Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/752868
GETTING THE DROP rban Meyer had just come off the field and was not prepared to break down everything that went wrong in Ohio State's 24- 21 loss to Penn State. He hadn't fully processed what he'd seen from the sideline, hadn't had a chance to go over the game with his assistant coaches, had- n't watched a single frame of film. But there was one aspect of the Nittany Lions' stunning victory that he felt could be properly assessed, and he kept coming back to it during a terse postgame news conference: His team had somehow al- lowed Penn State's defensive line to seize control of the game. J.T. Barrett's biggest problem? "He was under pressure all night." The Nittany Lions' strategic approach? "I just felt like their D-line was control- ling the line of scrimmage." General impressions? "A good team controls the line of scrimmage; [that's how] you win the game. I didn't feel that way today" about Ohio State's perform- ance. Had anyone suggested in September that the Nittany Lions' defensive line would be one of the big storylines coming out of the Ohio State game, they would likely have received disbelieving stares. The Lions were one of the worst teams in the country against the run, and those tend to be the kind of problems that take months to fix, sometimes years. But against Ohio State, the Lions quickly came of age. Shareef Miller had four tackles and a sack. Evan Schwan had three tackles and a sack. And then there was Garrett Sickels. A few weeks earlier, the redshirt junior defensive end had been described by position coach Sean Spencer as playing "like a man on fire." Against the Buckeyes, it was as if he'd been dipped in jet fuel. After sitting out the first half due to a disciplinary issue, Sickels entered the game at the start of the third quarter and proceeded to blow up one play after another. He finished with nine tackles, including 3.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks. James Franklin called it an "awesome" performance and added, "Maybe I should suspend him for the first half for the season." By the time it was over, the Nittany Lions had sacked Barrett six times – one more sack than Ohio State had allowed in its first six games combined – and had held them to their lowest point total of the season. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Barrett was either sacked or pres- sured on 44 percent of his drop-backs, the second-highest total of his career. One of the big factors in the game was, of course, the return of injured lineback- ers Brandon Bell and Jason Cabinda. But their stellar performances were predi- cated on the strong play of the linemen in front of them, a list that began with start- ing tackles Parker Cothren and Curtis Cothran and also included Torrence Brown (who started in place of Sickels), Kevin Givens, Robert Windsor, Tyrell Chavis, Antoine White and Ryan Buch- holz. Appropriately, Penn State snuffed out Ohio State's last chance by sacking Barrett on third and fourth down, with Schwan and Givens teaming up to drop FOOTBALL 2016 | U Penn State's youthful defensive line has absorbed some hard lessons this season, but it's starting to reap the benefits of players' on-the-job training