It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t all that much fun to watch. But Penn State, once again, slayed the beast that is a Kinnick primetime game, defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes 17-12.
In almost every sense of the word, it was a throwback game for Penn State. It leaned on its stellar defense, which held Iowa without a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter. Perhaps just as importantly though, it help set up two Penn State scoring drives by causing turnovers, playing a major part in gifting the Nittany Lions 10 of its 17 points,
Offensively, Penn State leaned on its running game, and more specifically, true freshman Noah Cain. Cain didn’t have the most gaudy stat line — 22 carries for 102 yards and one touchdown — but my goodness, he was absolutely brilliant. Moving forward, Cain should be RB1, absolutely no questions about that.
This isn’t going to be a game that gets put into the highlight reel as far as crazy impressive victories, but you know what? Penn State is 6-0, ranked No. 10, survived an incredibly tough atmosphere against a solid team, and I feel absolutely wonderful.
The Nittany Lions didn’t play their best game, but that team should be incredibly proud of the way it played tonight. It stayed calm and collected in a tough atmosphere, seemingly had everything (see: referees) go against them, and they still came away with the victory. Great teams do that. Over the next couple weeks, we will see if Penn State is truly one of those great teams.
Onto Michigan.