ALTOONA, Pa. -- This isn't the offense Mike Yurcich truly wants to run, but it's the offense Penn State has decided it needs to run because of Manny Diaz's dynamite defense.
The phrase James Franklin wants you to focus on is complementary football. But that's just a fancy, catch-all term coaches like to toss around.
In reality, this is all a matter of trust.
The Nittany Lions trust that their defense will control any opponent. And they do not want the offense, which they don't really trust all that much, to blow it.
That may not be a sexy formula, but hey, it certainly can be a winning formula.
With that, let's get into this bye-week edition of the midweek top five.
1. Yurcich, Diaz provide their perspectives
We heard from both coordinators on Zoom calls Tuesday. Let's start with Yurcich.
“Not satisfied with it thus far,” the OC said of the explosive play situation, which has been a big ol' dud. “Need to continue to grow there, both run and pass. Throwing the ball more down the field when given the opportunity to do so."
Let's stop right there.
Go back and read that last sentence again.
He's talking about Drew Allar there, yet adeptly doing so without sounding too critical of the prized young quarterback.
Allar has done a sensational job protecting the ball, no doubt about it, with zero interceptions in 158 pass attempts. That's nothing short of incredible for a new starting QB.
But let's be honest, Allar has been pretty lousy when it comes to recognizing when there's an opportunity to throw the ball down the field. On the first series alone last week at Northwestern, he had two plays where a receiver was breaking free, yet he took a short checkdown.
This season, by and large, has been one short checkdown after another for the gifted young quarterback with a cannon arm. Why is that? Why is he not seeing that guys have sprung free on some rare occasions and then letting it fly to somebody 25 yards down the field, as opposed to dumping it off 6-8 yards?
“We’re taking what the defense is giving us and being methodical moving the ball down the field," Yurcich said.
OK, fine. Penn State is 5-0, and the offense has done plenty enough to win games comfortably doing exactly what Yurcich said.
So, one might get the feeling that this style of offensive play is exactly what everybody wants to be doing, because of the whole complementary football thing and yada, yada, yada.
But if that were the case, we wouldn't be hearing in every single press conference exactly this:
"That’s good to keep our defense off the field, but we need to be more explosive," Yurcich said.
Here's where we're getting mixed signals. Franklin has said he keeps reminding Yurcich to not get "bored" with sticking to the methodical play calling. But in the very next breath when he speaks, Franklin will offer up the same old "we need to be more explosive" stuff.
If everybody were truly on board with this whole boring, methodical style of play, then we wouldn't keep hearing about the need to be more explosive. And if Yurcich were happy to keep calling boring, methodical plays, we wouldn't be hearing about the coach having to remind his OC to keep doing exactly that.
Hey look, Penn State is winning, and winning big. But all of this stuff is just strange. Because even though Franklin can say that he can point to a bunch of stats that show the offense is doing well -- the 30-point game streak and all -- everyone in the program has to know that there are some potentially serious flaws with that unit.
Mike Yurcich didn't get to Penn State by calling boring offensive plays. It's not in his nature. So, he's had to learn a very different style of calling games this year.
Whether he should have to be doing so is a big question. Because again, if his quarterback would just decide -- either on his own or through coaches forcing it on him -- to take some shots instead of always checking down, then we probably wouldn't be having these conversations week after week.
As Allar said when I asked him after the win at Northwestern, "I don't think people really realize how close we are to breaking a lot of things off. Maybe it's one missed block here, or one missed assignment here or missed throws by me. I had plenty of them today. So, it's all things that we can clean up, it really just comes down to timing."
All of that can be true. But it also could be the case that the coaches have driven it home so hard to Allar to protect the ball that they have, in some ways, prevented him from trying to be aggressive even when there is an opportunity there.
Penn State ranks 105th out of 130 FBS teams in passing yards per completion, at just 10.81. Allar is averaging an extremely low 6.9 yards per attempt.
Yurcich was asked Tuesday about having a "sexy" offense that passes the eye test, versus what we've seen from Penn State so far.
“We have to continue to improve in the areas that we need to improve (and have) more explosive plays, and we know that,” Yurcich said. “At the same time, we’re doing some good things, and our offense has to understand that we’re doing a lot of difficult things well -- putting long drives together, keeping the defense off the field, which helps them play better."
