Welcome to the Whiteout!
In two days, the Penn State Nittany Lions will welcome the Oregon Ducks to Beaver Stadium following Oregon's 2,400-mile cross-country trip to play a regular season college football game. Now there's a lot to unpack from that sentence, but we're going to focus our efforts on the football players and coaching staffs taking part in the game.
We'll start with the Ducks. They're awesome. This is no surprise to anybody that follows college football at all. While they're sort of starting a first-timer at QB, there are two massive caveats to this. First, Dante Moore did make five starts at UCLA in 2023, so even though he only attempted eight passes with the Ducks in 2024, he threw 219 balls for the Bruins in 2023. Second, Moore is a superstar prospect. He trailed only Arch Manning and Alabama DE Keon Keeley in the On3 composite recruiting rankings, coming in just ahead of WR Zachariah Branch and S Caleb Downs. Moore has size, pedigree, experience, a huge arm, and loads of production thus far in 2025. He moves around in the pocket with comfort and ease. He's been extremely productive against overmatched competition this year, completing 74.7% of his throws and averaging 10.1 yards per attempt. Sure, it's crummy competition, but that's what you're supposed to do against bad teams.
Although Moore doesn't have WR Evan Stewart available to him this year, there's still more than enough talent at the skill position spots. WR Dakorien Moore, the #1 WR in the 2025 class, is already a star. TE Kenyon Sadiq is a star, too. There's more than enough depth behind those two to field an elite pass-catching unit. The offensive line lost OTs Josh Conerly Jr. and Ajani Cornelius to the NFL, but three new transfer starters mean that the OL is strong and deep.
The defense lacks the same big-name star power as the offense, but there's incredible depth with big-time collegiate production. LB Bryce Boettcher is a tackling machine, but the three names of most renown here are a pair of DBs and an edge. The DBs, CB Brandon Finney and S Dillon Thieneman, should be familiar to Penn State fans. Finney was an elite recruit from McDonogh in Baltimore, long thought to be a Penn State lean before surprisingly locking in with the Ducks and immediately forcing his way onto the field as a true freshman, amassing 101 snaps over his first four college games. Thieneman has had a solid start to 2024, but he is best known for his starring role at Purdue over the two prior seasons. The scary edge, Matayo Uiagalelei, was largely held in check by the Nittany OL in last year's Big Ten Championship Game, but he looks noticeably improved. The Oregon defense has allowed just 37 points in four games thus far in 2025.
Add it all up and we have the nation's #1 team by SP+. Oregon boasts the nation's #2 offense and #5 defense per Bill Connelly's metric. This is a confident, loaded team -- coach Dan Lanning has signed a top-seven recruiting class in three consecutive cycles with another on the way. Lanning's squad has just two losses in their last 26 games. *Gulp*
But Penn State is no slouch, at least not on paper.
Entering the 2025 season, the Penn State rushing offense looked awesome! And, so far, they've been...fine. The offensive line is incredibly talented with a top-notch two deep. They struggled a bit against Nevada in the opener, but the rushing attack picked up in a big way against FIU and Villanova. The OT situation remains remarkable. LT Drew Shelton is in his second year as a full-time starter, but he has over 1,900 career snaps at LT. RT Nolan Rucci underwhelmed at Wisconsin before transferring and struggled to make an impact early at Penn State, but by the end of 2024, he was the team's best offensive lineman. RG Anthony Donkah was starring at RT before suffering an injury last year, but he's too good to back up Rucci, so he's now playing the role of brick wall on the interior. C Nick Dawkins has nearly 1,400 collegiate snaps. And LG Vega Ioane, in his third year as a starter, has been consistently the best member of the group.
Seniors Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton have looked quite different thus far in 2025 -- Allen looks very impressive whereas Singleton looks a bit sluggish -- there's elite talent here. The TE room is led by emerging star Luke Reynolds. Senior Khalil Dinkins has disappointed a bit, but Andrew Rappleyea is back from injury, so the room remains strong.
Of course, you cannot discuss the Penn State offense without discussing the wide receivers. They've been good enough. USC transfer Kyron Hudson has flashed some top-end skills. Troy transfer Devonte Ross was injured in camp and appears less explosive than expected. And Syracuse transfer Trebor Pena looks like the reliable, solid citizen he was expected to be. There's no real star power here, but there is competence...so far. This trio wasn't brought in to face Nevada, FIU, or Villanova.
