Last week, Penn State shut out Maryland 30-0 at home. Penn State’s defense absolutely embarrassed the Maryland offense, holding them to just 74 passing yards and 68 rushing yards. They recorded 7 sacks and 9 tackles for loss. Sean Clifford beat the all-time record for passing yards at Penn State, but it was the running backs that carried the Nittany Lions offense. Nick Singleton rushed for 113 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone. In total, Penn State rushed for 249 yards.
This Saturday, PSU travels to New Jersey to face Big Ten opponent Rutgers. Rutgers simply doesn’t have the offensive or defensive ability to stay in the game with Penn State. Rutgers has been rotating three different quarterbacks all year due to disappointing performances. Their current starting quarterback, Evan Simon, has only thrown 4 touchdowns to 6 interceptions this season. The running backs are also much less productive than Penn State’s. The two main running backs for Rutgers both have around 400 rushing yards, while Nick Singleton has 800 and Kaytron Allen has 650. On defense, Rutgers is allowing over 25 points per game.
The spread on the game is 19 points favored towards Penn State, so realistically, it shouldn’t be much of a competition. Penn State is starting to cement themselves as a consistent run-focused offense, and I expect that to continue against Rutgers. Singleton and Allen will get a lot of touches against the Rutgers defense, and they should both have excellent games. Sean Clifford will probably only throw around 20 passes like he has the last few weeks, but he should put up decent passing numbers.
Penn State’s defense will try to put a lot of pressure on the quarterback, similar to how they played against Maryland. Penn State has 30 sacks this year, compared to Rutgers’ 13. The Rutgers offensive line is going to be dealing with more than they can handle. The Penn State secondary has been very good all season as well, and they are playing against a weak passing attack. Rutgers is going to be stuck trying to run the ball for much of the game.
I predict 2 touchdowns each from Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen and one passing touchdown from Clifford as well as another passing touchdown from Allar late in the game. The running backs will put up really good numbers, probably around 300 total rushing yards. My score prediction is a 48-14 win for Penn State. Rutgers offense won’t be able to move the ball well and their defense won’t be able to contain the constant rushing attack from two very talented running backs.
Let’s hope you are right! Good post this week. Keep up the good work.