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S E P T E M B E R 2 8 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 9 With Penn State fielding an inexperi- enced defensive line and a linebacker corps that has been gutted by injuries just four games into the season, it has become quite obvious that the offense is going to have to average 30-plus points per game for the remainder of the year. That's the only way I believe Penn State will be able to come close to winning seven or eight games this season. Considering that the offensive line has continued to struggle, and that the re- maining schedule features Ohio State, Iowa and Michigan State, that might seem like an impossible task. Even this week's game against Minnesota could present Penn State's battered and bruised defense with some serious matchup problems; running backs Shannon Brooks and Rodney Smith combined to rush for close to 225 yards in the Golden Gophers' 31-24 victory over Colorado State last weekend. If they post comparable numbers against Penn State, I can almost guarantee you that the Nittany Lions will need 30 or more points to prevail. Keeping that in mind, James Franklin and his staff must find a way to energize Penn State's offense and camouflage, to whatever extent is possible, the weak- nesses that Michigan was able to exploit in its 49-10 victory in last week's Big Ten opener. The Wolverines were able to neutralize the Nittany Lions' most effective offensive weapon, Saquon Barkley, making the offense one-di- mensional. Their approach did not come as a sur- prise. Franklin described it perfectly a few days before Penn State headed to Ann Arbor. "They're going to do some things defensively: high-risk, high-re- ward, load the box," he said during an interview following practice last Wednesday. The fact that the Lions knew what was coming didn't change the outcome. Penn State finished the game with only 191 yards of total offense, including 70 rushing yards on 38 attempts for an av- erage of only 1.8 yards per carry. Barkley rushed for 59 yards on 15 carries, aver- aging just 3.9 yards. His performance proved beyond any doubt that he is the only rushing threat that exists in Penn State's run-pass option offense. The team's third-leading rusher this season, quarterback Trace McSorley, was sacked six times for 27 yards in losses and ran only three times off the read op- tion, finishing the game with minus-6 yards rushing. "We had a hard time with their D- line," Franklin said aBer the game. "Then you combine that with a lot of the pressures and blitzes they did. We took some shots down the field late. We probably need to take more of them." The good news for Penn State in the wake of the Michigan game is that few teams in the country have the kind of talent and experience that the Wolver- ines have amassed. The bad news is that every opponent on its remaining sched- ule will undoubtedly employ some ver- sion of the defense that Michigan used to dominate Penn State's RPO offense. If the Lions are going to respond effec- tively, they will have to diversify their offensive attack. They can't afford to run exclusively out of the read option. The reason is simple: In an RPO of- fense, the quarterback must be a viable running threat. That is not the case for Penn State right now. Through four games, McSorley is averaging 8 yards per game and less than a yard per carry. The nation's best read-option attacks are run by quarterbacks who have the potential to post tailback numbers. Clemson's Deshaun Watson rushed for 1,527 yards last fall, while Ohio State's J.T. Barrett had 992 yards last year and already has 650 yards this season. It's not fair or reasonable to ask Mc- Sorley to put up those kinds of num- bers, but if Penn State wants its running game to operate exclusively out of the read option, McSorley has to become a viable running threat. From what I've seen in Penn State's opening four games of the season against Kent State, Pitt, Temple and Michigan, it is going to be difficult to convince opponents to shiB their focus away from Barkley. I'm not saying that Franklin and his staff should abandon the read option, but they have to find other ways to get Barkley the ball in space. Try putting him in the slot and running a fly sweep. Use him in the I-formation, run some outside zone reads off the read option, or put him in motion and use him on flanker or bub- ble screens. Screen passes would allow Penn State to take advantage of its wide receivers, who are big and tall and are ex- cellent blockers. Look at how effective Barkley was catching the football coming out of the backfield against Michigan: He was Penn State's leading receiver with five catches for 77 yards, with receptions of 30, 17 and 19 yards. For Penn State to average 30 or more points the rest of the season, it will have to be creative and find a way to get the ball in Barkley's hands 25 to 30 times per game, just as Stanford does with Chris- tian McCaffrey. A year ago, Barkley established a Penn State freshman rushing record, gaining 1,076 yards on 182 carries. Those num- bers might not be attainable this season if the Nittany Lions don't find some creative ways to use him in. The Lions have already completed one-third of their 2016 season, and Barkley has only rushed for 317 yards on 66 carries, an average of only 4.8 yards per carry. That's not enough production to get this team to seven or eight wins – not with the setbacks they've experienced on defense. Lions will need to diversify offense if they're going to turn season around PHIL'S CORNER

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