The Penn State Nittany Lions are on their method to the School Soccer Playoff semifinals due to a 31-14 Fiesta Bowl win over the Boise State Broncos on Tuesday evening.
They now await the winner of Wednesday’s Georgia Bulldogs vs. Notre Dame Combating Irish sport, which they may face within the Orange Bowl subsequent week.
Listed here are 4 takeaways from Penn State’s win on Tuesday evening.
1. Penn State’s protection did its job
Particularly in opposition to Boise State working again Ashton Jeanty.
The field rating will say Jeanty had 104 yards on 30 carries, which is a really respectable quantity.
However that can also be just a little deceptive.
He gained 26 of these yards on one keep it up a third-and-long when Penn State’s protection was enjoying deep off the road, and he was restricted to only 78 yards on 29 carries. That’s simply 2.6 yards per carry. That was by no means going to be adequate for Boise State to win, and Penn State’s protection deserves a ton of credit score for limiting the very best working again within the nation.
Together with largely conserving him examine, additionally they pressured two Jeanty fumbles (one among which was recovered by Penn State) and intercepted Boise State quarterback Maddux Madsen within the fourth quarter on a pivotal drive within the sport.
What makes that efficiency much more spectacular is that Penn State’s greatest defensive participant, Abdul Carter, didn’t play many of the sport as a result of damage.
2. School kickers will all the time be an journey
Boise State kicker Jonah Dalmas has had an impressive profession with the Broncos, making over 87% of his kicks in 5 years.
He had a fully depressing evening on Tuesday. Lacking two subject objectives performed a giant function in taking momentum away from the Broncos.
The primary got here on Boise State’s first drive of the sport when the Broncos drove down the sector with an opportunity to strike first, solely to have Dalmas miss.
Within the fourth quarter, with Boise State down by 10, he missed a 40-yard subject aim simply off to the fitting after they had an opportunity to chop it to a one rating sport.
School kickers, even the very best ones, are notoriously unreliable. It was the worst doable evening for Dalmas to lose his contact.
3. Boise State ought to have a number of regrets
Together with coming away empty on its opening drive, Boise State had two second-half drives that actually helped put the sport out of attain.
Trailing by 10, the Broncos had back-to-back sequence of 13 and 12 performs that ended with zero factors.
The primary of these drives initially appeared to have a landing that was going to chop the deficit down to 3 factors, solely to have it known as again on an unlawful arms to the face penalty. The drive ended with an interception on third-and-long.
After getting a cease on Penn State’s subsequent sequence, Boise State once more moved the ball down the sector solely to take a sack on first down contained in the 15-yard line and finally need to accept one among Dalmas’ two missed kicks.
They moved the ball. They merely couldn’t end.
4. Penn State did what was anticipated. Now the actual problem begins
Getting by means of to the semifinals has to really feel good for Penn State head coach James Franklin given all the warmth he takes for not successful huge video games,
Playoff video games, by their very nature, are huge video games. He now has two wins.
They had been additionally two wins his crew was anticipated to get.
When the playoff bracket got here on the market was a consensus that Penn State had one of many best potential paths to the semifinal, getting a house sport in opposition to SMU and a neutral-site sport in opposition to Boise State. They had been decisive favorites in each video games and gained each simply.
They won’t be as huge of a favourite of their subsequent sport, whether or not it occurs to be in opposition to Georgia or Notre Dame.
In the event that they win that sport, then the narrative round Franklin and Penn State will actually begin to change.