Penn State Football: 3 takeaways from Week 14 takedown of Rutgers

2. The Penn State defense bent but didn’t break

Rutgers came to Happy Valley with the second-worst offense in the entire FBS, averaging only 13.9 points and 263 yards of offense per game. Penn State came into the regular-season finale holding opponents to 325 yards and 14.8 points per outing.

The Nittany Lions bent, as a usually-anemic Rutgers offense generated 383 yards of offense on the road. Johnny Langan went 12-of-24 for 164 yards, while Cole Snyder added 35 passing yards as he completed all three of his attempts later in the game. The Rutgers running game was especially good, gashing the Penn State front seven— a unit that came into the game ranked fourth nationally in rushing yards allowed — for 184 yards on the ground.

At the same time, Penn State gave up a ton of yards but kept the Scarlet Knights from turning that offense into points on the scoreboard. Holding Rutgers to less than half of their regular scoring output, the Nittany Lions might have handed over plenty of yards but they came up big where it mattered most.

With the regular season now in the books, all that is left for Penn State is to review the tape and see where the defense broke down against what should have been an overmatched opponent.