Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> was just as costly as anything that hap- pened afterward. What's more, it was indicative of one of the problems that kept Penn State from accomplishing its most ambitious goals last year: The Lions didn't always take very good care of the ball. We tend to dwell on the spectacular when we think about offensive football: the narrow es- capes, the one-handed catches, the zigzag runs that go for big yardage. Those kinds of plays are a huge part of what makes the sport so com- pulsively watchable. But there's also a lot to be said for the most basic, boring skill that the game re- quires: holding onto the ball. Teams that prioritize ball security tend to win games at a higher rate than those that are more careless. Last year, for instance, the two teams that took part in the Big Ten Championship Game – Ohio State and Northwestern – had the second- and third-fewest giveaways in the confer- ence, turning it over 17 and 19 times, re- spectively. The team with the most giveaways? You guessed it: Rutgers, with 29. Penn State had 21 giveaways, tying for seventh place in the Big Ten. Included in that total were 13 fumbles. Only three teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision – Utah, Tulsa and Massachusetts – fum- bled more often than PSU. The Lions' penchant for turnovers wasn't exactly a hidden problem, but it tended to get less attention than the wideouts' many dropped passes or the parade of special teams blunders that proved so costly throughout the season. The turnover problems definitely did not go unnoticed by the coaching staff, though, and ball security has been a point of emphasis this spring as the team looks to improve on its 9-4 finish in 2018. "We weren't as good last year offen- sively in protecting the football," coach James Franklin said before the start of spring drills, "and we have done a good job of that over my history of being a head coach." The Nittany Lions were eighth in the conference in turnover ratio during their 2016 Big Ten championship season, and they improved drastically in 2017, fin- ishing first, with 25 takeaways and only 13 giveaways, just three of which were fumbles. It helped that they had a run- ning back in Saquon Barkley with what seemed like electromagnetic hands. De- spite handling the ball 286 times in his final season at Penn State, Barkley didn't have a single fumble, nor did he fumble on 352 touches during his rookie season with the New York Giants. That sort of ball security is a huge lux- ury, and it was no surprise that Barkley's successor, Sanders, wasn't able to match it. Sanders lost four fumbles in what would turn out to be his final season of college football. Compounding last year's problems with giveaways, Penn State wasn't all that good on the other side of the turnover ledger, either. The Lions had 20 takeaways to tie for ninth place in the Big Ten, and they squandered at least one opportunity to make a game-decid- ing interception, as cornerback Amani Oruwariye wasn't able to hold onto a Brian Lewerke pass that landed right in his hands late in the fourth quarter against Michigan State. MISSED CHANCE Oruwariye couldn't hold onto this errant pass late in Penn State's game against Michigan State last October. The Spar- tans ended up scoring the winning TD in the fourth quarter. Photo by Steve Manuel

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