No. 6 Penn State has cause for concern, particularly on offense [opinion]

Everything seems hunky-dory with the Penn State football team, at least on the surface.

The Nittany Lions are undefeated through five games, ranked sixth in both major polls and peppering teams by an average of 31 points a game.

They have their first 10-game winning streak of the James Franklin era and their first one since 2007-08.

Yet there’s cause for concern, especially on offense.

Saturday was supposed to be the day that the Penn State running game was going to erupt.

Northwestern, one of the worst rushing defenses in the country, had allowed Minnesota’s Darius Taylor to run for 198 yards a week earlier. Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen surely were going to finally break some long runs, but that wasn’t the case.

The Lions rushed for 134 yards, way below their offense’s average and way below the Wildcats defense’s average. They averaged just 3.4 yards per carry.

“We have to fix the run game,” Singleton said after rushing 21 times for 80 yards and one TD. “It’s going to work eventually.”

Well, it’s already working, just in a different manner.

Penn State is averaging 194.8 rushing yards per game, more than 13 yards above its season average last year. The Lions rank 28th in the nation and fourth in the Big Ten, but they’re averaging 4.2 per carry compared to 4.8 last season.

Therein lies the rub.

They’re grinding it out on the ground instead of hitting home runs like they did last year when Singleton had seven runs of at least 40 yards. They’re not pretty and they’re not sexy, but they’re effective.

The Lions rank 12th nationally in scoring, averaging 40.6 points per game compared to 35.8 last season. They’ve scored at least 30 points in 12 consecutive games and have scored in 32 straight quarters, both the nation’s longest such streaks.

“We’re a balanced offense,” wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith said. “The run helps the pass. The pass helps the run. Just stretching the field and making explosive plays helps us.”

The bigger issue on offense is the passing game, or the unwillingness to take a lot of risks in the passing game because of how dominant the Penn State defense has been.

“There are going to be games when we have to score more points,” Franklin said. “There’s no doubt about it. I think we’re playing good complementary football right now.”

He’s said that many, many times this season. Reading between the lines, he’s saying that he and offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich are playing it close to the vest. Why take a lot of chances on offense when you have the nation’s top-ranked defense?

Penn State’s passing yardage (235.6 per game) is down from last year when the Lions averaged 252.5. Drew Allar has about the same completion percentage as Sean Clifford did last season, but they’re taking fewer shots downfield either to protect the football — and Allar has — or because the receivers aren’t creating consistent separation from defensive backs. Or both.

“There are some things we gotta do in terms of separating at the top of our routes and being able to run past people,” Franklin said. “We took some shots. We had chances. We dropped one of them (Dante Cephas in the end zone in the fourth quarter). It would have been a huge play.”

Because opponents feel like they can play a lot of man-to-man coverage on Penn State’s receivers, that frees linebackers and safeties to stay close to the line of scrimmage to stop the run.

Singleton had a nice 16-yard run Saturday that set up a third-quarter touchdown. He finished with 119 rushing and receiving yards and two scores.

But he’s averaging just 56.6 yards per game and 3.8 per carry. Allen, who left Saturday’s game with an upper-body injury, is averaging 61.4 per game and 4.4 per carry. Third-teamer Trey Potts has run well in spot duty.

Penn State has a bye before playing Massachusetts Oct. 14 on Homecoming weekend and then Ohio State in Columbus on Oct. 21, its biggest test so far.

“We’d like to be more explosive, although I thought we did improve this week,” Franklin said. “I still think there are opportunities for more big plays with the run game and the pass game. That’s something we’re going to dig into deeply this week.”