Blue White Illustrated

ON GENERATING FIRST DOWNS Prob- ably how most coaches were raised in the industry is [to] stay on schedule. Unless you come from certain family trees, most people are about staying on schedule, creating manageable third-down situations: What are you trying to do on first down? You're trying to get 4. What are you trying to get on second down? You're trying to get half so I can create manageable third-down situations. What am I trying to do on third down? Obvi- ously convert. Fourth down? Con- vert, ultimately score touchdowns, be efficient in the red zone, all those types of things. But I think as people have really gotten into analytics and studying what is the most impactful thing to winning football games, there are a few stats that are dramatically ahead of everything else: That's creating ex- plosive plays on offense, it's eliminat- ing explosive plays on defense, and it's the turnover battle. Those [three] things. In the old days, what was the other one that everybody talked about? Time of possession. Well, that has shown to not really be as big of a factor when it comes speci9cally to the greatest impact on winning. So I think it's changed. People were raised on staying on schedule, but the reality is, you had better be aggressive and you had better push the ball down the 9eld. There's a 9ne line to those stats, because I think some of those analytics people tell you, you should go for every single fourth-and-1. So you know, it is a valuable piece of in- formation, but that's what it is. It's a piece of information. It's not the end- all, be-all. ■ P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> C O A C H S P E A K E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S R E C E N T P R E S S E R S half never really abated; it just was over- shadowed by a succession of long gains, from the one-handed catch-and-run by Pat Freiermuth that produced a 28-yard touchdown to the 56-yard pass to Jahan Dotson in the fourth quarter that ended the scoring. Said Franklin, "We became more explosive in the second half. We had a lot of big plays, one-play drives. We just have to be more consistent." The biggest problem for the Nittany Lions heading into the conference season may be their inability to convert third downs. After converting 1 of 8 in their opener against Idaho, they hit only 2 of 9 against Buffalo and 4 of 13 against Pitt. Third-down conversions were a problem for the Lions last year; they ranked 11th in the Big Ten at 37.1 percent. Through three games this year, they were at 23.3 percent. To put that in perspective, Rut- gers was converting 32.1 percent of its third downs as of this writing. The Nit- tany Lions like to take shots downfield, and those low-percentage plays impact third-down performance. But even with that tendency factored in, this is an area in which they have to do better. There are two reasons to be hopeful, though, and the first is that they almost certainly will do better. Even when they were fielding a woefully underpowered offense in the first two seasons of the Franklin era, the Lions were converting third downs at a higher rate than they are now, hitting at 40 percent in 2014 and 28 percent the following year. The second reason to be hopeful is that there may not be another team on the remaining schedule that isn't itself flawed in some way. As the past three Big Ten seasons have shown, no team in the conference is unbeatable, not even Ohio State and Michigan. There is a caveat regarding those two, though: You have to catch them at the right time, and in the right place. For Penn State, the right place is Beaver Stadium. Since the end of the Pa- terno era, it has gone 3-10 against Michigan and Ohio State, and all three of those victories have taken place in the Beav. That's a comforting thought as it pertains to the Wolverines; Penn State is set to host them on Oct. 19, although probably not at night, which will dilute some of the potency of the White Out atmosphere. It's a less-than-comforting thought, though, as it pertains to the Buckeyes, since the Lions will be head- ing in November to Columbus, a place where they have won only twice in 13 tries since joining the Big Ten. As of this writing, the Buckeyes were ranked sixth in the Associated Press poll, and the Wolverines 11th. They were still being touted as potential College Football Playoff contenders, although Michigan had raised some doubts when it needed double overtime to defeat Army at home. There's been plenty of talk in recent months about the Big Ten's exclusion from the CFP the past two years. It's the league's own fault, the critics say. If Ohio State hadn't lost badly to a pair of unranked teams in 2017 and '18, it would have made the field both seasons. It's a fair point. Alabama hasn't lost to an unranked team since 2007. Clemson did lose to unranked Pitt in 2016 and un- ranked Syracuse in 2017, but those games were decided by a combined total of four points. Since their ascent to the top of the college football heap, neither the Crimson Tide nor the Tigers have suffered the kind of spectacular face- plants that Ohio State suffered against Iowa (55-24) and Purdue (49-20) the past two seasons. Those disastrous road trips have been bad for Ohio State, of course, and I sup- pose they've been bad for the Big Ten, too, as they've added to the perception that it's a lesser conference than the Southeastern, which has been repre- sented by at least one team in all five seasons that the CFP has existed. They've not been quite so bad, however, for the teams that have been trying to

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