The offense has been extremely underwhelming thus far. There's been a lot of discussion that the PSU offense has been "working on things" in the first few weeks of the season. That's fine...but the things that they're working on aren't working. And they're primarily working on having Drew Allar push the ball down the field.
I remain extremely confident in the Penn State rushing attack to gobble up yards against the Oregon defense. But I have no confidence at this point that Allar will make plays that help win the game.
History makes it hard to be too hopeful. Allar hasn't lacked for opportunity against quality competition. In his career, he has started 10 games against AP Poll-ranked opponents. The results have been underwhelming, to put it mildly.
Those results aren't pretty. But they hide just how ugly Allar's production has been against teams with similar talent levels. Back in the summer, I took a deep dive on the "Blue Chip Ratio" of Penn State's rosters under James Franklin and looked at Franklin's results against BCR peers; the results are ugly. Updating the chart above, the BCR peers would cause us to remove Iowa, Illinois, SMU, and Boise State as teams where Penn State's roster absolutely dwarfed the talent of the opposition.
Hey, the yards per game increased -- that's good! Unfortunately, everything else looks decidedly worse with his putrid completion percentage dipping below 50%, his TD/game rate dropping, and his INT/game increasing.
I don't need to explain to anyone whether the 2025 Oregon roster aligns them with Iowa, Illinois, SMU, and Boise State...or Ohio State, Michigan, Mississippi, Notre Dame, and 2024 Oregon. 2025 Oregon is absurdly talented. Allar will need to find a way to produce a career-best game against the Ducks, right?
Maybe...but maybe not.
It's plenty conceivable that Penn State has two completely distinct paths to victory. One of them involves a shootout akin to last year's matchup in Indianapolis but with Oregon producing less with Moore at the helm than they did when Dillon Gabriel was in charge. Even though that shootout featured 82 points, the Penn State WRs totaled just six grabs for 81 yards. The rushing attack absolutely gashed the Ducks, gobbling up 297 yards on just 34 attempts. If the Penn State offense moves the ball like that on the ground again, they could outscore a potent Ducks attack. After all, Penn State features SP+'s 9th ranked offense in spite of Allar's struggles.
But it'll probably be easier to just slow Oregon down.
The Penn State defense remains loaded in ways both unexpected and surprising. The secondary has been wonderful. No surprise there. Star CB AJ Harris hasn't made an impact primarily because nobody has thrown the ball in his general direction. There's still star power in there. Across from him and in the slot, Zion Tracy, Elliot Washington, and Audavion Collins have all produced in returning roles, but the group has gotten a big boost from newcomers Jahmir Joseph and especially Daryus Dixson; I suspect we won't see any of Joseph or Dixson on Saturday, but they may have forced their way into roles. The safety rotation will likely tighten, too, but led by Zakee Wheatley and King Mack, that's OK. I'll be interested to see how much Antoine Belgrave-Shorter plays after winning a starting job in camp, then scuffling a bit.
The linebacker group lacks depth, but thankfully, both Tony Rojas and North Carolina transfer Amare Campbell have starred thus far. Dom DeLuca would be a terrible mismatch against Sadiq and neither Keon Wylie or Anthony Speca has produced enough to force their way into big reps on Saturday. If Rojas or Campbell goes down, it could be a big problem for the Nittany Lions. But so far, so good.
The DTs have struggled, largely because Zane Durant hasn't made an impact yet. Alonzo Ford has played plenty coming back from injury, Owen Wafle has contributed, and Xavier Gilliam has shown the promise Penn State saw in camp. I'm most interested to see whether Texas A&M transfer Enai White gets run in an obvious pass rush situation this week. Regardless, Durant will determine whether this group thrives or struggles on Saturday.
Or maybe the DEs will dictate the game. After spending 2024 largely in Abdul Carter's shadow, massive DE Dani Dennis-Sutton has played at an All-American level thus far in 2025. He's playing the role of game-wrecker in the PSU defense. The spot across from him appeared problematic in August, but so far, so good for two unexpected reasons. First, super senior Zuriah Fisher has stayed healthy enough to contribute. He's not playing a lot, but if he manages even 30 snaps on Saturday, the group will get a huge boost. But now we get to Chaz Coleman. Coleman was a huge scouting win as an Ohio recruit who committed to PSU just before Ohio State offered him a scholarship. He stayed with his commitment and finds himself playing starter-level reps as a true freshman. Like Finney at Oregon, Coleman looks the part and has been incredibly impressive. In previewing the season, I lamented the loss of Max Granville to injury in the offseason, hoping that either Jaylen Harvey or Mylachi Williams would step up. Neither has, but Coleman has more than made up for that.
