Fee Fi Foe Film: Penn State Offense

rinse, repeat

Welp.

Ace (2:36 pm): oh god I just realized the only logical game to scout for penn state is... the rutgers game.
Brian (2:36 pm): hahahaha

If you need a refresher, here's the original Rutgers defense FFFF post, which looked at the exact same set of snaps, just from the other perspective. This game was really, really ugly, with Rutgers completely shutting down PSU's running game while hounding Christian Hackenberg with their pass rush; in general, RU overwhelmed what has been a very bad PSU O-line to date.

Personnel. As you can see in Seth's diagram, Penn State's offense sorely lacks experience, including on the much-maligned O-line, which features just one returning starter and two players in their second year on campus [click the diagram to embiggen]:

Jourdan Lewis, meanwhile, has earned full-blown ninja star status.

Penn State tends to put two tight ends on the field regardless of their alignment, and they'll even insert a third on occasion. With TEs that can also double as jumbo receivers, however, they still have plenty of flexibility with their offense; this will be highlighted in the play breakdown. When they do go three-wide, usually on obvious passing downs, DaeSean Hamilton slides into the slot and freshman Chris Godwin flanks him on the outside.

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Spread-ish? Penn State lines up in the gun most of the time and throws it quite a bit, but that seems to be more necessity based on ability—the O-line can't really pass-block or run-block, so it's best to start the QB as far away from the line as possible—than a stylistic choice.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Penn State didn't run from their base set much at all—nearly half of their 33 "rushes" were either Hackenberg sacks/scrambles/sneaks (12!), futile plunges out of the Wildcat (2), or fly sweeps (2). They mostly tried outside zone or quick pitches to the edge when they did; they were clearly trying to mitigate the damage their interior line could inflict on themselves.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Varied. PSU mostly played it relatively slow, huddling up between snaps, but they'd go up-tempo to catch the defense off-guard, usually to covert third-and-shorts or to try to hit a big play after gaining a first down.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Hackenberg isn't a downfield running threat; his longest carry—and PSU's most successful play out of the Wildcat—went for nine yards when nobody came open on a trick double pass and Hackenberg managed to wander downfield while Rutgers bugged out for the downfield receivers. He did show some ability to make the first free rusher miss, and when he wasn't subsequently snowed under he found ways to reset and get the ball downfield:

It's not easy to do that to Darius Hamilton, and less easy to fire a laser like that afterwards. I'll give Hackenberg a 3 on this scale and note that a huge key for Michigan is not just getting one rusher free, but a second wave ready to clean up should Hack avoid the initial rush. That's unfortunately not something M has been very successful at this year, though the Penn State line eerily resembles 2013 Michigan's, so this would be the week for them to make it happen.

Dangerman: It can be nobody but Hackenberg. He's essentially tasked with being the offense, and for the most part he plays beyond his years, especially when considering how often he has to elude free hitters.

Since quarterbacks get covered pretty heavily here, I'll note the other players to earn the "dangerman" star in the diagram. Geno Lewis is Penn State's big play threat, capable of finding gaps between zones deep downfield...

...or grabbing a slant and getting a big chunk after the catch. PSU threw a lot of slants in this one with middling success aside from the play linked in the previous sentence, but with how often Michigan has allowed free inside releases this season, Hackenberg could find more success with them this weekend.

The other star is tight end Jesse James, who's got two touchdowns among his 15 receptions; he's a massive target and much more than just a red zone threat—he'll work out of a variety of spots, including H-back and the occasional snap split out wide.

Zook Factor: This game included a few questionable punts. The first came on 4th-and-2 from the Rutgers 46-yard line; while PSU managed to down that punt at the 7, a team with a semi-functional running game probably goes for it. The second came on 4th-and-3 from the RU 48. The third came with a twist: while PSU had a long way to go on 4th-and-13 from the RU 36, deciding to try a pooch punt with Hackenberg—which went all of five yards—probably wasn't the ideal approach. Hack's no Brian Griese, I guess.

HenneChart: The chart for Hackenberg looks pretty awful, which makes sense after a game in which he completed 57% of his passes at a middling 7.0 YPA with no touchdowns and a pick:

Hackenberg alternated great throws with poor ones, and the poor ones couldn't all be chalked up to pressure. He was shaky on a few of his many screen attempts, causing Hamilton some problems trying to haul them in, and the quick slants were also a little erratic. I can't explain what he thought he was looking at here:

That's an interception probably eight out of ten times, and on none of those does the pass get completed to the intended receiver. Hack's interception, meanwhile, came not on a bad read but a simple overthrow, which is bad when the target is a 6'7" tight end with skillet-sized hands.

Then Hackenberg makes NFL-level throws like the one after he escaped Hamilton, and he gets production out of an iffy, inexperienced group of receivers with zero support from his running game. This is what would happen if 2005 Chad Henne had three good tight ends instead of three NFL-caliber receivers and a non-functional OL.

