Penn State's pressure gets home to finish Utah

For the first half of the Rose Bowl on Monday, Utah quarterback Cam Rising emerged fairly unscathed from the game of cat and mouse that he played against Penn State’s attacking defense. The Nittany Lions got close to Rising, but didn’t quite get home to finish the job. That’s nothing new for the Utes, who allowed their quarterbacks to be sacked just nine times through the first 13 games this season. 

Penn State used a variety of blitz looks in the first half that resulted in pressure without a finished product. There was no better example than the Utes’ biggest play of the night, in which defensive coordinator Manny Diaz dialed up a blitz that brought a pair of safeties and nickel cornerback Daequan Hardy on a 3rd-and-10. Ji’Ayir Brown and Keaton Ellis were a half-step away from dropping Rising as he let go of a floater that came up short of its target, but Utah wideout Devaughn Vele was able to adjust while Penn State corner Marquis Wilson was not, resulting in a 47-yard gain that eventually led to a score. 

Rising’s elusiveness frustrated the Nittany Lions, but the defense would keep the pressure coming. Penn State finally dropped Rising for the first time on the final play of the first half. 

“The guy is hard to sack,” Diaz said after the win. “Sometimes we were getting back there, we just couldn’t get the guy on the ground. But I also think when you’re relentless, and you’re chasing quarterbacks around and they’re running for their life that sooner or later that starts to tell. Pressure, I’ve always felt, is a cumulative thing.”

Penn State’s persistence started showing after halftime

A pass rush that got close in the first half started to get closer as the second half opened. Pressure became hits in the third quarter and hits turned into sacks in the fourth. After a Nick Singleton 87-yard touchdown run gave the Nittany Lions a lead in the third, the floodgates started to open. Rising tried to somehow take more upon his shoulders, but on a 3rd-and-7 he was flushed out of the pocket and went down awkwardly before a collision with three Penn State defenders. 

Rising would leave the game and not return. His presence far outweighed his numbers on Monday. he completed just 8-of-21 passes for 95 yards and a score and added 47 yards on 10 carries. Once he was out of the picture, things swung heavily in the Nittany Lions’ favor. 

“We understood that we were gonna get home,” said defensive tackle PJ Mustipher. “It’s really not that easy when you have a quarterback like that, who was a leader. He’s been there, done that. It’s really not that easy to get home, and he’s mobile. We just understood that if we kept rushing, kept going with our plan that we had in place, we’ll eventually get home. We just had to trust it.”

Quarterback change opened the floodgates

The stat line after Utah backup Bryson Barnes came into the game tipped heavily in Penn State’s favor. The Nittany Lions got to Barnes four times in the last 20 minutes of the game and allowed its only points of the second half with under a minute remaining. 

It was the mentality that Diaz and his veteran leaders on defense had been preaching to the unit since October. 

“We made a big point about closing the game, learning from the Ohio State game. Once we went up by seven in that third quarter, really I thought for the next 20 minutes we were just dominant,” said Diaz. “We just had a closer’s mentality today, that we were gonna take our game to a different level. It didn’t matter what we called, we were gonna have a chance to get home.”