Could the Penn State defense stifle the Oregon offense? Sure! But "stifle" is a relative term. I think that holding Oregon to anything less than 27 points would be a huge win. Something will likely have to give in a matchup of the #2 offense and the #4 defense.
I mentioned Lanning above. I can't finish this piece without addressing James Franklin's performance against elite opposition. Personally, I don't think it's fair to tag Franklin with results from the 2014 and 2015 seasons. He was playing with somebody else's players and subject to somebody else's sanctions. So, starting in 2016 seems fair...but the results against top-10 opponents are still putrid. First, the wins:
- 2016: 24-21 v. #2 Ohio State
- 2016: 38-31 v. #6 Wisconsin
- 2022: 35-21 v. #8 Utah
- 2024: 38-10 v. #10 SMU
- 2024: 31-14 v. #8 Boise State
And now, the losses:
- 2016: 10-49 @ #4 Michigan
- 2016: 49-52 @ #9 USC
- 2017: 38-39 @ #6 Ohio State
- 2018: 26-27 v. #4 Ohio State
- 2018: 7-42 @ #5 Michigan
- 2019: 17-28 @ #2 Ohio State
- 2021: 20-23 @ #3 Iowa
- 2021: 24-33 @ #5 Ohio State
- 2021: 17-21 v. #6 Michigan
- 2022: 17-41 @ #5 Michigan
- 2022: 31-44 @ #2 Ohio State
- 2023: 12-20 @ #3 Ohio State
- 2023: 15-24 v. #2 Michigan
- 2024: 13-20 v. #4 Ohio State
- 2024: 37-45 v. #1 Oregon
- 2024: 24-27 v. #3 Notre Dame
Woof. 5-16 is not good. But five wins against top-10 teams might be kinda good? Maybe. But that's not the point. It's impossible to look at these results and miss the elephant in the room: four of the five wins are against teams with considerably less roster talent than the Nittany Lions. No disrespect to Wisconsin, Utah, SMU, or Boise State -- they all had wonderful seasons in the years in question! -- but they are not talent peers. Conversely, 15 of the 16 losses came to talent-level peers with only 2021 Iowa -- the game where Taquan Roberson infamously couldn't get off a snap -- sticking out. Franklin only gets blown out by Michigan at the Big House, but he also has one win against a top-10 talent peer in the last nine-plus seasons.
The 2025 Penn State roster is loaded with seniors that came back for a championship run. Add that to the above and it's clear: Nittany is desperate. They have to win this game. The fans know it. The players know it. And, almost certainly, the Ducks know it, too.
Oregon? Not so much. This game is gravy for the Ducks. They'll make the Playoff as long as they get two wins among their four most challenging contests -- Saturday night, October 11th v. Indiana, November 22nd v. USC, and November 29th @ Washington -- as they'll be massive favorites in their other four remaining contests. They're not expected to win this cross-country trip. They have nothing to lose.
I expect to see a very tight Penn State team welcome a loose, carefree Oregon squad. Yikes.
Penn State has a superb defense. Penn State has an elite rushing offense that has played well against every opponent for years. Penn State has an emerging star TE in Luke Reynolds and enough talent at WR to be relevant.
But they also have Drew Allar and his dreadful record in big spots. And Oregon brings their star-studded roster featuring a plus QB in Moore and a TE who is already a star in Sadiq.
I do not like this matchup. Prior to the season, I figured that Penn State would be favored by about 7 but lose 20-27. All of the movement since then has been toward the Ducks. I'm very surprised that Penn State remains favored by 3.5 in this game, but I do think that Vegas is factoring in roughly a 3-point adjustment for the Whiteout as it should've been a pick 'em. Even factoring in the Whiteout, this looks like a double-digit Nittany loss to me. I think that the defense will hold up well enough. But you have to feature a plus passing offense to be a serious team in 2025.
Oregon 31
Penn State 20
Thankfully, this is college football. Players are allowed to get better; it happens every year! Players are allowed to surprise us with their performances. That also happens every year. If Drew Allar surprises (in a good way, of course) on Saturday, Penn State should win this game.
We Are!
No comments:
Post a Comment