The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s 42-0 win over Michigan State

Any concerns that Kaytron Allen’s success this season would scare Nick Singleton away from the Penn State backfield and lead him to the transfer portal can now go away. Singleton made it abundantly clear what his plans are for the 2024 season.

“I’m committed. I’m committed to the whole team next year,” Singleton said. “(Penn State head coach James) Franklin, (co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach Ja’Juan) Seider, the whole coaching staff. I’m telling you, I’m not leaving. I’m staying here.”

Singleton and sophomore quarterback Drew Allar both committed to being on next year’s team when asked after Friday night’s 42-0 win over Michigan State at Ford Field in Detroit.

It may seem odd for that to be a topic of conversation, but such is life in college football. Some of the best players in the country will inevitably enter the transfer portal and Penn State’s roster is not immune to those potential moves.

That makes Allar and Singleton’s commitments to next season all the more meaningful for Penn State in 2024.

Below is a closer look at Penn State’s regular season finale.

Good

Drew Allar: Penn State’s most important player played his best game of the season Friday night. Drew Allar lit up the Michigan State defense, and when things did go wrong for the passing game, it was rarely his fault. He took advantage of what several players called a more simplified offense and put on a show for the Nittany Lions. His stats were impressive — with 292 passing yards and two passing touchdowns — but how he got there was an even better sign for Penn State. Allar took chances down the field, hitting Omari Evans on a pass that traveled 60 yards in the air, and did it often. He trusted his receivers to make plays on the ball when they needed to, but more importantly he trusted that he could put those passes on the money. Allar is still the same talented player he was when he enrolled in January 2022, and this could be the launching point he needs for his career to take off.

Omari Evans: Speaking of that deep shot. Evans was open because he blew by the Michigan State secondary and it wasn’t the only time he did it. That play in the middle of the third quarter was preceded by another deep route by Evans that involved him leaving the Spartan secondary in the dust. He consistently forced Michigan State to either play its safeties deeper and limit its resources in the running game — more on that in a second — or don’t and risk the big play over the top. The Nittany Lions took advantage of the latter on the deep shot, which makes you wonder why Evans hasn’t been playing all season, given his prolific speed. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that his uptick in playing time has come after Mike Yurcich was fired as the offensive coordinator after the team’s loss to Michigan.

Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton: It didn’t help the Spartans that they also couldn’t stop the Penn State running game. Both sophomore running backs had a big day and looked more like the dynamic duo that they were last season. There were still some concerns — Nick Singleton missed a couple of holes that would’ve resulted in big gains — but for the most part he and Kaytron Allen were dominant in the matchup. Most importantly for Singleton, the team got him the ball in space, allowing him to use his speed to create big plays. That, and Allen’s tough, downhill running resulted in a combined 255 rushing yards on 33 carries for the duo.

The starting safeties: I gave K.J. Winston credit in last week’s column, but he deserves more and so does Jaylen Reed. Winston might be the defense’s second-best player next season behind only Dani Dennis-Sutton, especially when you consider positional value. He’s a missile in the running game, attacking downhill and making plays behind the line of scrimmage frequently. That translates on screens, too, where he reads and reacts to plays to be a force behind the line of scrimmage. And of course, there’s the man coverage where he has the athleticism to stick with tight ends and eliminate them from the passing game.

All of that goes for Reed, too. I overlooked him coming into the season, assuming Zakee Wheatley would take the other job, but that hasn’t been close to the case. Reed picked off a pass Friday night in what has been a dominant season, and one where he has not received nearly the credit he deserves by many people, myself included.

Adisa Isaac: All of what is in the section above pretty much applies to Chop Robinson and Adisa Isaac. Robinson is a potential first pick who is a terror as a pass rusher and has received plenty of praise and acclaim all season. The difference with Isaac compared to Reed is that the former has made so much noise that it’s been impossible to ignore how good he’s been. He went from a player who had all the athletic tools but needed to put it together to an all-around defensive end who can ruin a team’s night when they’re running or throwing. He earned another sack against Michigan State and could even give Penn State another defensive end with a shot at hearing his name called in the top 50 of the 2024 NFL Draft.

Bad

Michigan State: The Spartans played like a team that is in need of a new regime, which is a good thing because Saturday afternoon they announced the hiring of Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith for the same position. He’s going to have his work cut out for him early on, because Friday night this team was non-competitive for the most part. That doesn’t mean the program is doomed or anything like that, but it has a long way to go for it to be able to compete with the best teams in the Big Ten. That’s not going to get any easier with the conference expanding and the four teams joining — Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA — all being ahead of the Spartans right now from an on-field standpoint.

Ugly

Early drive finishes: There really isn’t a lot to complain about with Penn State, but for about 25 minutes it felt like the Nittany Lions might win by kicking only field goals. They struggled to finish drives despite doing a good job of getting the ball down the field, settling for three field goal attempts on their first three drives, with only two going through. There were a few plays that caused those results — an incompletion here or a missed block there — and those mistakes were rectified enough to allow Penn State to take advantage of a defense that wasn’t on its level.