Blue White Illustrated

P enn State went into this season with some high individual expectations on both o8ense and defense. Despite the fact that Christian Hack- enberg was sacked a record 44 times, the Nittany Lions still ended up with the 79h-best passing o8ense in the Big Ten last season, averaging 233.4 yards per game. Hackenberg completed 270 of 484 attempts for 2,977 yards but, in large part because of the pressure to which he was subjected, he totaled just 12 touchdown passes and posted 15 in- terceptions. But with four o8ensive linemen re- turning, along with redshirt sophomore wide receiver DaeSean Hamilton, who led the Big Ten in 2014 with 82 catches for 899 yards, and seven other players who 7nished among the team's top 10 pass-catchers a year ago, there were ex- pectations that Penn State's passing game would take a major step forward in 2015. That hasn't happened. The Lions got o8 to an inauspicious start by surren- dering 10 sacks in their opener against Temple, and while their pass protection has not been the extreme liability the loss to the Owls suggested it might be, the team has certainly not enjoyed the kind of consistent o8ensive success it had hoped for in the 10 games leading up to its home 7nale Nov. 21 against Michi- gan. Going into that game, Penn State ranked ninth in the Big Ten in pass of- fense with an average of only 207.4 yards per game. Hackenberg had com- pleted only 54.2 percent of his passes (149 of 275) for 1,992 yards. One piece of good news for the Nittany Lions was that the quarterback's touchdown-in- terception ratio had improved dramati- cally and stood at 13-3 through the 7rst 10 games of his junior year. But in many other respects, the team's numbers were down. Take, for example, the statistics that Hamilton and fellow wideout Geno Lewis have been compiling. A year ago, the two wideouts 7nished 7rst and sec- ond, respectively, among Penn State's receivers, with Lewis catching 55 passes for 751 yards and averaging a team-best 13.7 yards per catch. This year, they both have seen their totals decline dramati- cally. Going into the Michigan game, Hamilton had just 31 receptions for 426 yards, while Lewis had only 11 catches for 122 yards. There are, it must be noted, two miti- gating factors at work here, both involv- ing Hamilton. The 7rst is that the red- shirt sophomore is averaging 13.7 yards per catch, a signi7cant improvement over his 11-yard average as a freshman. The second is that he's scoring more fre- quently than he did a year ago, with 7ve touchdowns through 10 games. In 2014, despite leading the league in catches, he scored only two TDs. Also, the Lions have gotten a li9 from the emergence of Chris Godwin. As a true freshman, Godwin came on strong at the end of the season. Of his total re- ceiving yards, nearly half came in Penn State's victory over Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl. Godwin 7nished the season as Penn State's 79h-leading re- ceiver, totaling 25 catches for 321 yards. His average of 12.8 yards per catch was second-best on the team behind Lewis's average of 13.7 yards. On the heels of his performance against the Eagles, in which he 7nished with 140 yards including a school- record-tying 72-yard touchdown catch, lot of people thought Godwin was head- ed for a breakout year. They thought that Godwin and Hamilton would team up to form one of the best receiver combina- tions in the Big Ten. What's happened instead is that God- win has essentially replaced Hamilton as Penn State's go-to receiver. Through 10 games, he had 49 receptions for 808 yards and was averaging a team-leading 16.5 yards per catch. Godwin was fourth in the Big Ten in receiving yards per game (80.8), and his per-catch average was third behind Brandon Reilly of Ne- braska (20.3) and Ricky Jones of Indiana (17.3). If there is an individual on Penn State's o8ense who has a solid chance of 7nish- ing the 2015 season as a 7rst- or second- team All-Big Ten performer, it's God- win. If I had to guess, I'd say a second- team nod is much more likely. The league's 7rst-team selections will likely be Jones and Michigan State's Aaron Burbridge. Heading into the Spartans' game against Maryland on Nov. 14, Bur- bridge was leading the Big Ten with 62 receptions for 994 yards and was aver- aging 16 yards per catch, followed by Wisconsin's Alex Erickson with 63 catches for 831 yards. But Godwin's numbers are solid, espe- cially his yards-per-catch average, and he's made a number of impressive plays in high-pro7le games, such as the Ohio State game. He has also been named to the watch list for the Biletniko8 Award, which is presented annually to the na- tion's top receiver. Elsewhere on o8ense, it has to come as at least somewhat of a surprise that Penn State has made its biggest strides of the season at running back. With vet- erans Bill Belton and Zach Zwinak de- parting, and redshirt junior Akeel Lynch being the only returning running back on the roster with any game experience, the odds did not seem to favor the Lions making a big leap forward. A certain Amid an up-and-down season, these PSU players have stood out PHIL'S CORNER

• Cover