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For the first time all season, it was an ugly number for Michigan.
Missing the two best run-stuffers in the middle of his line, Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh saw his team surrender 307 yards on the ground in last week’s double-overtime win over Indiana.
Not that Harbaugh was going to publicly acknowledge there was an issue when asked how his “beat up” defensive line was responding this week in practice.
“We’re not beat up. Nobody’s beat up that I know of,” Harbaugh countered. “Do you know something I don’t know? We’ve got a bounce in our step. We’re ready to go.
“I think the student-athletes have a bounce in their step and they’re ready to attack the day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.”
Well all right, then.
Harbaugh isn’t alone in trying to patch some leaks in a normally solid run defense. When Michigan visits Penn State on Saturday, the Nittany Lions will be trying to rebound from a rough day against Northwestern their last time out.
“That’s been an emphasis all week long,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “We looked at it from every angle. We went back and studied the last five years. … It’s not like we’re seeing or facing different schemes.
“It’s about that second level, the linebackers, and the third level of the defensive backs, making sure they get the guy on the ground and that our fits are correct.”
It will be especially important against a Michigan offense that typically uses a power run game to set up the pass, a formula that worked so well for Harbaugh in his last college stint at Stanford.
Likewise, Penn State’s offense has improved this year because of the emergence of dynamic freshman Saquon Barkley in the backfield.
Harbaugh acknowledged that limiting Barkley, whom he called “outstanding,” was key to beating the Lions. But as to how the Wolverines might do that with injuries to tackles Bryan Mone and Ryan Glasgow?
“We’re looking at all those ways,” Harbaugh said. “We have some ideas. But why state it up here and tell you? You’re liable to go and tell somebody else. So probably just going to keep that to ourselves. That would be the best course of action.”
The Indiana game hiked the Wolverines’ rushing yards allowed above 100 yards per game, though they still rank eighth in the nation in run defense with a 103.2 average.
That’s roughly where Penn State was a year ago, just barely squeaking into triple digits at 100.5 yards allowed per game after facing run-happy Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl.
But this year the Lions are surrendering 50 yards per game more than in 2014 at 152.2, good for 47th in the country.
Though that number is slightly skewed thanks to a game against an Army West Point squad that ran it 55 times and threw just one pass, the Lions’ woes go beyond that. And it’s more than struggling against the option packages and mobile quarterbacks of teams like Ohio State and Maryland.
In their last game, the Lions caught a break when athletic Northwestern quarterback Clayton Thorson was knocked out of the game in the first half with an injury.
Though the Wildcats lost a dimension to their offense when backup Zack Oliver replaced Thorson, they still managed to run for 227 yards, including big-gainers of 48 and 35 yards.
And that last bit is what bothers Franklin the most.
“There’s been too many explosive runs,” Franklin said. “You’re going to get a run against you for 8 yards or 12 yards — you can’t have the runs for 35 and 45. Those kill you. They obviously swing field position, they swing momentum, and that’s what we’re not doing a great job of.
“And that’s just as easy as a guy who’s coming up from the second level or the third level that doesn’t fit correctly. And now all of a sudden, instead of tackling the guy for a 12-yard gain, it now goes for 35.”
Part of the issue is that the Lions are young at linebacker this season, losing Mike Hull to the NFL and Nyeem Wartman-White to injury. Second-year players Jason Cabinda and Troy Reeder have taken their place with a pair of true freshmen, Jake Cooper and Manny Bowen, backing them up.
On the other side of the ball, Penn State is hoping to glean some things from the film of Michigan’s razor-thin wins over Indiana and Minnesota from the past three weeks.
“We watched those two games, games with similar formations, similar philosophies and things like that that are valuable for our guys to see,” Franklin said. “The Minnesota game, the thing that stood out about that game, probably differently than Indiana, they made plays. That’s what really jumped out about Minnesota. They won a bunch of those one-on-one situations and came down with the ball.
“Indiana was different because they kind of wore them down with the run game and the big backs. So two different types of games. We’re probably going to have to do a combination of both.”