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N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 17 Penn State is now 11 games into its season, and as has become very obvi- ous, there are a number of deficiencies relative to almost every aspect of this team that have contributed to its losses to Temple, Ohio State, Northwestern and Michigan. Those deficiencies in- volve both players and coaches. We all know, from examining the sta- tistics, that the Nittany Lions' offensive line has not fared well. Penn State has the Big Ten's least-productive rushing attack with an average of 136.5 yards per game, and that's not even the most telling stat. To get a real sense of where this unit stands, you need to look at the number of sacks it has allowed during the past two seasons. A year ago, Penn State surrendered 44 sacks. That's a staggering total, but the Lions may yet equal or even surpass it in 2015. They've surrendered 37 sacks this year and they have two games to go, one of which will be this Saturday against Michigan State, a team that knows how to pressure op- posing passers. Likewise, Penn State's special teams units have been among the worst in the Big Ten, as evidenced by their role in losses to Northwestern and Michigan. Against the Wildcats, Penn State sur- rendered a 96-yard return for a touch- down, instantly negating a 78-yard TD drive of its own. Against the Wolver- ines, PSU suffered two costly lapses: a fumbled punt by DeAndre Thompkins that gave Michigan possession at the 9- yard line and led to a third-quarter touchdown, and a 55-yard kickoff re- turn by Jourdan Lewis in the fourth quarter that dealt its comeback hopes a huge blow. As for the staff, its sideline operation sometimes seems to be muddled, par- ticularly with respect to the use of timeouts. Without belaboring the point, there are no legitimate excuses that can be made for the timeout blun- der at the end of the Northwestern game – a lapse that essentially cost Penn State whatever chance it might have had of engineering a last-minute comeback. The failure to call a timeout in that situation was emblematic of what appears to be a larger communica- tion problem. For example, in the game against Michigan, Penn State used its final timeout of the second half with more than seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. That is a mistake and an instance of poor sideline communi- cation that is hard to fathom. "We had to burn too many timeouts," Franklin stated during his postgame news conference. "This is something we need to clean up. Whether it's [the coaching staff] not getting the call in correctly, we will have some long con- versations about that to get it cor- rected." Those conversations must indeed take place, but the fact that this is an issue so late in the season is worri- some. In my mind, it's way too late for that type of problem to exist. But the refinement of Penn State's sideline operation will be a compara- tively easy fix. Other problems are more complex and will require more time and effort to resolve. One of those problems merits a close examination here: the team's poor performance on third down. With its 28-16 loss to Michigan fac- tored in, Penn State has converted 27.6 percent of its third-down opportunities this season. Of the 127 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, only one is converting third downs at a lower rate. That team is Kent State, which is con- verting only 25.9 percent of its chances. As you might expect, Penn State has been particularly ineffective in its losses. In those four games, it converted just 10 of 55 third-down opportunities, which works out to 18.2 percent. You cannot win football games with such dismal third-down productivity. Why has Penn State struggled so badly on third down? All you have to do is examine the play-by-play sheet from the Michigan game and you'll have your answer. The Nittany Lions came up short on 11 third-down opportunities in that game, and the biggest factor in those failures was their performance on first down. On the 11 first-down plays leading up to those third-down conver- sion opportunities, the Lions averaged less than 1 yard per play. On the Nittany Lions' first failed third-down opportunity of the game – a third-and-goal situation at the Michi- gan 9-yard line – Saquon Barkley rushed for 1 yard on first down. On their second failed third-down opportunity (third-and-8), Christian Hackenberg threw an incompletion on first down. On its fourth failed third-down oppor- tunity (third-and-19), Hackenberg was sacked for a 10-yard loss on first down. And on it went. Only twice in the 11 first-down plays in question did the Lions gain 4 yards or more. There is no way any offense at any level of football can expect to be successful on third down with so little productivity on first down. That is one of the most funda- mental rules of offensive football. As long as Penn State's offense con- tinues to struggle on first down, it will have trouble improving its miserable third-down conversion rate. Against quality defenses like the ones it faced against Temple, Ohio State, Northwest- ern and Michigan, the offense will con- tinue to average 14 points per game. One has to wonder if anything will change for Penn State this coming Sat- urday against Michigan State. The Spartans are coming off a very impres- sive game at Ohio State in which they held the Big Ten's top-rated offense to 132 total yards. That doesn't bode well for the Nittany Lions. Lions need more first-down yardage if they're to end third-down woes PHIL'S CORNER

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