Dan Sanford

Sports Editor

das6267@psu

The Penn State Nittany Lions football team cruised to a 38-17 victory over the Villanova Wildcats Saturday afternoon.

Although both teams entered Saturday afternoon undefeated, for most of the game, it was an all-Penn State affair. Sean Clifford and his receivers trounced the Wildcats, as Clifford completed 19 of 26 passes and receivers Parker Washington and Jahan Dotson combined for 265 yards in a combined 12 receptions. KeAndre Lambert Smith, while only recording two catches, converted one of them into a 70-yard touchdown run alongside an 18-yard catch on the day. The Nittany Lions’ remaining touchdowns were passes caught by Dotson and Washington, the latter of which recorded two that afternoon, and a 3-yard rush by Tyler Warren akin to the play seen at the whiteout game against Auburn. Penn State’s defense had a largely balanced output from their players Saturday. PJ Mustipher, Arnold Ebiketie, and Coziah Izzard each had a turn at sacking Villanova quarterback Daniel Smith, and Ji’Ayir Brown intercepted a pass from Smith. 

Not everything went perfectly for the Lions, though. The defense was a little more lax toward the end of the game, and surrendered two touchdowns to Wildcats running back Rayjoun Pringle in the fourth quarter after the Lions held a 38-3 lead. This could be attributed to playing depth players and giving them a chance to perform, and can be treated as a learning experience for those players. The Villanova defensive line also managed twice to land a sack on Clifford, though Penn State seemed to shrug the setbacks off with ease. Forrest Rhyne, who recorded one of those sacks for Villanova and assisted on another, led the team’s defensive corps that day with eight tackles and three assists.

 For Villanova, this is an unfortunate reality check that shows where they are in their league standing. Although they were off to a good start, they need to start building more confidence to compete against powerhouse teams like Penn State, and unfortunately had a rough matchup for their first Associated Press-ranked opponent of the year. The team’s chemistry was simply outmatched and unprepared to face that of Penn State. 

On the other hand, while it was predicted Villanova could be an easy opponent for Penn State, the five-score margin that was initially scored before Pringle’s fourth-quarter touchdowns was enough to convince the Associated Press that they had played even better than expected, and leap-frogged the firmly-planted no. 5 Iowa to put the Nittany Lions at no. 4 this week. This inspires even more confidence for Penn State, whose opponents in coming weeks they rank atop all of.