A year after celebrating a bowl victory in a shower of rose petals, Penn State’s end to the 2023 season was anything but peachy. Penn State was dominated by Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl and ended the year with a stinker in a 38-25 loss in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Saturday afternoon. The Nittany Lions defense was shredded by Ole Miss, which took advantage of favorable matchups in the passing game all afternoon in Atlanta.
Penn State struck first with a field goal by Alex Felkins from 26 yards on their first offensive series of the game. That came after the defense forced a quick three-and-out against the Ole Miss defense to start the game, which led to Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart heading to the medical tent at the end of the brief possession.
Penn State may have caught some breaks on the ensuing Ole Miss possession. After the Rebels entered the red zone, officials blew dead what could have been a live ball for an Ole Miss touchdown due to a whistle for an offside penalty on Penn State. The Rebels had to settle for a field goal after officials missed another potential penalty on Penn State on the following snap.
Both teams scored twice in the second quarter with Penn State scoring a pair of touchdowns with a touchdown pass from Beau Pribula to Nick Singleton and a Drew Allar pass to Theo Johnson. But the half ended with Penn State trailing by a score of 20-17 after giving up 340 yards of offense to the Rebels. And of the 115 passing yards Allar had at the half, 75 of them came on one play at the end of the first quarter when Tyler Warren caught a pass and ran for a big gain.
Dart had gotten in a rhythm with his passing and gashed a Penn State defense playing without its top two defensive backs and top defensive end, and a defense that took some injuries at linebacker in the first half to Kobe King and Abdul Carter. Dart…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/peach-bowl-dud-ends-penn-205408538.html
Author : Nittany Lions Wire
Publish date : 2023-12-30 20:54:08
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