generic Penn State Nittany Lions Preview 2022: Season Prediction, Breakdown, Key Games, Players
Penn State Nittany Lions Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Penn State season with what you need to know and keys to the season.
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Penn State Nittany Lions Preview
Head Coach: James Franklin, 67-34, 8th year at Penn State
12th year overall, 91-49, 2021 Preview
2021 Record: Overall: 7-6, Conference: 4-5
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Penn State Top 10 Players | Schedule & Analysis
Penn State Nittany Lions Preview 2022
How does Penn State get its groove back?
It’s a program that dropped 42 wins, a Big Ten Championship, a Rose Bowl appearance, and Fiesta and Sugar Bowl wins from 2016 to 2019 under James Franklin.
It knows success, it knows how to have great seasons even when Ohio State is awesome, and even though it’s not living in the national championship high-rent district at the moment, it’s not that far off from being in the College Football Playoff world if everything starts to break right.
Here’s the Penn State Is Half Empty way of looking at this.
The program is 11-11 in its last 22 games, it doesn’t have the O line or running game to be this year’s Michigan, and it’s coming off a rough finish going 2-6 at the end of last year.
Penn State Is Half Full …
Yeah, it had a historically bad start to 2020, but it kept the fight going and won its last four games, won the first five games of 2021, and while you are what your record says you are, the 2-6 finishing kick wasn’t that bad.
Okay, so it was that bad, but all six of those losses were fights, and a Penn State team with a better running game, stronger offensive line, and steadier downfield pop from the passing attack would’ve won a couple of those.
But enough with the excuses.
Franklin and Penn State can recruit, this team has enough talent to win any and every game on the slate considering Ohio State and Michigan State have to come to Happy Valley, and all it takes is a few flips to go from 7-6 mediocre to 10-3 strong.
How does Penn State get its groove back? It starts winning again no matter who it’s playing.
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Penn State Top 10 Players | Schedule & Analysis
Penn State Nittany Lions Preview 2022: Offense, Defense NEXT
Penn State Nittany Lions Preview 2022: Offense
The offense didn’t do enough. It was mediocre overall averaging 376 yards and just 25 points per game, struggling to hit tough downfield pass plays – even with Jahan Dotson stretching the field – and with little to nothing happening for the ground game.
It’s Penn State, so there’s plenty of talent to work around, and before getting into too much of a twist, there were plenty of chances to come through in close games against good teams. This won’t be a high-powered attack. It should be better, though, if …
The offensive line has to be stronger. There’s size, and there’s decent depth thanks to the transfer portal – getting Hunter Nourzad from Cornell and JB Nelson from the JUCO ranks to work at guard – but there are only two starters back.
Juice Scruggs will work at center, Caeden Wallace will return at right tackle, and then it’ll be a fight for just about everywhere else for a line that struggled for the nation’s 118th best running game and was awful at allowing defenses to get into the backfield.
Second-leading rusher and former star recruit Noah Cain is gone to LSU, but Keyvone Lee is the main man, superstar recruit Nick Singleton will get every shot at some work, and there’s good depth to rotate in if the line can pave the way.
Sean Clifford is back at quarterback after throwing for over 3,100 yards and 21 touchdowns with eight picks. He’s good, but with his experience and in his fifth year with the program, he needs to elevate the offense and team.
There’s no fight for the gig, but the battle for No. 2 will be interesting between last year’s backup Christian Veilleux and big-time recruit Drew Allar.
Jahan Dotson was the main man for the receiving corps with 91 catches and 12 touchdowns, but he’s a Washington Commander now.
Parker Washington and KeAndre Lambert-Smith form an excellent 1-2 punch – they’ll do more to fill the Dotson void – and in comes transfer Mitchell Tinsley, an 87-catch, 14 touchdown playmaker from the wide open WKU attack.
Brenton Strange and Theo Johnson are two good passing catching tight ends – they’ll combine for at least 40 grabs.
– For more Penn State football, check out NittanyLionsWire
Penn State Nittany Lions Preview 2022: Defense
The defense gave up plenty of yards but not a lot of points. It wasn’t great against the decent running teams, but the pass defense was good, and, of course, the idea is to avoid getting scored on.
The D only allowed more than 24 points twice – once came in the 33-24 loss to Ohio State, and the other time was in the 30-27 loss to Michigan State – no real shame there. Yeah, the defense could’ve been a wee bit better, but the offense should’ve been able to get to 24 points every week.
When the defense allowed 20 points or fewer, Penn State was 7-1. It was 0-5 in the other games, and again, it’s not like it got torched. However …
More of a pass rush would be a plus. The Nittany Lions got 9.5 sacks out of Arnold Ebiketie, but he’s done, and the second-leading sacker came up with just three and the team overall generated just 27.
The overall excitement on the line is over the new guys. Dani Dennis-Sutton is one of the nation’s best defensive end recruits, Zane Durant is ready to roll at tackle to go along what should be a strong front four.
The tackles are set with PJ Mustipher and Coziah Izzard a good veteran tandem, but the ends are going to be a work in progress.
It won’t be a problem, but it should take fall camp to figure it out. Nick Tarburton is a good veteran, but Maryland transfer Demeioun Robinson along with Dennis-Sutton will make this interesting.
The linebacking corps loses leading tacklers Ellis Brooks and Brandon Smith, and now Curtis Jacobs has to be the star of the bunch after making 61 tackles with three sacks. The other spots will be battles, but that’s not a bad thing – the Nittany Lions have options.
