State College, PA- In front of a fired-up, Happy Valley crowd of 111,015 clad mostly in white, the now No. 2 Oregon Ducks fended off a late rally when Penn State knotted the score 17-17 with 0:30 left in regulation. The Nittany Lions scored on a Kaytron Allen four-yard run to take the lead in OT1. Jamari Johnson caught a two-yard TD pass from Dante Moore to tie, 24-24. In OT 2, Oregon scored quickly. A 25-yard scoring pass to Gary Bryant, Jr. took the lead 30-24 as a two-point conversion failed.
For Moore, the pass marked his third TD through the air this evening. Penn State’s ensuing possession resulted in Drew Allars’ pass interception. Thrown into a crowd of Duck defenders, DB Dillon Thieneman picked it off to seal the Ducks win. Oregon (5-0, 2-0) recorded their 23 straight regular season victory and their 12th against no losses all-time in Big Ten play.
Nothing new from the Lions
After Penn State (3-1, 0-1) won three straight one-sided non-conference games to start this season, Guest Game Analyst John Massimilla and I looked for the Lions to release their strong running attack with more power and deception with their dynamic one-two punch. We also looked for more passes aimed at the three new transfers playing WR this season. We witnessed little progress. A little did appeared eventually, but too late. The Oregon defense held the PSU offense to 189 yards in total offense just prior to their 62-yard scoring drive to tie the score.
QB Drew Allar completed only 14 of 25 passes for 137 yards and the two TDs at end of regulation. Like last year’s CFP loss to Notre Dame we attended, his final drive for victory ended with a poorly thrown interception. We understood that the hire of DC Jim Knowles from Ohio State should benefit the returning QB to help identify some areas to improve upon. Reluctantly for the Lions, we did not see changes we had hoped to see.
Little learned in three “blow-outs”
Penn State’s offensive scheme still shows little deception in looking off receivers or running play-action passes. For a team whose HC started QB at D-2 East Stroudsburg State for several years, you’d think such fundamentals could be identified as options or improvements to running this offense. Transfer WR Trebor Pena caught two passes for 16 yards among the three portal transfers raved about by Franklin. Troy transfer Devonte Ross hauled in Allar’s two late TD passes among four for 48 yards in this contest. Last year at Troy in 11 games, he caught 76 passes for 1,043 yards and 11 TDs. As of now, he has nine receptions for 125 yards and three TDs in four games at PSU. So much for all the bluster. What took so long for Franklin and OC Andy Kotelnicki to finally get him involved later against Oregon?
Oregon stepped up against Penn State
As for the running game, the Ducks held the Nittany Lions’ duo of Allen and Singleton to 18 yards in the first half. In the end, only 139 for the entire game. LB Bryce Boettcher led Oregon with 12 tackles. Dante Moore connected on 29 of 39 in the passing department with three TDs and no INTs. Dierre Hill rushed for 82 yards on 10 carries, and Dekorion Moore latched on to 12 passes for 89 yards. Defensively for the Lions, stellar performances came from LB Amare Campbell with 15 tackles and S Zakee Wheatley with ten.
Next in WEEK Six
Oregon heads back to Eugene for a second straight Big Ten Top Ten clash. The No. 2 Oregon Ducks will host No. 8 Indiana. No. 7 PSU heads west to the Rose Bowl to face struggling UCLA (0-5, 0-2). If the Lions have any shot at this years’ College Football Playoff, James Franklin needs to reassess his game plans quickly. His 4-17 record against Top Ten opponents needs to improve when the Lions meet No. 1 Ohio State on November 1 and Indiana at home a week later.
Against the Buckeyes, his record stands at 1-9 with his only win back in 2016. As for Indiana at home, even 115,000+ in Beaver Stadium guarantees him no assurance of victory. He better “pull all the stops” in his next three games at UCLA, vs. Northwestern and at Iowa to prepare his team to play as they need to against foes in the Top Ten that his teams struggle with. With this talent at Penn State, three losses this season seemed unimaginable. In his post-game press conference, Franklin probably rightly put the blame on himself. Hopefully, he has identified necessary changes and will be able to expose his “game-coaching prowess” many wait for.
Another undefeated team on our docket next week
We at collegefootballfan.com go to Navy-Marines Corps Memorial Stadium to see the Midshipmen of Navy (4-0) host archrival Air Force (1-3). It’s the first leg in the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy for annual supremacy in Academy football. The Mids return a core of offensive fire power from a year ago. QB Blake Horvath, FB Alex Tecza and Slotbacks Eli Heidenreich and Brandon Chapman return from their 10-3 finish in 2024. The Air Force Falcons defeated FCS Bucknell in their opener. In their three subsequent Mountain West games, they gave up at least 44 points in each. The Mids are intensely focused on winning the C-I-C Trophy once again over this and their other archrival.
And our tales keep rolling along, but catch our 45 previous seasons of games!
Click on the title of my book about this life-long adventure: Fifty Years of Tailgate Tales: The Good, the Fun, and the Ugly on Amazon.com. Read the reviews on the book page and get your copy today! If you’re trying to follow NILs and transfer portals, read what we predicted in 2023 and more. You’ll see we know what we’re talking about. In addition, we offered solutions to issues occurring that we anticipated when we wrote this book. Based on our game story above, this fun, unique life-long Journey continues. Catch up on the last 45 years, and then please submit a review. We hope you will get a kick out of our great adventure having seen every (well 134) FBS team play over the years! Two newest to be added later this season including Missouri State on Wednesday, October 8 after next weekend.
Edited by and photos taken by Steve Koreivo – Member of Football Writers Association of America and Author of Fifty Years of Tailgate Tales: the Good, the Fun and the Ugly
