The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Reviewing Penn State football’s Peach Bowl loss to Ole Miss

Penn State’s final game of the 2023 season was emblematic of many of the issues the program faced all season — and the ones the Nittany Lions will likely face moving forward.

Let’s get right into the good, the bad and the ugly from their 38-25 Peach Bowl loss to Ole Miss.

Good

Running game: Penn State couldn’t do much on offense, but it could run the ball. It wasn’t just one of the team’s backs either. Both Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen were running all over the Ole Miss defense for the majority of the game, combining for 101 yards on 18 carries. Both were able to break off big gains and fight for yards in short yardage situation. Singleton, especially, looked like a different back than he had for most of the season. He hit the open hole consistently and looked like a far more decisive runner. If that’s the iteration of Singleton that plays under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, that will bode well for the 2024 version of the Nittany Lions.

Tyler Warren: It’s a good thing Tyler Warren announced he’s coming back next season. The Nittany Lion tight end had the team’s biggest play of the game, catching a tipped Drew Allar pass and taking it 75 yards, and finished with five catches for 127 yards. That play may have been fluky, but Warren still used his size to present himself as an option to Allar on passing plays frequently. He finished with nine targets to lead the team and looks like a player who could have a massively increased role in the offense next season with Theo Johnson moving on. Warren, who played quarterback in high school, continues to realize his potential and has given the offense at least one passing option it can rely on next year.

Bad

Drew Allar: I don’t know that Allar was bad, but I do know that his performance is almost always worth discussing. The sophomore quarterback hasn’t been elite this season by any means, but I also don’t think he’s been bad. For the most part, he’s been an above average quarterback who has received no help from his wide receivers. That was the case again Saturday afternoon, with him trying to find anyone who could get a foot of separation to give them a chance to make a play on the ball. He did, however, make a terrible throw and terrible decision on his lone interception of the game when he tried to heave a pass to Omari Evans, who was covered. Allar’s season has to be considered a lost one at this point, and it’s safe to chalk Saturday up to another game where the factors around him make him difficult to evaluate.

Young cornerbacks: I don’t know that this is even that much of a criticism of the team’s corners. It’s more of a commentary on the situation they were thrust into. Elliot Washington II, Zion Tracy and Cam Miller all took on much bigger roles with Kalen King and Johnny Dixon opting out of the team’s bowl game, and their inexperience showed. Miller actually had some nice plays, which is unsurprising since he had real experience earlier in the year, and held his own relatively well, despite Tre Harris still beating him several times. Tracy and Washington, however, struggled with the Ole Miss receivers and were unable to win in 1-on-1 situations, especially on deep balls down the sidelines. That does not mean, though, that they won’t be good cornerbacks. In fact, both still have bright futures and should be starting caliber players as early as next year. But Saturday afternoon they were put in a difficult situation and were not able to rise above those circumstances to find success.

Play-calling matchup: This isn’t really Penn State’s fault. Lane Kiffin is just that good. He had an advantage the entire game, much like he always does, and it led to more than a few blown coverages for the Nittany Lions. One of his best was a run-pass option that drew cornerback Daequan Hardy closer to the line of scrimmage and made him lose Ole Miss tight end Caden Prieskorn, who waltzed in for a touchdown. Earlier in the game he even threw in the Philly Special, a play made famous by the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 52, where the quarterback fakes a protection change and slips out for a pass from a player lined up in the shotgun. Those are just two of the several times Kiffin outdueled the Penn State coaching staff in a game where the Rebels had many advantages on the sidelines.

Game management: Speaking of which, Kiffin’s aggressiveness helped put this game away while James Franklin’s passivity gave it away. The Nittany Lions had a 4th-and-1 on their own 34-yard line with a 23-17 deficit in front of them and under nine minutes left in the third quarter. Instead of going for it in a game where they would have to keep up with a high-powered offense, Franklin chose to punt and the Rebels responded by walking the defense down and making it a 31-17 game, never looking back from there. Aggression and going for it is the right call there, regardless of how well the team is running or passing. Mix in that Penn State was excelling on the ground and had been able to pick up a yard or two more often than not in the game, and Franklin’s decision becomes even more baffling. Those are the choices that decide outcomes. Maybe the game didn’t end there, but the Nittany Lions’ chances plummeted once he gave the ball back in that spot.

Ugly

Wide receivers: The elephant in the room. Penn State had a wide receiver problem for its first 12 games and it should be no surprise that it still has one after game No. 13. KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who was expected to be the team’s top option, dropped his only target. Dante Cephas, someone I thought made major strides in the final few weeks of the regular season, didn’t play a snap for reasons that aren’t totally clear. Harrison Wallace III showed flashes in the fourth quarter, but by then it was too little, too late. This is a position that needs to be addressed in the portal and needs to step up in a major way in 2024. If it doesn’t, those College Football Playoff aspirations might have to wait another year.