keandre lambert-smith

At long last, a real team! After nine long weeks of drab opposition whose offensive FFFFs amounted to "will they move the ball? No", we finally have an opposing offense on tap that is mildly interesting. Of course, the Penn State offense haven't been world-beaters this season, apparent to anyone who watched the Ohio State-Penn State game live, but they are more talented and have far more weapons than any offense on the schedule previously. Get excited! 

The Film: There's a very obvious game to go with here, the OSU-PSU game. Ohio State is one of the two best defenses that Penn State has faced so far and it is a far more recent game than the Iowa matchup, which was in late September. That made it an easy choice, but I also am going to drop a few clips in from the most recent performance for PSU against Maryland, as it was the Nittanys' best offensive showing of the season. 

Personnel: Click for big. 

Penn State's QB for this contest is Drew Allar, a 5* true sophomore out of Medina, Ohio. Allar's arrival at the helm of the offense was much hyped this season after spending the 2022 campaign studying under Sean Clifford. Allar played a few snaps in garbage time against Michigan last season, but this will be the first time since 2018 that anyone other than Clifford starts for PSU against Michigan. Allar is a big kid with a big arm whose season has been defined by a remarkably low average depth of target and general inconsistency. He will feature heavily in this piece. 

The Nittany Lions return their two blue chip backs from last season, Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton. These two players were true freshmen last season when they edged past more experienced players to gobble up carries and this year they've owned the backfield all to themselves. Minnesota transfer Tre Potts is the nominal 3rd back, but he has just 20 carries to Allen and Singleton's combined 240. Of those 240, there's a near even split: Singleton has 121 and Allen has 119. The general consensus among PSU fans is that Allen's the more natural runner, backed up by his YPC clip of 4.8 to Singleton's 4.0. Both are talented players but their success on the ground has been constrained by anemic run blocking. 

If there's one area of this offense that looks very different from your typical Penn State squad under James Franklin, it's the receiver group. The closest thing to the level of receiver star PSU once had is the Dangerman for this piece, KeAndre Lambert-Smith. KLS is a good player, but I liked him more on last year's PSU squad, when the Lions had two other talented receivers to pair with him in Washington and Mitchell Tinsley. This year KLS is the only show in town, 51 catches for 645 yards while the next closest receiver of any kind has 24 catches and 246 yards. 

The other wide receivers besides KLS are particularly lacking, as the #2 and #3 receivers by catches/yardage are both TEs. The next two WRs on the depth chart below Lambert-Smith are Kent State transfer Dante Cephas and Harrison Wallace III, both of whom are extremely "meh". Dig deeper and it gets even thinner, with FSU transfer Malik McClain and Liam Clifford (brother of Sean) making next to no impact this season. Clifford played a decent bit in the game I charted and I felt he was dreadful. 

In the absence of supporting cast help for Lambert-Smith, PSU has been forced to play out of 12 personnel often this season, leaning on starting TEs Theo Johnson and Tyler Warren. Johnson, one-time blue chip recruit that Michigan sought after out of Windsor, Ontario, has not made the leap many hoped for, with subpar PFF grades across the board and a negligible impact in the team's biggest game to date (against OSU). Warren has been a multi-year blocking TE, forced into receiving duty this season with more catches in 2023 than he had in 2021-22 combined. PSU rarely ever uses a TE beyond these two, but if they do it's Khalil Dinkins. 

It's hard to discuss the PSU Offense's performance this season without honing in on the offensive line. After much offseason chatter about how Penn State would FINALLY HAVE A GOOD OFFENSIVE LINE, the bluster has (surprise!) not come to pass. LT Olu Fashanu has gotten considerable NFL hype but so far has only showcased that ability as a pass-blocker. At RT there may be the single biggest surprise of this OL, Caedan Wallace is not cyan'd after two straight seasons of doing so. The veteran appears to have improved by some amount, as he was not in the bottom two PSU OL against Ohio State (his PFF grades are solid too). However, is it really a good thing if Caedan Wallace is not one of your worst OL?  

I would say no, because the interior of the line looks real sketchy. Following in the theme of the tackles, push on the interior in the run game has been close to nonexistent. Sal Wormley gets the cyan at RG, while the tandem of JB Nelson/Olaivavega Iaone at LG do as well. In defense of Nelson/Iaone, they are filling in after Landon Tengwall hung up his cleats and decided to medically retire in late August, forcing these two reserves into a competition to fill one spot on the line. Center Hunter Nourzad, a one-time Cornell transfer, narrowly avoids the cyan, but he was put on skates numerous times by the defensive tackles of Ohio State. As for reserves, if PSU needs a third tackle, Drew Shelton is the guy

[AFTER THE JUMP: less words more video!]