Path to Victory: Three things Penn State football must do to beat Maryland
Penn State Nittany Lions football travels to Maryland looking to snap a three-game losing streak on Saturday.
The Nittany Lions will also be looking to bounce back against the Terrapins, who came to Beaver Stadium last season and left with a 35-19 victory — just their third in 44 games against Penn State all-time.
How can Penn State get it done in College Park? Let’s check out three keys:
Keep Maryland’s offense one dimensional
Penn State’s run defense produced about as solid a performance as one could ask for last week against TreVeyon Henderson and Ohio State.
They’d do well to double down.
The Terrapins are 1-3 in their last four games. Over that four-game stretch, they haven’t exceeded the 100 rushing yard mark once. In their previous four games — all wins— they averaged 166 rushing yards per contest.
Maryland coach Mike Locksley said this week that he wants more balance from his offense. Given those numbers, it’s easy to understand why.
If the Nittany Lions can limit or eliminate the threat on the ground from Maryland early in the game and make the Terps predictable, the Penn State defense should encounter few problems.
Tackle well in space
Penn State’s defense, in general, has greatly improved its tackling this season.
That standard slipped to some degree last week, when the Nittany Lions missed a few tackles in space that led to big plays.
There was a similar issue last season against the Terps, who put up 35 points in Happy Valley.
Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa owns the second-lowest average depth of target in the Big Ten at 7.3 yards. Tagovailoa throws 29.3 percent of his passes behind the line of scrimmage, and 35 percent of his passes between zero and nine yards downfield.
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Clearly, getting playmakers in space is a major objective for this Maryland attack, and Penn State’s ability to close down that space could decide this game.
Find secondary options on offense
Penn State’s offense can’t just be the Jahan Dotson show.
With a healthy Sean Clifford under center, it seems a relatively safe bet that Dotson is going to produce. Beyond that, the question marks appear.
Can Penn State run the ball effectively? The answer for most of the season has been a resounding “no.” Should that continue to be the case, the secondary options in the passing game need to step up.
One player not named Dotson has produced an 80-yard-plus game through the air this season, and that’s Parker Washington. He’s done so twice, including last week against Ohio State.
If that’s the start of a new trend for Washington, the Penn State offense finds itself in good shape. If not, KeAndre Lambert-Smith, or perhaps one of the tight ends will need to ramp up the production.
