Penn State is in the midst of a potentially special season, but that vibe would change significantly with a road loss to lowly Purdue on Saturday afternoon in West Lafayette, Ind.
The Nittany Lions (8-1, 5-1 Big Ten) are No. 4 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings despite a 20-13 loss to then-No. 4 Ohio State on Nov. 2. Penn State rebounded from that defeat to roll past Washington 35-6 last weekend — a performance highlighted by Tyler Warren’s two touchdowns.
“Obviously you can see how many ways we got him the ball today, run-game wise, pass-game wise and even some of our option stuff,” Penn State quarterback Drew Allar said after the win over the Huskies. “We just try to get him the ball in the game plan as much as we can.”
Warren, a senior tight end, leads the Nittany Lions with 59 catches — nobody else on the team has more than 29 — and is tied for the team lead with four receiving TDs. He also has three rushing scores and is averaging 7.2 yards per carry on 13 attempts.
“I can’t see how this guy doesn’t win the Mackey Award and the Paul Hornung Award,” Penn State coach James Franklin said of the honors for tight ends and the most versatile player in major college football. “And they’d be proud of that guy representing their award because he does everything right, both on and off the field.”
Meanwhile, Allar has completed 70.3 percent of his passes this season. He has steady options in the backfield in Kaytron Allen, who ran for 98 yards and a touchdown against Washington and has scored in five of the last six games, as well as Nick Singleton, who has averaged 6.2 yards per carry this year.
The Nittany Lions hope to ride their balanced offensive attack to a deep playoff run.
“We value winning,” Franklin said, “and if you watch college football all over the country, it’s hard to win on a consistent basis.”
Franklin certainly would get agreement on that from Purdue (1-8, 0-6), which has lost every game since defeating Indiana State 49-0 in its season opener. The Boilermakers have faced two highly ranked opponents this season, falling to Oregon and Ohio State — both ranked No. 2 in the AP poll at the time — by a combined score of 80-0.
“There’s a multitude of reasons, a multitude of examples to point to as to why we are struggling with those types of opponents,” Purdue coach Ryan Walters said. “We’ll just continue to work on them.”
In last weekend’s 45-0 setback to the Buckeyes, the Boilermakers managed just 206 yards from scrimmage and went a combined 2 of 15 on third and fourth downs.
Hudson Card completed only 9 of 19 passes for 108 yards with an interception for Purdue, while Devin Mockobee was a rare bright spot with 73 yards on 13 carries.
“The bottom line is alignment, assignment, execution on both sides of the ball,” Mockobee said. “That’s just something we still are continuing to work on improving, tightening up. Because especially with these teams that (are highly ranked), you don’t have a large margin of error to be able to come in and do what you want to do.”
