UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State football team’s three-game preseason will come to an end when the Lions face the Villanova Wildcats on Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium in their final non-conference game of the regular season.
Villanova, considered one of the best FCS teams in the country, is 1-0 after a 24-17 victory over Colgate in its season opener at home on September 6.
Villanova highlights
The Wildcats came into the Colgate game with eight returning starters on defense and a strong running game with experience along the offensive line and at running back.
All of that came into play as Villanova broke a third quarter tie with a 56-yard pass from Pat McQuaide to Lucas Kopecky and then held Colgate scoreless through the final quarter to take the win.
Prior to that go-ahead score, the Wildcats scored on two running plays. First, Isaiah Ragland scored on a 1-yard run in the first quarter, and then McQuaide made it 14-0 with a 28-yard scamper two minutes into the second quarter.
Colgate was able to tie the game as the third quarter ended with a 65-yard TD drive, but McQuaide’s pass to Kopecky turned the tide for VU.
In all, the Wildcats ran up 416 yards of offense in the game including 117 on the ground with two touchdowns.
McQuaide finished 18-of-28 for 299 yards and a touchdown without an interception and with a long of 56 yards.
David Avit led the running game with 65 yards on 15 carries with McQuaide getting 41 yards and Isaiah Ragland 35.
Receiver Luke Colella had five catches for 124 yards, and Kopecky had five catches for 98 yards and the clinching touchdown.
Penn State highlights
Penn State will come into the game unbeaten as well with a 2-0 record and two 30+ point wins over Nevada and Florida International.
Against FIU on Saturday at Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions took a 34-0 win despite a relatively slow start in the first half.
Penn State led by just 10-0 at halftime on a 9-yard pass from quarterback Drew Allar to Khalil Dinkins in the first quarter and a field goal by Ryan Barker in the second quarter.
But the Lion offense got back closer to normal in the second half.
The lead quickly went to 20-0 in the third quarter on two Barker field goals and an acrobatic 42-yard touchdown catch by Devonte Ross from Allar that gave PSU a 20-0 lead.
Then, in the fourth quarter, Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton got into the act.
Allen struck first on a 67-yard run around left end and then Singleton finished the day’s scoring with a 5-yard run with just under two minutes to play.
Allen finished the day with 144 yards on 16 carries, while Singleton had 76 on 13 carries. In the game, both players went over 3000 career rushing yards as Nittany Lions.
Allar came in with 200 yards passing with two touchdowns on 19 completions.
All this occurred while the Penn State defenders were completing a shutout of FIU.
Although Florida International did gain just under 300 yards of offense, they did not score, which marked the fifth consecutive season in which Penn State has recorded a shutout.
The last time PSU recorded a shutout in five straight seasons was from 1972 to 1976.
After the game in the post-game press conference, Penn State head coach James Franklin acknowledged the team’s slow start and the number of drives ending in field goals rather than touchdowns.
“I want to finish drives and score touchdowns too, and so does Andy Kotelnicki,” Franklin said, “and so do all of our players. We have got to get better. We got to get better this week. We got to be better on third down. We have got to be more explosive. We haven’t. We have not met our explosive play mark the last two weeks, and we weren’t good enough on third down today, and those things are going to stall out drives.”
“I have the same concerns that you do, but that’s what they are. They’re concerns, and they’re things that we’re going to emphasize and focus on this week, and we’ll get better. That’s what we have done, really, in my time here is we focus on getting better every single week, and usually it leads us in a good direction.”
That focus this week will be on getting better for Villanova and on reaching 3-0 before the first bye week of the season.
Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m. at Beaver Stadium.
