touchdown catch on a great mid-air adjustment late in the second quarter. The sophomore tallied three catches of 30-plus yards, giving him 10 receptions of 20 or more yards on the season.
"These are things that we work on every day and every week in practice," said Godwin. "Building our chemistry each and every day so we can come out and put on performances like this. We know the talent that we have. We know the ability we have. We just have to go out and turn that into production out there, and that's what we work on each and every week."
Redshirt sophomore DaeSean Hamilton notched two receptions of 20 yards or more, including a pivotal 20-yard touchdown catch late in the third quarter.
The biggest play of the day came from Geno Lewis, who is no stranger to making difficult catches look easy on a big stage. Lewis snagged a 27-yard touchdown above the outstretched arms of a Maryland defender in the corner of the end zone to give the Nittany Lions the eventual game-winning score in the fourth quarter.
"I was big time proud of all of them," said Franklin. "They are doing a good job, with the opportunities that they get, taking advantage of them. Geno Lewis hasn't had a lot of opportunities lately but he went up and snagged the ball. I am really proud of him and how he handled that."
Lewis now has touchdowns in the Blue and White in MetLife Stadium, Yankee Stadium and M&T Bank Stadium. Sophomore Saeed Blacknall also notched a 38-yard completion in Penn State's fifth victory in the last six games.
When Penn State's receivers make plays like they did on Saturday, the sky is the limit for the Nittany Lion offense.
"They practice extremely hard and that always translates to success on Saturdays," said Hackenberg. "And they've done a fantastic job each week of just getting better and better and really taking practice and using that as a tool for Saturdays. And for us, that's just breeding confidence in that room."