Penn State dominates as it prepares for critical Big Ten matchup with Ohio State

James Franklin and Pat Kraft swayed and sang Penn State’s alma mater on a rain-soaked Beaver Stadium field Saturday evening, celebrating yet another win and yet another shutout.

The Nittany Lions had just defeated UMass 63-0 in a victory that was dominant and never in doubt.

Kraft and Franklin and the rest of the program took part in their usual postgame celebration. The alma mater concluded and soon enough everyone walked through the tunnel in the south end zone, cheering and acknowledging the fans that lined the opening above.

But as everyone involved celebrated as they normally would, there was a looming sense of irrelevance about what just unfolded. Not that the win didn’t matter — it does, they all do — but hanging over the victory is the knowledge of what comes next.

Penn State is once again undefeated as it readies to travel to Columbus for its biggest test of the season to date, against Ohio State, with its defense thriving and its offense doing enough to win games.

The last two times Penn State took the field in a home game, it shut out its opponent and did so in dominating fashion. Neither the Minutemen nor Iowa Hawkeyes seemed like they ever had much hope of scoring.

Defensive end Adisa Isaac said he believes in the impact of the momentum they’ve built.

“It builds a lot of confidence,” Isaac said. “There’s a lot of reps that you might have did better on. You might have made that mistake in practice and did better in the game. Everybody is improving each game. ... I feel like this is a good win for us moving forward.”

Momentum or not, there is no denying the level the defense is playing at. The shutouts are nice, but this is a unit that has seemingly broken the will of some of its opponents.

It has a pass rush that strikes fear in its opponents — earning seven sacks against UMass with 2.5 coming from Isaac and two more from Chop Robinson — and a defensive backfield with the shutdown ability to make even the best wide receivers have an off-day. For all of the impact they’ve had, they still don’t believe they’re at their best.

“I think we still have some growing to do,” Isaac acknowledged.

The defensive talent, scheme and execution is doing enough to keep it in any game, while the other side of the ball has done more than enough to earn a win through each of Penn State’s first six games.

But soon there will be a need for another step. Sophomore quarterback Drew Allar has been as advertised through six games, displaying the arm talent and poise that he has so frequently been praised for having. Through the first half of the season, though, he hasn’t been asked to go out and win a game.

That’s a credit to the team for the way its played. None of its games have ever truly been in doubt and haven’t required anyone — quarterback or otherwise — to go out and win it themselves.

Ohio State is a different animal. There will be a point in the game where someone steps up to decide the outcome. It could be one of the many stars on the defense, it could be one of the playmakers on offense or it could be Allar.

Through his first six starts, the sophomore quarterback has shown he can be that player, even if he still feels like he has room for improvement.

“I feel like I can still grow in every area of being a quarterback,” Allar said. “I think that just comes along with experience and I’m getting a lot more experience throughout each game. But I think at the end of the day, it’s just keep taking care of the ball and being very efficient. Because when you’re efficient and taking care of the ball you’re hard to get off the field, and that just plays into the whole team being complementary of each other.”

Franklin echoed many of the same sentiments, but ask him or his quarterback about Ohio State, and they’re not ready to talk yet.

Ask almost anyone, for that matter, following this win, and all of those possibilities next week are not something they’re currently considering — although Isaac mentioned that he feels the OSU game is a good litmus test against elite competition. Even with that lone comment on next week, the Nittany Lions fully intend on celebrating their well-earned win before moving onto the Buckeyes.

“I just want to have, like, a few hours of normalcy,” Franklin said. “And like, hang out with my wife. My buddy from Pittsburgh comes to all the games. I want the players to enjoy it for a couple hours. Because as we know, once Sunday hits and Sunday night hits and my tweet goes out, that’s all anybody is gonna wanna talk about. So I just want a couple hours of normalcy.”

In that response was a recognition of the magnitude of the game.

One that, thanks to this defense and the quarterback leading the offense, the Nittany Lions can believe they will walk out of with their undefeated record intact.