Handing Out the Grades Following Penn State’s Loss to Michigan

Penn State lost to Michigan on Saturday in a game that felt like the Nittany Lions were within arms reach and also miles away at the same time. All told Penn State finds itself at a respectable 8-2 but without the kind of marquee regular season victory fans may have liked. All the same the show marches onward towards Rutgers, but before that, here are the grades from Saturday’s 24-15 defeat.

Offense: D+

The problem with Penn State’s offense is that it has spent most of the season looking “good enough” only to show up against two of the best defenses in the nation and looked very much not good enough. There is something to be said for the Ohio State – and now Michigan – defenses having rendered the Nittany Lions mostly toothless on offense simply because they are very good defensive teams. There is also something to be said for the fact just moving the ball a little bit shouldn’t be the most impossible thing anyone has ever done. Michigan and Ohio State are not fielding 11 iterations of Micah Parsons on the field at the same time.

To Penn State’s credit, this group did better against Michigan than it did against Ohio State but the bar here was not all that high. Nevertheless Penn State managed to cobble together enough of an attack to make it a 14-9 halftime deficit behind a whole bunch of running and just enough timely passing to move the sticks. That said, for all the excitement against Maryland, Dante Cephas did nothing of note; for all the confidence and swagger, KeAndre Lambert-Smith managed one catch; and for all the hopefulness of a more relaxed demeanor, Drew Allar offered little in the way of game-changing poise. Penn State found success on the ground though with a fairly balanced effort from Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, which put Penn State in the position of averaging a manageable 5.6 yards on third down, but the Nittany Lions ended up converting just four of their 14 attempts. Allar finished the day with 70 passing yards but gets some boost here for running with the ball on 10 occasions.

In the traditional sense it’s hard to look at Penn State on Saturday and come away with positive thoughts. There’s something to be said here for the offense doing better Saturday than it did against Ohio State, but again, the bar wasn’t high. It’s hard not to call this a disappointing performance. It’s also hard to say it was surprising either.

Defense: B+

Michigan was the perfection of just doing what worked. In fact, the Wolverines ended Saturday’s game having thrown it just eight times [the third-fewest in program history was five, so not far from something historic] but Michigan found success slowly pounding away on the ground. The Wolverines had a few big runs but for the most part the 227 rushing yards was a product of tenacity behind 46 rushing attempts. Chop Robinson was fantastic in his return to action at defensive end and plenty of other Nittany Lions had their moments. All things considered — much like at Ohio State — this group did enough that a better offensive attack could have changed the outcome of this game. There were moments this group would like to have back, but it’s hard to find too much fault in 2023 in a defensive unit that holds a team to 24 points. Kevin Winston led the way with 12 tackles and Curtis Jacobs gets credit for 1.5 sacks on the afternoon.

Third down killed this unit early on though as Michigan converted 6-of-13 attempts with three third down conversions in the middle portion of the game being of eight yards or more. In the first half, Michigan faced four different third downs of eight or more yards. In the second half just two of its seven third downs fit that bill, with four of them coming in at five or fewer yards. All things considered there’s not too much fault on this side of the ball for Penn State but it only takes a few plays to tarnish a close game grade.

Special Teams: A-

This group gets an A- because it didn’t hurt the cause any and for the most part Riley Thompson’s punting [56 yard bomb included] helped Penn State try to win the field position battle. The grade is hurt here by a questionable but nevertheless occurring block in the back call. Getting legitimate punt return opportunities has become somewhat rare against good punters so while you might want to see more out of this area there are maybe only one or two punts [if that] per game that make sense to even attempt to return. On the whole this group didn’t make things harder for Penn State and that’s all you can usually ask for.

Coaching: C

This is going to be an unpopular grade. I am, generally, of the opinion that Penn State’s commitment to the run and getting Allar’s legs involved were both strong choices for the moment. I also tend to believe that Penn State has offensive issues that are going to transcend a mid-week adjustment and that the charge of the coaching staff at this point, in these games, this year, is to patchwork together a plan that gives Penn State a semi-reasonable path to victory. It is fair to say not everything worked out well, but I think it’s also fair to say that given its own limitations and traits, that Penn State did almost enough well to find a way to steal this game if a few things go better. That’s where coaching is supposed to come into play, and it did.

People get hung up on two point tries or short field goals but at the end of the day Michigan was just better and a team just being better is not simply a product of bad coaching. If that was the case everyone should be fired for their teams not being as good as Michigan. All of that being said, it’s hard to look at a Top 10 team in November that can’t move the ball well against good defenses and not feel like that’s a coaching issue though. Then again, coaching is often a catch-all for the football problems we can’t explain.

Overall: C-

Penn State was in this game, against a top four team, and played pretty good defense and almost good enough offense to find a way to win it. Nobody is going to confuse this for a pretty game, or anything close to the best Penn State has looked in the past 10 years but a 17-9 score after three quarters is competitive enough to get some credit for the effort. The Nittany Lion offense hurts this grade because a better offense wins with the defense Penn State has. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.