Lowly (great word) Illinois had No. 10 Penn State on upset alert in Champaign for most of Friday night. The Illini were close all throughout the first half and took a 24-21 lead early in the third quarter with this trickery to Ricky Smalling:
Penn State trailed Illinois in the 3rd ... and then won by *how much*?
The 63-24 final score looks normal, but how we got there wasn’t.
Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images
And then .................
...... Penn State scored touchdowns on its next six drives.
Meanwhile, the Illini went four-and-out, threw a pick, missed a pretty long field goal that would’ve cut it to two scores, had a drive peter out at midfield, and threw another pick.
The Nittany Lions easily covered the four-touchdown spread despite looking for a while like they might lose.
This has kind of been Penn State’s thing for a while now. Watching the Nittany Lions is a lot like watching Chip Kelly’s Oregon.
Remember how those Ducks would appear to be on the ropes at halftime every week, and then zoom to a respectable score?
Using S&P+, here’s how much the 2016 Nittany Lions improved over the course of their average game, from being a totally mediocre team on both sides of the ball in the first quarter to nearly unstoppable in the fourth:
Bill Connelly
In 2017, PSU played great first half offense, ranking top 10 in all four quarters in Offensive S&P+, but stepped it up after somewhat shaky first quarters on defense.
Penn State reverted back to its 2016 ways — that is, being a second half team. Miles Sanders scampered for 48 yards to give the lead back to the Nittany Lions, and from there, it was pure domination from James Franklin’s crew. Trace McSorley found Juwan Johnson on a pivotal third down to make it 35-24, and then following a Jan Johnson interception, No. 9 found KJ Hamler to put the game out of reach at 42-24.
Of course, that wasn’t it from the Nittany Lions. Ricky Slade scored twice down the stretch — one on a 61-yard run and the other on a 1-yard run. Meanwhile, Journey Brown also joined the party, scoring on a 6-yard run to give us our final of 63-24.
Still, despite the blowout, it’s probably fair to still have concerns about the game overall given Penn State’s play through the first 36 minutes or so — especially defensively.
Watching the highlights is pretty fun, unless you’re an Illini fan.
Drama ... drama ... drama ........ OK, drama gone.
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