Here are the 3 questions that will decide Penn State football’s matchup with Michigan State

Penn State football will try to close out the regular season with a win Saturday when it travels to Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan. The Nittany Lions will take on the Michigan State Spartans at 3:30 p.m. for their regular season finale.

They’re coming off a 28-0 shutout victory over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in a game which 35 of their players were dealing with an illness. The win pushed Penn State to 7-4 overall but did not get the team into the College Football Playoff rankings for the first time in 2021. All four losses came in a five-game stretch after starting the season 5-0. The losses began in Iowa City with the Hawkeyes, then followed with losses to Illinois at home and Ohio State on the road. The Nittany Lions were briefly back on track with a win over Maryland before dropping the game to Michigan, prior to defeating Rutgers.

The Spartans are heading home after having their CFP hopes derailed by Ohio State when they were shellacked by the Buckeyes 56-7 on the road. They’re the No. 12 teams in the CFP rankings with a 9-2 record and a 6-2 mark in the Big Ten. Their other loss came to the Purdue Boilermakers earlier this month.

Let’s take a look at the three questions that will decide the outcome of Saturday’s regular season finale between the Spartans and Nittany Lions.

Can Penn State take advantage of Michigan State’s secondary?

It isn’t much of a secret how bad the Spartans have been against the pass this year. Teams are clearly targeting the their secondary as the weak point of the Michigan State defense and Ohio State did it last week better than any team has so far this season. The Buckeyes shredded them through the air, blowing the top off the defense and beating it downfield time and time again. C.J. Stroud finished last week’s game with three incompletions and six touchdowns on 35 attempts.

Penn State redshirt senior starting quarterback Sean Clifford isn’t as talented as Stroud, but the design of offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich’s offense should thrive against the Spartans. Yurcich tends to free up receivers downfield or in positions to make plays in space and those are two areas Michigan State struggled with last week. It’s unfair to expect the Nittany Lions to have same success as Ohio State, which boasts the nation’s top offense, but they should still be able to find success against the Spartans through the air Saturday afternoon.

Will the Nittany Lions force the Spartans to throw the ball?

The other way Ohio State took advantage of Michigan State was by taking away its best weapon. Michigan State junior running back Kenneth Walker III was held to six carries for 25 yards in the Spartans’ loss last week. Now, the Buckeyes did so by building a lead so big that running the ball would be fruitless endeavor. That might be tougher for Penn State to do, but it remains a feasible way for the Nittany Lions to limit the Spartans offensively.

Getting a big lead would help, but Penn State could force Michigan State to throw by simply being stout against the run. This won’t be an attack like the one Illinois used with seven offensive lineman, so there shouldn’t be a need to do anything extravagant on defense. Instead, the Nittany Lions should stack the box and force Michigan State to beat them in one-on-one situations on the outside and make quarterback Payton Thorne throw the ball well in order to succeed offensively. That being said, Walker is good enough to make plays even in limited work, but keeping him out of the offense can only be a good thing for Penn State.

Will Jahan Dotson go out with a big game?

Given Michigan State’s aforementioned struggles in the secondary, this should be a perfect opportunity for senior wide receiver Jahan Dotson to close out his final regular season game as a Nittany Lion with a big performance. Dotson is arguably the best wide receiver in Penn State history and has had a career year to carry an offense that could be among the worst in the conference without him.

He’s the perfect player to go off against the Spartans in the same way many receivers have against them this year. He’s successful on short and intermediate routes, showing the ability to turn those plays into massive gains with his make-you-miss talent in the open field. He can get downfield in the blink of an eye, torching a secondary and forcing it to try to catch up as he blows past it. Dotson has had a prolific career as a Nittany Lion and, while he has another year of eligibility, it would be naive to think he won’t take his talents to the National Football League where he could be a first round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.