What does Penn State need to improve in the second half of the season?

Penn State has completed the first half of the regular season and finds itself sitting in a great spot on its quest to compete in this year expanded College Football Playoff. The Nittany Lions sit at no. 3 in the major polls during their bye week as they prepare for a road game at Wisconsin and a home game against Ohio State in the next couple of weeks.

With Penn State sitting on a bye week, we decided to get together as a staff and share some of our options on the Nittany Lions before the second half gets started. We started off with quick midseason assessments of Penn State and continued with a look at our biggest surprises from the first half of the year. But what needs to improve in the second half of the season for the Nittany Lions?

Kevin: The one thing I am still waiting to see is more consistency out of the wide receivers. Tight end Tyler Warren is good enough to carry the load in every game remaining, but if Penn State is going to give a team like Ohio State or, potentially, Oregon in the Big Ten championship, a series challenge, then the wide receivers have to continue to pick up the slack.

We have seen multiple wide receivers come up with big plays throughout the first half of the season, but this offense will truly be unlocked when there are multiple receivers making big plays on a regular basis.

Shayne: Consistency on defense. They have had dominant weeks for sure, but the USC and Bowling Green games stick out as times where they easily could have lost due to the defense.

Charlie: I have to go with two things that are equally important for Penn State to improve: run defense and slow starts.

For a team that finished as the No. 1 run defense in the country, this season has been a big disappointment. The Nittany Lions currently rank No. 14 in rushing yards given up per game. It isn’t a terrible ranking, but…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/does-penn-state-improve-second-094928980.html

Author : Nittany Lions Wire

Publish date : 2024-10-17 09:49:28

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