Penn State vs. UCLA: Final thoughts and analysis of PSU’s home matchup with the Bruins

Penn State will host its only home game of October when it takes on UCLA at noon Saturday. The Nittany Lions will play the Bruins in Beaver Stadium in Week 6 of the college football season. Here are some final thoughts, questions and predictions ahead of the Nittany Lions’ matchup with UCLA.

Getting Allar in a rhythm

Penn State came out of the Illinois game looking like a team that could bully anyone on its way to victory, but it will still need a strong passing game in the biggest matchups of the season. That’s why getting junior quarterback Drew Allar in a rhythm and playing like he did in the first three games should be a focus in this game. Allar was not bad against the Illini, but he was not as good as he’d been to start the year and missed on a few opportunities that he previously hadn’t.

While he may not play the full game — more on that soon — he should get plenty of opportunities to sling it on Saturday. This UCLA defense is bad, but Penn State’s likely going to have to keep pace with a high-powered USC offense next week. The easiest way to make sure Allar is ready to go is to get him going against the Bruins and have him riding high heading into the team’s trip to Los Angeles.

Don’t get caught looking ahead

This is the only way Penn State loses this game. The Nittany Lions have an enormous matchup with USC next week that will likely be their second-most difficult game of the season. So it would be easy for them to overlook a UCLA team that has been beaten handily three times and narrowly sneaked out a win over Hawaii for its only victory of the year. The good news for Penn State is that it shouldn’t have to play a full game to pull away, but it will still have to play well for at least a half to secure the win.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this looks like what many expected the Bowling Green game to look like — one where the Nittany Lions go up at least three scores in the first half and pull their starters at some point in the third quarter once they go up a fourth score. UCLA QB Ethan Garbers’ status is up in the air — although UCLA head coach DeShaun Foster told reporters Monday that Garbers said he’s going to play — and could be less than 100% during the matchup. UCLA isn’t Kent State, but right now it’s much closer to the Golden Flashes than most other Big Ten teams.

Get out healthy and play the young guys

This was a staple during non-conference play, but this is where UCLA is at right now. Penn State should sit out any of its players who are at risk of furthering lingering injuries and should get its best players out of the game with limited reps. That means both Nick SIngleton and Kaytron Allen should get around 10 carries each at running back before freshmen Corey Smith and Quinton Martin Jr. take over. It means the young wide receivers like Tyler Johnson and Tyseer Denmark should get reps in the game to help them get adjusted to the college game.

On defense, it should lead to heavy cornerback rotation and as many reps as possible for safety Dejuan Lane and the team’s young linebackers as it navigates injury issues. Lane could be the replacement for injured safety K.J. Winston by the end of the season and getting him time will expedite that process. Linebackers Ta’Mere Robinson, Anthony Speca and DaKaari Nelson are both in need of reps while Keon Wylie is out with a long term injury. All three should rotate in early and often during Saturday’s game, which will only help them down the road.

Final predictions

Penn State 38, UCLA 10: I don’t think there’s any reason to believe this game will be close. UCLA has been put in a bad spot and it’s showing on the field this year. The Nittany Lions should roll to a win here and should dominate on both sides of the ball. Outside of Purdue in November, this is the team’s easiest remaining game of the season.

MVP: Dani Dennis-Sutton. The pass rush finally started getting home last week and I think that will continue against the Bruins. Dennis-Sutton has been good through four games and should have his biggest game yet. I’ll say he takes his season sack total from two to four and picks up a forced fumble on one of the two sacks. Of course, this game could get so far out of hand that Dennis-Sutton and the rest of the team’s starters don’t get a full workload to rack up stats on Saturday.

The last word

Penn State head coach James Franklin on the team’s decision making process for going for it on fourth down

“Yeah, so those things we typically discuss during the week. We have an overall philosophy and get together as coordinators on Monday and kind of talk through these things, how we want to play this opponent. Like I guess for example, last week early in the game, fourth and one, it was obvious that the stadium wanted us to go for it. I would say in a lot of games, I probably would’ve. But when you’re playing a team like Illinois and Bret Bielema where they are a field position team, all about field position with them, all about playing great defense, all about playing great special teams, very like Iowa, you would play Iowa the same way.

You want to force them to go the long field. You feel like defensively even with a punt you feel like defensively you should still be able to get the ball back in really good field position. But it’s going to be a field position type game, so that’s really what predicated that decision. In terms of going for it on fourth down on offense, I always want Andy to have his call ready after third down or excuse me, once he’s made the third down call, I want him to get in his fourth dawn you have down call.

I’ve already told him on first down what is a go. So we can handle our sequencing in terms of how we call the offense. They I will click over to Tom on the defense like I’ve always done, and say, ‘hey, what are your thoughts here? Thinking about going for it here. What are your thoughts?’

Because the result of that play, the defense is going to have to deal with. Always like to get their feedback. Did that with Manny and Brent as well. Ultimately going to be my call.”