The secondary has a star in next-level corner Joey Porter, and Ji’Ayir Brown is the team’s leading returning tackler with 74 stops. Throw in Kalen King on the other side of Porter, along with a slew of good new recruits, and this group will grow into a strength. It’ll be even better, obviously, with more of a pass rush.
Penn State 2022 Preview | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Penn State Top 10 Players | Schedule & Analysis
Penn State Nittany Lions: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats NEXT
Penn State Nittany Lions: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
Penn State Nittany Lions: Key To The 2022 Offense
Start running the ball better.
It’s Penn State. It’s Saquon Barkley, Miles Sanders, and those are just the recent star talents for a program known for phenomenal backs over the decades.
Penn State shouldn’t be averaging 3.2 yards per carry.
There’s a decent commitment to the ground attack, but it’s just not effective. The running game failed to get to four yards per carry in either of the last two years average averaging 4.8 yards per pop in 2019, and that’s averaging over five yards per carry in 2020.
You have to go back to 2014 when the running game was worse than it was last year, and it starts with the offensive front. The backs are good, and now the push needs to come.
The offense only hit 145 rushing yards three times last year. the team won all three games.
Penn State Nittany Lions: Key To The 2022 Defense
The pass rush has to do more.
You have to go back to 2014 for the last time the running game was as bad as the 2021 version. You have to go back to 2010 for the last time the pass rush was as mediocre as last year’s version.
The 2.08 sacks per game were light, but it was more about the lack of consistency.
There were times when it rocked. Oddly enough, the four sacks against Illinois came in a loss, and the five against Arkansas also came in defeat. It has to come from several spots, but the Nittany Lion defense needs to be good enough to generate at least three a game.
Penn State Nittany Lions: Key Player To The 2022 Season
PK Jake Pinegar, Sr.
Can he get his groove back?
Pinegar hit 16-of-24 field goals as a freshman, nailed 11-of-12 kicks in 2019, and was an okay 9-of-13 as a junior.
Jordan Stout ended up taking over last year and hit 16-of-23 field goals, but he missed a 40-yarder in the 20-18 loss to Illinois and didn’t connect on a 27-yarder in the 30-27 loss to Michigan State.
Penn State will win its share of games without needing a clutch field goal, but the difference between being 7-to-8 win good and 9-to-10 win great might come down to a few kicks for a team that played four games decided by four points or fewer last year.
Penn State Nittany Lions: Key Transfer
WR Mitchell Tinsley, Sr.
The Nittany Lions might not have another Jahan Dotson, but they’ve got a few excellent targets in place for what should be a terrific passing attack.
Helping the cause is Tinsley, a 6-1, 203-pound downfield threat who made 43 catches in his first season at WKU and blew up last year with 87 catches for over 1,400 yards and 14 touchdowns.
He doesn’t have to be a No. 1 target, and he’ll be devastating in this offense as a 2 or 3.
Penn State Key Game To The 2022 Season
at Purdue, Sept. 3
It’s the problem when you lose a bowl game – you have to wait a long time sitting on a defeat.
Penn State closed out last season with a loss to Arkansas and a 2-5 record over the last seven games following a promising 5-0 start.
It needs to kick things off with a win.
Starting out at Purdue isn’t exactly a make-or-break moment before the season even gets going, but the Nittany Lions still have to go on the road to face Auburn and Michigan, and they’ve got to deal Ohio State, Michigan State, and Minnesota, too.
Penn State Nittany Lions: 2021 Fun Stats
– 1st Quarter Scoring: Penn State 80 – Opponents 33
– Time of Possession: Opponents 32:03 – Penn State 27:57
– Penn State opponents hit their last nine field goals and 18 of the last 20 after missing the first attempt.
Penn State 2022 Preview
Offense, Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Penn State Top 10 Players | Schedule & Analysis
Penn State Nittany Lions Season Prediction, What Will Happen NEXT
Penn State Nittany Lions Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Good teams win the close games. Great ones don’t let games get close.
All fortune cookie football wisdom aside, Penn State didn’t get rolled by anyone last year, and it had a whole lot of chances to put up a great season, but it couldn’t seem to catch any sort of a break over the back half of the season.
Whether it was Sean Clifford being hurt against Iowa, or being sucked into the vortex of miserable that was the Illinois game, or tough three point loss to Michigan State or the fought the good fight 21-17 loss to Michigan, the team was in every game.
The Ohio State loss was a one-score game late, and Arkansas pulled away, but there’s 7-6, and there’s 7-6 that could’ve been a whole lot better.
The recruiting class is great, there’s a good base of talent to work around, and now the lines need to up their respective games to make this more like a ten-win season than a fight just to get to a decent bowl.
Set The Penn State Nittany Lions Regular Season Win Total At … 8
The problem will be all the sneaky-tough road games before the huge-break easy ones kick in.
Going to Purdue and Auburn in the first three weeks will push this year’s team hard, and going to Michigan is obviously going to be a fight.
On the plus side, the only two road games over the second half of the season are at Indiana and Rutgers, and Ohio State, Michigan State, and Minnesota are all at home.
Of course, Penn State is supposed to be the team that wins all those home games against Ohio State, Michigan, and Minnesota, and going to Purdue and Auburn shouldn’t be anything to sweat over if everything is rolling.
Penn State will be better, but there will be just enough tough losses to keep this from being quite what everyone is looking for.
Penn State 2022 Preview
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Penn State Top 10 Players | Schedule & Analysis
