The Penn State football defense has been elite early on this season. Against Illinois, they forced five turnovers including four interceptions. Then, last night on the national stage the defensive unit shut out Iowa 31-0. They also caused another four turnovers last night, all came from forced fumbles. So, that’s 9 turnovers caused in the past two games, Manny Diaz has this group dialed in. After the game, we caught up with Adisa Isaac and others who shared their thoughts on this statement performance.
Penn State football defenders respond to statement performance
Defensively, Penn State allowed 76 total yards of offense, total domination from start to finish. Iowa finished the night averaging 1.2 yards per rushing attempt. This unit understood the assignment on Saturday night and they took care of business. We asked Adisa Isaac about his thoughts on this statement performance.
Isaac said, “We have a dominant defense. That shouldn’t be no secret but I feel like we just showed in a shutout against a ranked opponent that we have some stuff that’s flowing and it’s only going to get better.”
He wasn’t the only one. After the game star linebacker, Abdul Carter tweeted “BEST DEFENSE IN THE COUNTRY!!!! #WEARE.”
It shows the energy and the confidence that this unit is starting to play with. It’s at the perfect point in the season for Manny Diaz to have this defensive unit firing on all cylinders. As for Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz, he will have to pick up the pace on his lofty goal of scoring 25 points per game. After the Penn State loss, Iowa is only averaging 21.25 points per game.
The pass rush got home
One of the questions James Franklin was asked earlier this week surrounded the topic of lack of stats from star defenders. One of those players was potential 2024 first-round pick Chop Robinson who picked up his first sack of the season. This was also a strip sack where Robinson caused a turnover. Amin Vanover and Adisa Isaac also collected sacks against Iowa last night.
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