The young defense is still working it out
The Ohio State defense was pretty good Saturday, but there’s still some growing to do. OSU jumped out to a 14-0 lead and Penn State outscored OSU 25-24 from there.
The offense never really let its foot off the gas, but the Nittany Lions were able to have success moving the ball on short and quick play-action passes out of the read-option. Shaun Wade is obviously otherworldly but he gave up a couple of big plays while Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford was able to pick on some mismatches with some of the other defensive backs.
We knew that part of the defense would be the big question mark, and so far that’s held to be true. The good news is that there’s still time to figure things out back there, and Ohio State won’t face that kind of personnel again until maybe the Michigan game.