PennLive’s Bob Flounders and Johnny McGonigal recap Penn State’s 34-12 win at West Virginia

Johnny weather delay tough road opener Dynamic offense defense was as usual brilliant self I think James Franklin all the things that they put up with today on a scale of 1 to 10 this has got to be like a a nine maybe maybe a high eight a high eight maybe maybe a high nine I mean you know consider what they went through with I mean what we went through Bob in the press in the Press Box no uh yeah you know I'm sure they learned a lesson or two from the 17 Michigan State game with a long delay there uh so lengthy halftime delay with the lightning off and on off and on but for them to come out uh and have the kind of game that they had 34 to 12 uh a really convincing uh Victory start a season with you know so much hope and anticipation 12 team playoff new Big 10 and to come out against a big 12 opponent who uh you know I know that their fan base and some of their players were talking quite a bit you coming into this game to I think the kids call it I think they do maybe you call it that uh you know for them to come out and have a performance like this a thorough a thorough win explosive plays nickon back to his best Drew Aller doing well in Andy C Nikki's offense Trey Wallace doing his thing uh a lot of positives to take definitely from this game yeah hey first first series you're wondering what is Andy gonna is Andy G to be the guy who was at Kansas Bo koua in the game first series running the option converting on third down the ball went to in a bunch of different directions they got they had guys cracking back offensive lineman in motion they they were dynamic they were they were well coordinated Trey Wallace was every bit as good as James Franklin said some of the players said and I think drew a Slimmer not that he was a giant last year Slimmer Drew Allen making plays with his legs they were there were a lot of encouraging signs I know West Virginia's defense is not going to be statistically one of the better defenses head State's going to face but I I just think the positives I don't even know if there were many negatives at all he has to be very encouraged the way they hung hung in there after a 90minut delay pretty significant and honestly the first half the way the passing game clicked you know derler went into halftime with eight completions for 199 yards five of those eight completions you know for 18 yards or more a couple of 50 yard throws the catch and run to Harrison Wallace and then the you know the bomb downfield at the end of the half to Amari Evans so seeing that click early and then in the second half seeing Nick Singleton hit the open space and and just take it 40 yards or a touchdown uh there's a lot of really good things offensively to build on like you mentioned Bob it was a stout defensive performance uh Jaylen Reed played with his hair on fire from the jump Winston had eight eight tackles in the first quarter I think it was um so yeah a lot of positives to build for sure no no special teams mishaps or mistakes yeah um so you know relatively speaking aside from the penalties I think it'll be a pretty clean tape for this coaching you have a late touchdown at the end of the half the touchdown the start the second half James calls it the middle eight it was even more narrow than that but that that that really was kind of it was all over after that and what they were able to do to a pretty good running game I thought just average a little over two yards to carry it was really significant that's this is a clearly a deep team and I just love the way that Andy will use every bit uh of the talent at his disposal maybe that was not the case last year yeah C certainly not the case uh at most times I would say last year but the away one and0 go back home now for basically a month you know they've got a string of home games before their next road trip to USC in October uh so some home cooking next week against Bowling Green uh and then they roll on from there but a really good I think opening win uh for this nit allons team and one that they can certainly build on going forward you're going low NES I'm going I'll go high eights we can middle it just call it like 8.98 there you go love it