MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It’s difficult to say exactly what former Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich might have done had he been the one calling plays when the Nittany Lions assumed possession with 0:32 remaining in the second quarter and the ball at their own 27-yard line, the scoreboard showing a seven-point lead. Perhaps Yurcich, who was fired by head coach James Franklin last November amid a third consecutive subpar season, would have lobbied for a ruthless approach that trusted the decision-making and deftness of quarterback Drew Allar, now a multi-year starter, and pushed the ball downfield knowing he still had one timeout at his disposal and the chance to gore West Virginia with two scores in quick succession. Perhaps the outcome winds up the same: a last-second touchdown from Allar to wide receiver Harrison Wallace III to break the game open and deflate the Mountaineer faithful.
Though it’s impossible to rule that scenario out, frequent observers and fans of the Penn State program know better than to wonder about that possibility, to leave themselves open to the idea of Yurcich, whose 2023 offense was tied for 110th nationally in passes of 30-plus yards, invoking such militancy from such an adverse position on the field. The three-play, 73-yard lightning-fast drive, which included completions of 55 yards and 18 yards and ended with a beautiful back-shoulder touchdown from Allar to Wallace, was unquestionably the work of former Kansas offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, now the Nittany Lions’ czar of creativity and guile. That he rushed his offense to the line of scrimmage and appeared to catch West Virginia unaware for a play that ended as the game’s longest gain was Kotelnicki’s pièce de résistance.
“I think that’s just Coach K,” Allar said. “I think he’s aggressive [and] not in a bad way, obviously. He’s really aggressive, but it’s not reckless at all. All the plays that he sets up for those kind of shots are going to be plays that we’re gonna call throughout each week [of the season]. Maybe it’s just dressed a little differently. I think that’s just the attitude we want to take on as an offense of being aggressive and being intentional about being aggressive.”
In what amounted to the formal unveiling of Franklin’s sixth offensive coordinator in 11 seasons, Kotelnicki devised and directed an offense that was far more dangerous than anything Penn State typically mustered when Yurcich wore the headset. For the first time in a long time — and perhaps not since the early days of Franklin’s tenure in Happy Valley — the Nittany Lions found ways to bottle their explosive gains and dole them out with a consistency that stretched from the rushing attack to the passing game and spanned all four quarters of the 34-12 win over West Virginia on Saturday afternoon at Milan Puskar Stadium. Even a protracted weather delay of two hours and 19 minutes proved incapable of slowing a unit that churned out 457 yards of total offense and averaged nearly 8 yards per play, thrice producing touchdowns of 20 yards or more.
It was the kind of potency that, if built upon, will lend Penn State some sorely needed ballast for a defense that has been excellent the last few seasons and opened the 2024 campaign with requisite ferocity, even with a new coordinator of its own. The high-scoring Mountaineers failed to reach the end zone until the 12:49 mark of the fourth quarter, by which point Franklin was ready to pull his starters on both sides of the ball.
“I think we’ve got a chance to be good on both sides of the ball,” Franklin said. “I think we have a chance to be more balanced on both sides of the ball. And when I talk about balance, I’m talking about both being able to win on the defensive side of the ball, being able to win on the offensive side of the ball. And I think there were examples of that today.”
‘We were more explosive’ – Penn State head coach James Franklin’s thoughts about the offensive performance
The offensive examples, and Kotelnicki’s creativity that sparked them, began on Penn State’s opening possession when backup quarterback Beau Pribula jogged onto the field for a critical third down, beautifully executing an option pitch to tailback Nicholas Singleton (13 carries, 114 yards, 1 TD) that gained 7 yards to move the chains. Pribula became a regular presence on designed quarterback runs (three carries for 25 yards) and multi-quarterback alignments that were peppered throughout the game. He offers a change of pace to the bigger, more lumbering Allar, and according to Franklin, will be utilized on a weekly basis, with the head coach going so far as to describe Pribula as “a big part of what we’re doing moving forward.”
And there were other wrinkles that reflected the more dynamic approach Kotelnicki is aiming to bring after an impressive stint at Kansas, where the Jayhawks ranked fifth nationally in yards per play (7.1) over the last two seasons. There was a pre-snap motion in which four Nittany Lions arranged themselves in a diamond to one side of the formation before Singleton, who had drifted out toward the sideline, bolted across the formation and created space for a rifled completion to Wallace for 14 yards. There was a 50-yard touchdown pass from Allar (11-of-17 for 216 yards, 3 TDs) to Wallace (five catches, 117 yards, 2 TDs) in which the former five-star quarterback, who often struggled to uncork vertical passes in 2023, unleashed a wonderfully anticipated throw before the wideout had come out of his break. There was a wildcat alignment in which a tailback prepared to take the snap and a quarterback lined up in space to the right. There was a gutsy fourth-down conversion from Allar to tight end Tyler Warren on a drive that ended with a touchdown pass to running back Kaytron Allen. There were two critical scrambles from Allar that picked up 10 yards apiece on Penn State’s opening drive of the second half, sucking the last ounce of hope from whatever percentage of the 62,084 fans that remained once the torrential rain and lightning had passed.
By overseeing touchdowns on Penn State’s final possession of the second quarter and first possession of the third quarter, Kotelnicki helped deliver a knockout blow with two scores in fewer than five minutes of game time, extending the visitor’s lead to 21 — more than enough to stave off the Mountaineers.
“I thought our guys handled [the delay] really well, I thought our staff handled it really well, and it was reflected in coming out, you know, with a touchdown to start the second half,” Franklin said. “So those middle-eight scores [in the last four minutes of the second quarter and first four minutes of the third quarter] were probably the two most significant in the game, the end of the first half and the start of the second half.”
Kotelnicki’s offense did its job so crisply and efficiently that Allar spent most of the fourth quarter on the sideline, watching and cheering for Pribula and Penn State’s other reserves. He raced onto the field to cheer when sophomore defensive back Elliott Washington II snagged an interception with 2:37 remaining that officially sealed the win. His postgame celebrations included a special handshake with Wallace and the recording of a social media message to thank the traveling Nittany Lion fans. Then he began his jog toward the visiting tunnel, toward the buses that would take Penn State back to Happy Valley.
But before he could leave the field, a man in uniform asked for one last favor.
“Great game, Drew,” the West Virginia state trooper said, momentarily pausing his security duty. “Can I get a picture?”
That’s how well Allar and the offense had played.
Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.
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