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P O S T S E A S O N P R E V I E W >> P E N N S T A T E TALE OF THE TAPE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PENN STATE RECORD 9-3 (7-2 Pac-12) 11-2 (8-1 Big Ten) RANKING 9th AP, 9th coaches, 9th CFP 5th AP, 5th coaches, 5th CFP HEAD COACH Clay Helton (Houston, '94) James Franklin (East Stroudsburg, '95) COACH'S RECORD 15-7 (Overall record: same) 25-14 in three seasons (Overall record: 49-29) COACH'S BOWL RECORD 1-1 3-2 SCHOOL'S BOWL RECORD 34-18 28-16-2 ROSE BOWL RECORD 24-8 1-2 MOST RECENT BOWL Lost to Wisconsin, 23-21, in the 2015 Holiday Bowl Lost to Georgia, 24-17, in the 2016 TaxSlayer Bowl BASIC OFFENSE Multiple (32.9 ppg, 468.9 ypg) Multiple (36.7 ppg, 430.1 ypg) RUSHING LEADER Ronald Jones II (157 att, 1,027 yds, 11 TDs, 6.5 ypc) Saquon Barkley (247 att, 1,302 yds, 16 TDs, 5.3 ypc) PASSING LEADER Sam Darnold (2,633 yds, 26 TDs, 8 int, 68.1 pct) Trace McSorley (3,360 yds, 25 TDs, 5 int, 57.5 pct) RECEIVING LEADER JuJu Smith-Schuster (63 rec, 781 yds, 9 TDs) Chris Godwin (50 rec, 795 yds, 9 TDs) BASIC DEFENSE 3-4 (22.2 ppg, 359.0 ypg) 4-3 (23.4 ppg, 352.0 ypg) TACKLE LEADER Cameron Smith (36 asst, 43 solo, 79 total) Marcus Allen (49 asst, 52 solo, 101 total) SACK LEADER Porter Gustin (5.5, 42 yds) Evan Schwan (6, 43 yds), Garrett Sickels (6, 42 yds) INTERCEPTION LEADER Adoree' Jackson (4, 0 yds) Brandon Smith (2, 22 yds) decision to hand the offense to Darnold looks like the turning point in their sea- son. They haven't lost a game since falling to Utah, closing out their regular season with eight wins in a row and claiming a spot opposite Penn State in the Rose Bowl. Helton said recently that the coaching staff had played it safe initially, choosing Browne because he was the quarterback they knew best. Darnold would have been a riskier choice, but after the team's first three games, that began to seem more and more like a risk worth taking. "We went through the first three games and had the opportunity to see Sam play at the Alabama game, at Stanford, at Utah State, and saw that the things he was doing in practice were exactly correlating to the games, that the stage wasn't too big for him," Helton said. "We would have loved to have been 3-0 at the time, but we were 1-2, and we had not scored a lot of points. We had scored one touchdown against Alabama and Stanford and felt at that moment we had to do what was best for our team and make a change at the po- sition and allow Sam to try to create a spark for our offense. "He has done that very successfully. He's one of the big reasons we are where we are today." Darnold has completed 68.1 percent of his passes, and despite seeing limited ac- tion in USC's first three games, he's thrown for 2,633 yards, with 26 touch- down passes and only eight interceptions. As the leader of USC's offense – Browne recently announced plans to transfer – Darnold definitely has Penn State's full attention as game day approaches. "USC is a very, very talented team, and once the quarterback started clicking for them, then distributing the ball, the whole team just kind of developed around him," Nittany Lion head coach James Franklin said. "I've heard a lot of people say… that they may be the most danger- ous team in the country right now, and I know there are a lot of people who were hoping that they wouldn't make the play- offs because they're very, very talented and they're playing with a lot of confi- dence right now." The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Darnold comes from a family of athletes. His fa- ther played guard at the University of Redlands, his mother was a volleyball player at Long Beach City College, and his older sister also played volleyball while attending Rhode Island. In addition, his grandfather Dick Hammer played on USC's 1954 Final Four basketball team and also on the American volleyball team that competed in the 1964 Olympics. Darnold's athleticism is evident when- ever he sets up in the pocket. The Capis- trano Beach, Calif., native can scramble away from trouble (as evidenced by his 230 rushing yards), and like his Penn

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