Penn State Swats Owls, Moves to 2-0
Left to Right: QB Coach Jake Waters, WR Coach Kashif Moore, and Head Coach Matt Campbell
Philadelphia - It didn’t look pretty; at times, it looked downright ugly, but Penn State managed to take care of business and down Temple 27-9 on Saturday afternoon. What started as a fast start with Rocco Becht hitting Koby Howard for a 56-yard catch on the first play of the game turned into a long, grueling half of missed opportunities and bad mistakes by the Nittany Lions.
Penn State started the game with a promising drive as Rocco Becht led the offense all the way down to the 5-yard line before taking an illegal forward pass penalty and a sack that derailed the drive. The offense would settle for a 33-yard field goal attempt by Ryan Barker, which would get pushed left of the upright. The missed field goal was the first miss inside of 40 yards in Barker’s career. Following the miss, each team would exchange a three-and-out and punt the ball away. Temple, led by former Penn State QB Jaxon Smolik, would start its second possession at their own 4-yard line. A drive that would end with Tony Rojas intercepting his former teammate and returning the ball to the Temple 20, giving the Nittany Lion offense prime starting field possession inside the red zone. The Temple defense would go on to stand tall against Penn State, holding up against 3 straight up the middle before Rocco Becht missed tight end Andrew Rappleyea on fourth down, turning the ball over.
After getting the ball back, with help from a 47-yard run by QB Jaxon Smolik, Temple would drive 91 yards in 15 plays to put the first points on the board with a 24-yard field goal early in the second quarter. Needing to answer the opening score, Penn State would drive 62 yards in 10 plays to tie the game 3-3 with a 31-yard Ryan Barker Field Goal. After an eight-play drive, Temple would punt the ball away with 1:57 remaining in the first half. Penn State would then drive the ball 83 yards in just 10 plays, capping off the drive with a Ben Brahmer 23-yard touchdown catch to take a 10-3 lead into the locker room.
18 Ben Brahmer hauls in one of his two TD’s on Saturday. Photo Credits: USATODAY
Temple would start the second half with the ball, driving 41 yards before stalling out and attempting to kick a 52-yard Field Goal, which would be blocked by Penn State cornerback Daryus Dixson. Becht and the offense would take over at their own 34-yard line, running 8 plays for 66 yards, ending the drive with a 16-yard Chase Sowell touchdown to move the score to 17-3 in favor of the Nittany Lions. From that point on, the Lions never looked back, adding another Barker field Goal and Brahmer’s second receiving touchdown of the day to move the score to 27-3. Temple would get a drive going late in the fourth quarter and score the first touchdown of the year on Penn State’s defense following a 12-play 75-yard drive ending in an Ajani Sheppard 3-yard touchdown run.
Overall, Penn State went on the road and got a win against an in-state foe, but it was a game that opened up Matt Campbell and staff for plenty of questions. One of which was, where was defensive end Max Granville? Campbell would start off his post-game presser by notifying the media that Granville was injured at Thursday’s team practice and will miss the remainder of the season. Granville missed his entire freshman year due to a torn ACL. Outside of questions about the slow start and why the team looked so sluggish out of the gate, one massive question began to surface online from the Nittany Lion faithful… What happened to Quinton Martin Jr.? The third-year running back who committed to staying at Penn State with the new staff logged zero snaps on Saturday vs. Temple. Martin who had a stand-out performance in last year’s Pinstripe Bowl versus Clemson as well as logging the second most carries in week one versus Marshall was noticeably missing in the backfield this weekend, a question we still do not have an answer to.
Penn State (2-0) will travel back home to take on Buffalo (1-1) on Saturday, September 19. Buffalo is coming off a 33-20 loss to Florida International.
