Opening Statement
A: We didn't play well enough on either side, and when you look at the run defense and rush defense, it's not just the d-line; it’s the linebacker, the secondary fit, and several other things. The three runs in the first half… we had a leverage problem on one. One we were short a helmet or short a guy on the pin pull to the boundary and didn’t get over top of it. On the last one we were in position but didn’t make the play. So those three combined for a line in the first. I thought defensively the second half we began to play better at times, at lease on the line of scrimmage. On offense we couldn’t get anything going all night. I’ve always said it: if we can’t run the ball, we’re going to struggle offensively. Penn State did a great job in shutting down our run game. I knew going into it their front seven is difficult. With how they played it tonight, that proved to be true. We weren’t good enough to overcome that.
Q: How come you think the run game really struggles and is not able to get a push up from the system?
A: I think it’s a couple of things. On some of the slower developing plays, there were getting penetration, and the winning or not winning one-on-one blocks was really difficult. We never could get enough space there in what we were calling in either the gap scheme of the zone scheme. They were whooping our tail, and that’s hard to say out loud. But that’s the truth. We didn’t have answers to be able to fix that. When you get behind the sticks and can’t stay in rhythm, that gives them an opportunity to pin their ears back a little bit and be heavier in the rush game and the blitz game. That got Ryan [Browne] off his spot and threw our passing game off.
Q: What is the challenge of being a full complementary football team when you can’t score when you get the ball with great field position?
A: It’s frustrating for sure because we plan to obviously win. You have got to play all three phases together, and if one side can’t get it going for whatever reason, the other two sides have to pick it up and we weren’t able to do that tonight consecutively. I think there’s a number of things that go into that, and tonight it starts at the line of scrimmage on offense. We never get in in our advantage in protection of running the ball, and that’s certainly frustrating because I think that we have the ability to do that, but tonight they took it away from us.