The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 34-27 win over Bowling Green

Saturday was Tyler Warren’s day to explode for the Penn State offense. The tight end set a Penn State record at the position with 146 receiving yards and did it by catching all of his eight targets in the team’s 34-27 win over Bowling Green. That’s a stark contrast from last week against West Virginia when it was Tre Wallace who led the team with five catches for 117 yards.

That, in all likelihood, will be the theme of the Penn State offense in 2024. There may not be a true No. 1 option that Drew Allar targets week in and week out. Instead, it will be about offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki finding a weakness in the opposing defense every week and picking on it mercilessly.

“I think really it just comes to how our offense has been diverse through camp,” Warren said after the win over Bowling Green. “This game plan had some shots for tight ends and that’s what was open. But you saw last week with Tre, he had a lot of big plays. I think it just kind of speaks to the skill we have around the offense. This week it was me, last week it was Tre, the next upcoming game it could be somebody different and keep going through the season like that. So I think it just kind of speaks to what (Kotelnicki has) done and how we are embracing the offense and spreading the ball around.”

It’s one thing to want to target a player who is a mismatch for your opponent, but it’s another to actually plan it out and execute it. Through two weeks, that’s where Kotelnicki has excelled.

His creativity and play-calling acumen has allowed his players to shine and have the offense firing on all cylinders two games into the season.

“I think it’s just (that Kotelnicki) is creative in how he does stuff,” Warren said. “And it’s a lot of the same stuff, just dressing it up different and getting to it in different ways, running stuff with different people. But it’s really just, we’re trusting him, and he trusts us to go make the plays when our name is called.”

Good

Drew Allar: The quarterback will almost always take top billing here when he’s good because he’s the most important player on the field. Allar continued showing many of the same signs he did last week against West Virginia that make me think he’s turning the corner to be the player many expected out of high school. He navigated the pocket deftly, and wasn’t phased by pressure, even if it didn’t always result in a massive gain. But most importantly he showed off the howitzer attached to his right shoulder — firing in dime after dime through tight windows and into the hands of his awaiting weapons.

Allar needs to be the best player on the field for the Nittany Lions to get where they want to go, and through two games he has been just that. Eventually the conversation around him will pivot from whether he’s a first round pick in next year’s draft to whether he goes in the top 10.

Tyler Warren: Last week it was Tre Wallace exploding for a career high, this week it was Warren. The Penn State tight end was schemed open time and time again by offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, but he didn’t go down quickly after making his eight catches. Warren earned 62 of his 146 yards after the catch, plowing through opponents and carrying tacklers an extra few yards when necessary. He’s becoming one of the most valuable pieces of the offense because he’s an elite pass catcher at tight end — I’d argue the best in the country at the position — and a willing, physical blocker.

That allows Kotelnicki to deploy him in a myriad of ways without giving a hint to the defense of what the call will be before the snap. Warren’s eight catches for 146 yards will probably be the highest receiving out put he has all year, but there will be plenty of additional impressive performances if he keeps playing like he has to start the season.

Second-half defense: The good news for the Penn State defense is that it played at a really high level in the second half. Bowling Green quarterback Connor Bazelak was consistently under pressure and didn’t have easy access to throws that were designed to be easy for the offense to hit in difficult situations. The team’s other skill position players were generally covered better, and when the Falcons were able to complete a pass, they were brought down quickly. Unsurprisingly, that led to them only scoring three points in the game’s final 30 minutes.

The group played with an intensity in the second half that forced Bowling Green to play off its back foot, constantly reacting to the Nittany Lions rather than forcing them to react.

Bad

Coverage in the first half: It’s not necessarily all on Penn State that Bazelak went off in the first half — some of the throws he made were perfect — but the Nittany Lions didn’t do enough to make things difficult for the Bowling Green pass catchers. Too often the team’s coverage left a receiver open with a throwing lane available to Bazelak and he took advantage. There were even a few times where some of the team’s better defensive backs were in coverage against players they should handle, and instead they broke free and found open space.

That was especially true when it looked like the Falcons were running run-pass options and Bazelak was able to sneak throws behind Penn State defenders. Fortunately for Penn State, this seems like more of a blip on the radar than a real long-term issue.

Potential injury issues: The Nittany Lions were without two key players for the majority of Saturday’s game. Star safety K.J. Winston went out in the second quarter and did not return. It’s worth noting that he also did not have his helmet on the sideline. If he were to miss any time it could be significant for a defense that has elite players at the top of the safety depth chart but almost no depth behind them.

Tight end Andrew Rappleyea was listed as out on the availability report and was on crutches on the sideline during the game. While head coach James Franklin said he couldn’t provide more information on the injury, it’s never a good sign when a player is on crutches on game day.

Linebacker depth: This issue could be quelled by a personnel shift by defensive coordinator Tom Allen, but for now the team’s depth at linebacker is severely lacking. The Nittany Lions have Tony Rojas and Kobe King as impact players who can start in Allen’s 4-2-5 defense, but beyond those two there isn’t a lot to write home about for right now. Dom DeLuca and Tyler Elsdon have both provided positive impacts in the past, but both struggled in open space on Saturday. That has been especially true of Elsdon, who is a downhill player that is better attacking the line of scrimmage than dropping into coverage.

Allen could stick with just Rojas and King, or could drop safety Jaylen Reed into a true linebacker role and bring in cornerback Cam Miller to fill in at the lion position when necessary. Regardless, Allen may have to get creative to problem solve at times this season.

Ugly

First-half tackling: Ugly is probably too kind. I don’t know the last time I saw a Penn State team struggle to tackle like it did in the first half Saturday. Players attributed it to trying to lay a big hit rather than making the safe play — or falling prey to the atmosphere provided by its own home crowd. Regardless of why it happened, there’s no denying that it did. Defenders bounced off Bowling Green skill position players like they were tackling dummies, falling off to the side as the Falcons turned four yards into nine and 10 yards into 16.

This shouldn’t be an issue moving forward. But if it becomes a trend then this defense is in serious trouble when it takes on offenses like those at USC and Ohio State.