OVERVIEW

Penn State operated mostly out of the shotgun, and many of their nominal I-form snaps came when a tight end (usually Kyle Carter) lined up at fullback—some of the Ace and I-form snaps could be categorized as the other because the only difference was where the H-back-type lined up (I-form if he lined up at the midpoint between the QB and RB, though they were always offset, and Ace if he lined up closer to the LOS):

Most of the passes from under center were quick screens. All the plays from the Wildcat had about this level of success....

...save the one when Hack saved a well-covered play with his legs. The Wildcat apparently worked well for PSU against Akron, but Rutgers was decidedly not Akron.

You can see based on the breakdown by downs that PSU got behind the sticks quite a bit—only twice were they able to get close enough on third down to try to convert via the run, and even on first down they usually eschewed the "establish the run" mantra in favor of trying to gain actual yardage.

There's good reason for this, of course. PSU's interior line had a disastrous outing, especially center Angelo Mangiro. Here Mangiro gets blasted off the line so hard Bill Belton has to loop around him the moment he receives the handoff:

I had to check to make sure this wasn't the same play I'd clipped for the Rutgers defense film post—it was not. He also had to take hold immediately after another snap to keep the above from happening again, and had a second holding call while pass-blocking that wiped out a third-down TD pass to James on PSU's eventual game-winning drive—Hackenberg had to bail him out with a 3rd-and-12 conversion.

The rest of the interior line didn't fare much better. Right guard Brian Gaia also committed a hold that negated a big passing play; in general, PSU couldn't get much push up the middle and had a hard time handling RU's quick DTs on the pass rush—they also got victimized on a couple stunts. Left tackle Donovan Smith performed well as a pass blocker, but committed one of PSU's two false start penalties—a bugaboo for him throughout his career—and didn't jump off the screen as a run-blocker, though in fairness to him that was hard to do given the limited opportunities and general mess on the interior.

Bill Belton, who looked like PSU's best back a year ago despite backing up Zach Zwinak, has taken over as the feature back, and he looked good when given any sort of room to run. He's a good athlete who can also carry the pile a bit, and he's also a decent receiver out of the backfield—he's dangerous on slip screens, and he also had a catch along the sideline in this one when PSU emptied the backfield pre-snap. Zwinak barely played in this one; he looked the same as he did last year, which is to say he's essentially a lesser version of Iowa's fullbackian Mark Weisman.

Lewis is the most dangerous receiver, but Hamilton could also give M some problems—he's very similar in both build and style, getting a lot of his yards after the catch. Neither poses a major jump-ball threat—these guys aren't built to play Denard-to-Junior (or Hack-to-Robinson) style—but they can still break big plays. At tight end, James and Carter are both proven weapons in the passing game, and third TE Mike Gesicki has a reception in all but one game this year, as well. There's no Allen Robinson here, thank goodness, but Hackenberg still has decent targets when he's afforded the time to find them.

Michigan should be able to shut down PSU's running game thanks to the mismatch of Glasgow/Henry against this interior O-line; Henry will be in for a big day if he can be half as good as Hamilton was against PSU. It all comes down to getting that second wave of pressure on Hackenberg and making sure Lewis/Hamilton don't break free on quick-hitting passes—PSU will put pressure on M's pressing corners and try to put the safeties in a position where one bad angle leads to a significant gain.

PLAY BREAKDOWN

Here's an example of the formational flexibility Penn State displays despite the number of tight ends they like to put on the field. On this play, they initially line up with an empty backfield, though a closer look reveals that they only have one true wide receiver on the field:

Hackenberg then orchestrates a mass shift, going under center while the rest of the offense lines up in an Ace formation with 2 TEs to the boundary:

That part of PSU's offense is good—opponents have to respect the fact that all of their TEs, as well as Belton, are capable receivers, and PSU passed out of similar empty sets earlier in the game. This time, however, they try to take advantage of Rutgers perhaps expecting pass by running a quick pitch to the boundary. The left side of the line bashes forward while the right guard pulls outside and the tight ends block down:

The problem, as you'll see, is the eight PSU blockers on this play take out maybe four Rutgers defenders. One of the linemen from the mass push on the left side just falls over as Belton receives the pitch:

As Belton starts to head upfield, that mass of linemen is essentially blocking two guys with three people, while the backside DE has already beaten Gesicki's block (right hash at the LOS below) and multiple Rutgers defenders are already flowing to the point of attack:

Gesicki losing his man causes Belton to bounce just as the pulling guard begins to lose his block, and nobody has accounted for the playside linebacker even though six of PSU's blockers are past the line of scrimmage:

Gesicki loses contact with his man entirely, the pulling guard—probably not expecting a bounce-out here—falls over and loses his man, and Belton has nowhere to go:

Video:

Penn State can throw a lot of looks at a defense. Thus far, it doesn't appear they can consistently run out of any of them.

No, that doesn't sound disturbingly familiar, I have no idea what you're talking about.