Penn State Football: Untimely injuries for Nittany Lions
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Article RatingInjures couldn’t come at a worse time for Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions.
In the past two weeks, Paterno has watched a defensive end, starting fullback and one of his best defensive tackles all go down with season-ending lower body injuries.
Just as No. 1 Ohio State approaches.
Paterno will have to fill in the pieces if his Nittany Lions look to take down a No. 1-ranked team for the first time since 1990, when the Buckeyes travel to Happy Valley for a primetime, nationally televised showdown this coming Saturday.
Defensively, the injuries to Jerome Hayes and Jared Odrick perhaps present the biggest concern heading into this weekend.
In recent weeks, the Nittany Lions have had the luxury of a healthy Tom McEowen and Abe Koroma to help fill out the defensive line rotation.
Both are expected to see their biggest workload of the season against the Buckeyes.
“We’ve played a lot of kids,” Paterno said at his weekly media teleconference yesterday.
“McEowen is going to have to start to play some and Koroma, who was hurt earlier in the year, fell behind, has been able to play the last couple of weeks. I think we’re OK inside.”
“Hayes was playing really well and so was Odrick. So those are big losses. The other kids are going to have to step in there and go. We have bodies. We have people who have the ability. They haven’t had the experience that you would feel is nothing we need to worry about. We have to worry about it.”
Without Odrick, the defensive line rotation consists of Phil Taylor, Chris Baker, Ollie Ogbu, and Koroma and McEowen who are at or as close to 100-percent as they could be coming off their respective injuries.
“You would love to have..I’m not sure any of those guys are as good as Jared is now because Jared has had a lot more work. He played a lot more as a true freshman a year ago. They have to step up to the plate to find out how good they are.”
On the offensive side, Paterno will turn to Cumberland Valley product Dan Lawlor to fill in for the injured Matt Hahn, who tore his ACL on his final carry of the game against Indiana last week.
Lawlor, who will make his first career start, has just seven carries in mop-up duty this season. For his career, Lawlor has carried just 12 times. Walk-on transfer Larry Federoff could see time as well.
“Lawlor has got all the stuff to be a fine fullback,” Paterno said. “He just has to step up to the plate and go to work.”
Paterno said he didn’t expect right guard Mike Lucian to play for the second straight week coming off a concussion suffered against Wisconsin. Lucian did not even make the trip to Bloomington this past weekend.
The Buckeyes come into Saturday’s game with two impressive winning streaks of 26 regular season games and 18 conference games. The last time Ohio State lost a conference game was back in October of 2005 when Penn State defeated them 17-10 at Beaver Stadium.
But streaks and rankings mean little to Paterno at this point.
“You have to keep playing your game,” Paterno said. “If we’re good enough, we’re good enough. If we’re not good enough we’re not good enough.
“I don’t think you can go in there and say ‘hey, that’s the No. 1 football team so now we have got to do this and we got to do that.’ We’ve got to play the football we know how to play. And if somebody happens to be as good as Ohio State, you hope you can compete with them. Whether you can or you can’t, you never know until you play. But they’re a fine football team.”
Penn State has not hosted a No. 1 ranked team since Notre Dame beat them at Beaver Stadium in 1989, but twice in the last decade (1998, 2006), they’ve played Ohio State when the Buckeyes were ranked No. 1.
The Buckeyes will bring the No. 1 overall defense in the country with them on Saturday night, a defense that is allowing just 208.5 yards per game, and 3.3 yards per play. They’ve given up just 1,668 yards of offense this season and only seven touchdowns. Ohio State is allowing only 7.9 points per game as well, tops in the nation.
Opposing quarterbacks have suffered this season against the Buckeyes as well, throwing just nine touchdowns with an 86.83 passer rating. The Buckeyes have picked off nine passes and allow just 4.43 yards per completetion as well.
Opponents have converted just 28-percent of the time on third down agaainst the Buckeyes this season.
Penn State is seventh nationally in total defense, meaning the first touchdown could win this game.
“(We’ve) just got to go out and play and find out how good we are,” Paterno said. “And this gives us an opportunity, when you play a team as good as Ohio State, as I’ve said now I think three times already today, then you find out some things about yourself. We’re young and Ohio State is fairly young. I think they are two good young football teams going after each other
“I know one of them is good. I know Ohio State is good. We’ve got to find out how good we are.”
