Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1187122
year as a starter and was terrific as a red- shirt junior in 2018, and John Reid and Tariq Castro-Fields have both shown their effectiveness in multiple seasons. While the other safety spot has included three players who had never started for Penn State before in Lamont Wade, Jonathan Sutherland and Jaquan Brisker, the trio has fared relatively well. So what exactly is the culprit? "I think just you see around the coun- try, some really good creative coaches out there on offense are doing a really tremendous job," safeties coach Tim Banks said. "But I will say this for Min- nesota, you know those guys' run game is one of the best that we had seen. So we made a commitment to stop the run, you know, and any time you do that, you put your secondary in situations where you know they're on islands." Banks added that against what he called "true spread teams," like Indiana, the sheer volume of snaps is taxing on a defense. He made the point that if a team runs 90 plays and succeeds on three of them, it will have scored 21 points even if the rate of defensive stops was very high. But the Gophers didn't run 90 plays, or even close to it. And regardless of how stout the rush defense is in a particular matchup – and Penn State's certainly was vs. Minnesota – it's hard for a de- fense to thrive when it allows nearly 17 yards per passing attempt. And it's not as if Morgan was picking on any member of the secondary more than another. As Banks noted, Minnesota's success was partially due to the Nittany Lions' preoccupation with the run game. The Gophers ran a lot of run-pass options, meaning that when the read for Morgan was to throw the ball, there was virtually no chance for Penn State's pass rushers to get to him and impact the pass. That undoubtedly put a great deal of pressure on the secondary. But even on passing plays that took longer to develop, the secondary simply got beat by quality receivers. "We just didn't do a great job getting guys on the ground after the catch, so those are things that our guys un- derstand," Banks said. "We revel in the chal- lenge of having that op- portunity to go out there and play man-to- man, and our guys enjoy it, so we just need to do a better job of getting guys on the ground when he caught the ball." Whether the issues lie with coverage calls, mental lapses, missed tackling or, most likely, a combination of the three, the secondary's struggles will mar an otherwise stellar Penn State defensive record. Those struggles continued against Indiana, as Peyton Ramsey com- pleted 31 of 41 passes for 371 yards. With the regular season winding down and a bowl appearance coming up in another month, the Lions know they need to ad- dress their deficiencies. "We're focusing on the little things, the mental errors," Sutherland said. "We're focusing on the little things so the bigger things will take care of them- selves." ■ SAFETY FIRST Sutherland has been backing up Garrett Taylor at strong safety this season. He said the Lions are "fo- cusing on the little things, the mental errors." Photo by Steve Manuel