Preview of the Penn State Defense

The Illini are 4-3 with a plus-two turnover margin; their offense has 10 turnovers compared to 12 takeaways by the defense, and if more turnovers are coming, they will likely be thanks to Wes Lunt, the signal caller of Illinois’ pass-heavy offense. Illinois beat Penn State 16 to 14. Vaughn is Illinois’ leading rusher with 447 yards and four touchdowns on 108 carries.

Penn State (6-6-3, 2-3-2) heads into the matchup against the Cats seeking to reignite their fading NCAA Tournament hopes and end a skid of poor form. Saquon Barkley will once again be with Hackenberg in the backfield (and allegedly 100% healthy now), which should be enough for this Penn State team to win. “We are looking forward to being back home after an exciting win last week”. The staff also tracks this for the defense, where rushes of 15-plus yards and passes of 25-plus yards are measured. Lunt has been terrific at times with over 200 yards in every game but the North Carolina loss, but the secondary has been one of Penn State’s biggest strengths.

“It’s all fundamentals”, Cabinda said. Over the last two weeks, though, he’s turned into a devastating playmaker with seven catches against Ohio State and Maryland for 238 yards and a score, finally opening things up a bit for the Nittany Lion passing game. Illinois is now 33rd in total defense and is giving up 344 yards per game.

For the third-consecutive week, Illinois starting running back Josh Ferguson will be sidelined by a shoulder injury suffered on October 3. Penn State right tackle Andrew Nelson is questionable with a knee injury. The defensive line alone has 21 sacks on the season.

Though they don’t expect to pound helmets regularly on Saturday, they do highlight one of the most important story lines in a game that could push either team toward bigger rewards or a possible nosedive. This is going to be tough come Saturday. He went over a defender for his first touchdown of the season against Maryland and could factor more into the downfield passing game that’s been effective with Chris Godwin running deep routes.

So it will be even more dire for those Illini blockers to win the day. I think a lot of it is… you don’t tackle as much (in practice), and then you get banged up.

NEW GRASS: Signs urging visitors to keep off Beaver Stadium’s Kentucky bluegrass bordered the field as workers prepared to line and paint the new grass earlier this week. It’s the final step after crews replaced the 10-year-old sod that took a beating through five straight games on mostly rainy weekends. Almost 70,000 square feet of sod was installed over four days two weeks ago.