Despite miserable conditions on Saturday at Beaver Stadium, Penn State pulled (4-1, 1-0) out the win against Army (1-4) with a final score of 20-14.
Major Plays: Christian Hackenberg threw 156 yards, Nick Scott and Mike Gesicki scored touchdowns, and Joey Julius kicked two field goals in the win.
Recap: Army backup quarterback A.J. Schurr ran in the third and fourth quarters to give the Knights their two touchdowns of the afternoon. Army struggled to produce offensively after seven fumbles – only four of which were recovered – rendering Army’s standard triple-option offense largely ineffective.
Army was not the only team that couldn’t get off the ground; Penn State receivers had trouble getting down the field, battling bad conditions and a strong Army defense.
Head coach James Franklin recognized the deficiency. ”Not where we need to be, there’s no doubt about it.”
The struggling offense will prove to be a challenge to overcome, as the team’s “easy” portion of the schedule is largely over and conference play gets underway.
The offense was hampered even further by the fact that this is the first game that the Nittany Lions went without running backs Akeel Lynch and Saquon Barkley, who are both out for injuries. The return of these two critical players is necessary if Penn State hopes to overcome its unpredictable offense.
”We were inconsistent at times,” Hackenberg said. ”But I thought we executed pretty well when we needed to.”
Scott ran 11 yards just 5:03 into the first quarter to open the scoring for the afternoon. It was almost 25 minutes before Julius would add another tally to the board, kicking a 27-yard yard field goal with 25 seconds remaining to give the Lions a 10-0 lead to head into the locker room.
Schurr put Army on the board with a three-yard rushing touchdown late in the third quarter after an eight-play, 76-yard drive.
Penn State responded in kind; Hackenberg connected with sophomore Chris Godwin for a 49-yard pass before dropping a 33-yard floater to Gesicki as time expired in the third quarter.
”It was kind of a kickstarter to get our offense moving,” Godwin said. ”To have those two plays back-to-back was really awesome for us.”
Army scored one more touchdown – a 56-yard run by Schurr, who completed only one pass on the afternoon – to cut Penn State’s lead to six points and finalize the score at 20-14.
Penn State rounds out a five-game home series next week against Indiana at 12:00 p.m.
Photo credit: GoPSUSports.com
