The 3Cs: Penn State

BadgerBlitz.com's weekly feature, "The 3 Cs," returns for the 2024 season. The staff takes a look at one thing we're curious, confident and concerned about heading into Wisconsin's Week 9 showdown with Penn State.

Staff writers Seamus Rohrer and Donnie Slusher each give their thoughts on the aforementioned topics for this week's contest.

CURIOUS

ROHRER: I'm curious as to how Wisconsin elects to defend star tight end Tyler Warren.

The Badgers will have their hands full with Penn State's most prolific pass-catcher. He's got 40 catches for 513 yards and four touchdowns, and is coming off an absurd 17-catch, 224-yard performance. In Los Angeles, the Nittany Lions practically toyed with USC, lining Warren up at center on a double pass play where he eventually caught a touchdown.

How does Wisconsin choose to line up against him? He spends about a third of his time in the slot and another third of his snaps in-line. He'll likely draw matchups with Austin Brown and Preston Zachman in the slot, as those have been the Badgers' primary slot defenders in recent weeks. Still, does Wisconsin elect to have a player like Hunter Wohler pay him extra attention if it thinks it's a better matchup?

Penn State is incredibly reliant on Warren. His 49 targets are 21 more than the next-most targeted Nittany Lion. If the Badgers can shut him down, or even limit his impact, their chance to pull the upset increases significantly.

SLUSHER: I’m curious to see if Wisconsin’s run defense maintains their momentum.

Tressel’s Badgers allowed just 16 total points over the last three games, and that success began with their effectiveness against the run. Purdue, Rutgers and Northwestern, three run-first teams, were bottled up almost immediately and their offenses floundered as a result.

The Nittany Lions will trot out the most talented offense the Badgers have seen in weeks, but they’ve struggled to run the ball recently.

Leading rusher Nicholas Singleton suffered an injury which sidelined him three weeks ago against UCLA, and kept him limited against USC. This had a clear effect on their production and explosiveness. They averaged 251 rushing yards per game during their first four games, but have only recorded a total of 126 over the last two.

Despite the recent struggles, coach James Franklin will still put his faith in the running game.

“What we're doing offensively and what the game plan is, but also impacted by that is, how the defense decides to game plan and how the defense decides to play us,” Franklin said earlier this week.

“If we go out there to play Wisconsin and they’ve got nine guys in the box, then we're going to still run the ball because we're committed to doing that, but the game may go differently in terms of our production and throwing the ball and our production in the run game.”

WIth a quarterback like Allar, if the Nittany Lions can both run and pass effectively, the Badgers don’t really stand a chance.

CONFIDENT

ROHRER: I'm confident that Phil Longo will pull out all the stops against Penn State.

Longo's play-calling has seemingly gotten more creative in recent weeks as he finds ways to get the ball in the hands of his playmakers. Sweeps and reverses, all heavily disguised with misdirection and counters, have been a staple of his game-plan the past three weeks. I'd expect the coordinator to continue to expand his play-sheet come Saturday night.

First of all, if there's any game for which you save your most creative plays, it's when you host the No. 3 team in the country. The magnitude of this game isn't lost on anybody.

What's more, Penn State has defense that's not easily softened up. Especially in the front seven and with its safeties, the Nittany Lions have a loaded unit that won't nearly be as easy to move the ball on as Purdue, Rutgers and Northwestern were. Especially in the ground game, I'd expect Wisconsin receivers — namely Vinny Anthony and Trech Kekahuna — to take at least four or five handoffs on sweeps and the like.

Last season, Longo used one trick play — and in fact used it twice in one game — the Philly Special. Do we see some razzle dazzle from the play-caller this week?

SLUSHER: I’m confident that Wisconsin’s defense will look mortal again.

In a word, the recent stretch of Wisconsin football can best be described as “befuddling”. We watched an inconsistent, often stagnant group transform into what looked like one of the best teams in the Big Ten.

They outscored opponents 117-16 in this span. The offensive line, running game and defense all played to the classic Wisconsin standard in a way we haven’t yet seen in the Fickell era.

The defensive improvement was especially surprising. They went from getting roundhouse kicked by Alabama and USC to looking like the ‘85 Bears.

But, to be fair, it’s not like they went up against a murderer’s row. It was Purdue, Rutgers and Northwestern.

The defense could surprise people by limiting the run game or maybe getting a turnover or two off of Allar, but I expect them to come back down to Earth.

Unless the pass rushers have an out-of-body experience, Allar will be comfortable enough to dissect this defense and win somewhat comfortably.

CONCERNED

ROHRER: I'm concerned that Wisconsin's offense doesn't have enough juice against Penn State's tough defense.

Wisconsin's offense wasn't great against Northwestern. It was good enough, and the ground game carried the unit. But Braedyn Locke will need to throw for more than 160 yards and complete more than 58 percent of his passes if the Badgers want to win this game.

Wisconsin will need to hit on big plays, and they'll need to do it early. Otherwise, Penn State can crowd the line of scrimmage in an attempt to bottle up Tawee Walker. Given the Nittany Lions' talent in the secondary and how tight their corners have played in coverage, I'm not sold that Locke's arm can carry the Badgers to the win.

This could be the toughest defense Wisconsin sees all year. It's currently ranked No. 6 in total defense. Aside from USC scoring 30 and Bowling Green inexplicably scoring 27, Penn State has allowed 30 points across its remaining four games. I'm less concerned about the defense against a talented but not exactly terrifying Nittany Lions' offense. But the offense has still stalled out at times amidst its recent growth — that can't happen come Saturday night.

SLUSHER: Similarly, I’m concerned that Locke will crumble under the pressure of Penn State’s front.

Locke’s improvement over the past few games has been incredibly promising and deserving of praise, which he’s gotten. The performances against Purdue and Rutgers, specifically, were the two best games of his career.

But a trend I’ve noticed with Locke over the past two years worries me for Saturday night. This can be said of almost every quarterback alive, but Locke is a very different quarterback when he’s pressured compared to when he’s not.

He struggled mightily against Iowa and Ohio State last season, and even this year against Alabama, but has played his best ball against Purdue and a Rutgers team that lost their best edge rusher (Aaron Lewis) in the first quarter.

This was most apparent in his first start as a Badger, last season against Illinois. Defensive tackle Jer’Zhan Newton was in Locke’s face for three straight quarters and it clearly affected his play. But a targeting call ejected Newton from the game early in the fourth quarter, and Locke subsequently led an 18-point comeback victory.

Future first-rounder Abdul Carter could single handedly crush Locke’s hopes of continuing his hot streak.

I won’t discount the offensive line’s improvement, which does seem legitimate. But I’m gonna have to see Locke perform against a strong defensive front before I can feel comfortable predicting anything.