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yardage through the first half. Still, though not necessarily a bottom line proposition, McSorley boiled down what is happening to the Nittany Lions and what they're trying to accomplish on the ground of late. "It's frustrating because we all want him to have success in the running game. We know we have a really good running attack and we want that to be successful. But with how teams are playing us the last couple of games, selling out to stop Saquon or stop the run and leaving us with one-on-one matchups, playing man-to-man or giv- ing us easy access throws, we know we just have to take those," said McSorley. "The guys on the outside, we're ex- tremely confident in them, they're ex- tremely confident in themselves and we're confident in our offensive line to be able to block as long as it takes for us to be able to push the ball down the field and take shots. If we have to dink and dunk down the field, take easy throws, whatever it might be. "It's something that's almost a dou- ble-edged sword. We feel like we really want this running game to get going, but if teams are going to sell out, there's no sense jamming a square peg in a round hole. If teams are going to give us the pass, that's something that we gotta be willing to take." And take it, they did. By the end of the game, McSorley completed 16 of 21 passes for 214 yards with a pair of passing touchdowns to go along with his 13 carries for 44 yards and another score. Said Franklin, "I think we're always at our best on offense when Trace factors into our running game and keeps people honest and keeps people on their toes." In a game sped considerably due to Rutgers' ball control offense, the Lions finished with just 52 total offensive snaps to complement their 35 points. Franklin acknowledged that the Nit- tany Lions still need to be able to run the ball more consistently (2.9 yards per carry as a team) and protect more con- sistently up front, particularly a?er al- lowing two more sacks and six TFLs. DEFENSE SURGESDefensively, Penn State again started the game with a few of the recent story lines on display out of the gates. First, in having to confront another sudden change on the Barkley botched opening kickoff, then again as the Nit- tany Lions struggled to contain the Scarlet Knights early. "Defensively we've still got to be able to get pressure on the quarterback a lit- tle bit more consistently," said Franklin a?er a performance of just one garbage- time sack and only four TFLs. "We had some sacks, the quarterback did a good job moving in the pocket." In the first quarter alone, the Scarlet Knights were able to produce two 18- yard carries, but their success largely ended there. Able to generate only 46 yards of offense in the second quarter, Penn State put the clamps on further in the third quarter by limiting its guests to just nine yards of offense. "I don't think we allowed a first down from early in the second quarter until late in the fourth quarter," said Franklin. "So the defense I thought played really well against a team that had been run- ning the ball on people here lately." NO HANGOVER EFFECTAs for the slow start in all three phases of the game, the Nittany Lions did not want to attribute it to any sort of hangover from the back-to-back road losses at Ohio State and Michigan State. "I don't think it was a hangover," said Hamilton. "Obviously those were two tough losses two weeks in a row, but we were really just focused on Rutgers. We didn't care about what happened in the past anymore. We let that go and watched the film, moved on and we got over it. We were really focused on this. I think it just took us a while to get warmed up and get back to what we usually do." In fact, Hamilton's assessment of the Lions' poor start got even more blunt. "We knew that we weren't playing up to the level that we should be playing at. I think it was really just us waking up, essentially. That's all it really took," said Hamilton. "We obviously took a while to wake up, took a while to get in our stride as an offense and as a team, but once we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot and making stupid plays and killing ourselves, having negative- yardage plays and giving up big yardage plays on defense, we were able to play football like we always do." PERSONNEL NOTESThe increased ap- pearance of Brandon Smith at line- backer accompanied an absence of starter Manny Bowen. Franklin an- nounced the reasoning behind Bowen's absence a?er the game. "Manny Bowen did not play for a vio- lation of team rules," said Franklin. Meanwhile, Franklin also made note of a potential nagging injury to Barkley that had not been mentioned previously. Asked to discuss Barkley's body language given some of the frustrations he's expe- rienced the past few weeks, Franklin ap- plauded his junior running back. "He's been great. He's handled all of this unbelievably. I just got done meet- ing with the captains and he's been great," said Franklin. "As you guys know, we don't talk about a lot of things, but all these guys at this point in the season got little nagging bumps and bruises and things like that going on. He's no different than that." N O V E M B E R 1 1 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . c O M 12 Penn State's defense had a hard time con- taining Rutgers quar- terback Giovanni Rescigno initially. Photo by Steve Manuel

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