Bingo. There you have it. The defense is outstanding, and one thing that certainly helps is the offense staying on the field for as long as possible. When the Lions can do that, it makes the fantastic and rested defense even better.
THAT is the definition of complementary football. Even if it's not sexy.
2. It's obvious that the wide receiver situation is a big concern.
Yurcich even said so himself, when asked about the timing and chemistry with the wideouts.
“It’s a big concern with me right now and us as an entire staff,” Yurcich said. “We gotta remedy that fast. … That is a big issue we have to clean up."
That was the only time during our 20-minute Zoom call that Yurcich actually and openly discussed something being a concern. Unfortunately, no one followed up with any questions about why or how to fix it, so we were just kind of left with his short answer and that was it.
KeAndre Lambert-Smith is a good possession receiver. He leads the team with 25 catches for 372 yards and three TDs. Harrison Wallace III is second on the team among wideouts with 10 catches, and he's only played two games because of injury.
This team needs Wallace to be healthy and productive, because things look really bleak overall in the wideout department. Liam Clifford has caught eight passes for 83 yards, while Dante Cephas has seven catches for 103 yards. Malik McClain has basically disappeared since he dropped two balls at Illinois, getting only one snap at Northwestern. He has six catches for 71 yards.
No one can look at this wide receiver group and with a straight face say that Ohio State or Michigan will be all that worried about these guys. Sure, KLS will draw attention, but where oh where will this offense be able to find big gains through the air?
Franklin and Yurcich can keep talking about explosive plays. But in this case, it absolutely is not about the Xs and the Os, it's clearly about the Jimmys and the Joes.
3. Switching to the defensive side, where Manny Diaz is having a blast.
You could just see it in Diaz's eyes during the Zoom call that he knows he's got something really special with a unit that ranks No. 1 in the country in total defense, giving up just 210.6 yards per game.
"We look like we're having a lot of fun right now," Diaz said.
Why wouldn't they be having fun? The defense is loaded with good players, both in starting and backup roles, and they get to play in a scheme designed by Diaz that is throttling opponents.
"Our luxury is we have a lot of really good players and a lot of guys that can make plays," Diaz said.
Let's use this quote to kind of sum up where things are with the offense, compared to the defense.
"If everyone just does their job, the ball tends to find us, the negative plays tend to find us," Diaz said.
That means it's a natural, organic thing that's taking place on defense. Good players put in the right positions will just make good plays. Simple as that.
Compare that to the offense, where all we keep hearing about is the need to do more, even though that might not even be possible given some of the shortcomings.
Franklin knows what he has on his hands. He has a defense that is phenomenal. A defense that can win a national championship. And if you take a look around the country, it's not like the other top teams have sensational offenses. Sure, maybe Oregon and Washington are putting up great numbers, but c'mon, they're not playing anywhere near the caliber of defense that Penn State has.
The bottom line is, no matter how much we keep hearing about the need to be more explosive on offense, if the Lions keep playing like this on defense, Franklin will be perfectly fine sticking with a boring offense that doesn't take too many chances and doesn't turn the ball over.
That ain't sexy. But it can win a lot of games.
Whether it can beat Ohio State or Michigan, that's the million dollar question that we'll find the answer to soon enough.
4. Diaz's best line of the day
There's no way Diaz was gonna bite on a question about Ohio State, because there's still an opponent -- UMass -- to be played before then. But somebody at least tried to ask the defensive coordinator Tuesday if he has any thoughts about the Buckeyes.
“My opinions are absolutely very strong, and they’re absolutely going to stay to myself,” Diaz said.
While we cannot know for sure what Diaz might be thinking, the guess here is that he knows he's got a great defense and probably feels that Ohio State's offense isn't anywhere near as big of a challenge as it's been in the past.
5. We cannot forget about special teams
If Penn State is going to beat Ohio State or Michigan, I have a very strong suspicion that it will come down to special teams -- a made or missed field goal, a great or bad punt, a turnover on a return, etc.
We also got a chance to hear from special teams coordinator Stacy Collins on Tuesday. I'm gonna save what he had to say for a future story, as opposed to cramming it all into this one that's mostly about the offense and defense.
Be on the lookout for more on special teams in the coming weeks.
