Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/747654
N O V E M B E R 6 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . c O M 3 Against Iowa, he was replaced by Chasz Wright. The redshirt sophomore "played with confidence tonight," Franklin said. • It may have scored five touchdowns, but Penn State le? a few points on the field, settling for field goal attempts on three red-zone incursions, one of which was blocked. It didn't hurt them vs. Iowa, but it might down the road. • Was Iowa wearing magnetic face- masks? Two first-quarter personal fouls cost the Nittany Lions 30 yards. The Lions helped keep Iowa in the game by committing nine penalties for 86 yards, most of them in the first half. It was a continuation of a problem that surfaced a week earlier against Purdue. Said Franklin, "We've got to clean up the penalties. We didn't do a great job with that. We'll work on that this week." THE TAKEAWAY Penn State has now passed the quarter pole and is into the homestretch. Its three remaining opponents – Indiana, Rutgers and Michigan State – all look vulnerable, with only the Hoosiers sporting a winning record (5-4, 3-3 Big Ten) and the Scarlet Knights and Spar- tans trapped in the East Division base- ment with identical records of 2-7 overall and 0-6 in the conference. Rutgers is suffering the growing pains associated with the arrival of a new coach, while Michigan State is an enigma. The Spartans hadn't been fa- vored to return to the College Football Playoff, but it's safe to say that no one envisioned them missing out on the postseason entirely, a fate to which they are now consigned thanks to a 31-27 loss to Illinois on Saturday. Even taking into account their significant graduation losses, it's hard to fathom how they man- aged to fall this far this fast. But first things first. Indiana has a very effective quarterback in juco transfer Richard Lagow, who threw for 394 yards in a 33-27 victory over Rutgers on Satur- day and is second in the conference with a 286-yard average. The Hoosiers also have a solid running back in Devine Red- ding and three of the Big Ten's top 10 re- ceivers in Mitchell Paige, Nick Westbrook and Ricky Jones. They even have a middle-of-the-pack defense that is allowing only 26.6 points per game, so the binge-scoring outbursts that are characteristic of coach Kevin Wilson's offense aren't being wasted as o?en as they were in previous years. The Nittany Lions will have to be in peak form offensively, because they are likely to need those points in Blooming- ton this coming Saturday. The good news for Penn State is that its offense does ap- pear to be in peak form. It was last night, anyway. And the defense and special teams were, too. "I'm really, really proud of how our team is playing and the confidence they're building," Franklin said. "We're playing well in all three phases. We're playing complementary football right now."