D’Anton Lynn looks like a coordinator ready to get more aggressive, but Purdue is about the last team Penn State wants to see on the other side of that decision.
The Nittany Lions’ pass rush has been one of the ugliest parts of their 0-4 start in Big Ten play under Matt Campbell. Penn State ranks No. 112 nationally in sacks per game, and no defender on the roster has a pass-rush win rate above 12%.
The picture gets even starker from there: there are 23 Big Ten players with at least 15 QB pressures this season, and Penn State doesn’t have one. Even the team’s sack leader, off-ball linebacker Tony Rojas, has five sacks on eight QB pressures, a rate that’s probably hard to sustain.
That’s part of why Lynn sounds ready to start manufacturing pressure instead of waiting for it to show up naturally. After the bye week, the defensive coordinator made clear he wants more help coming from elsewhere on the field.
“We need to rush better up front, we need to do a better job putting guys in position to do that. We do have some inside backers and some DBs who can blitz,” Lynn told reporters on Tuesday, “finding a way to get more of those guys involved.”
It’s a reasonable answer in a vacuum. Lynn blitzed at a 37.8% rate at USC last season, then ramped it up to 74.1% of Buffalo’s dropbacks in Week 3 and 52.9% against Northwestern a few weeks later.
The issue is timing. Purdue arrives with a quarterback who has thrived when defenses send extra bodies.
Ryan Browne has been blitzed on 33.2% of his dropbacks this season, a number that ranks No. 126 nationally among qualified quarterbacks. And when teams do bring heat, he has handled it well: he ranks No. 29 in the 167-QB sample in yards per dropback against the blitz, has been sacked only four times, and has posted a 66.2% completion rate, 9.2 yards per attempt, a 6/0 TD/INT line, a 121.6 rating and a 2.38-second time to throw when blitzed. Against unblitzed looks, those numbers drop to 64.1% completions, 7.6 yards per attempt, a 4/3 TD/INT mark, an 87.9 rating and 3.03 seconds to throw.
That’s the core problem for Penn State. Purdue’s super-spread, RPO-heavy offense is built to make bringing extra rushers uncomfortable, and to punish teams that tip their hand.
Browne and the Boilermakers have essentially dared opponents to blitz, and lately they’ve gotten teams to stop trying. He hasn’t been blitzed at more than a 30% rate since Notre Dame in Week 4, and over Purdue’s last two games before its Week 8 bye, he faced blitzes on just 11 of 73 dropbacks and still produced 99 yards and a touchdown on those plays.
Penn State is still a 6.5-point favorite at home in Week 9, but the matchup gets tricky fast if Lynn tries to solve the pass rush with volume.
The middle of the field is where Purdue wants to live, and it forces linebackers and safeties to tackle in space. Penn State has not handled that well this season, and now the reshuffled spine of the defense will be tested immediately.
Ebel doesn’t have the sideline-to-sideline speed to keep up with this offense, which could push Lynn toward former safety Marcus Neal Jr., who was moved to linebacker during the bye week, while former nickel Zion Tracy plays most of the snaps at safety. That creates a communication test as much as anything else.
If the alignment isn’t clean, Penn State risks getting stretched and leveraged all afternoon. If Lynn backs off and doesn’t bring pressure, then he’s still asking a struggling front to win on its own. Either way, Purdue is forcing a choice.
And if the answer doesn’t come from the defense, it may have to come from the other side of the ball. To get Big Ten win No. 1, Rocco Becht and the Penn State offense may need to carry the Nittany Lions home.
In Other News...
Penn State May Have Finally Fixed One Defensive Problem
Penn State has spent much of the season shuffling pieces on defense, and the latest adjustment points to how much the staff is still trying to settle the middle of the unit. Head coach Matt Campbell said Marcus Neal Jr. has been moved from safety to off-ball linebacker, a move intended to add depth after injuries and some uneven play have thinned that group. It is the kind of in-season switch that can say as much about necessity as it does about development.
Zion Tracy is going the other direction, sliding to safety in an effort to steady that spot and give the defense a more workable rotation. The changes underscore how fluid Penn States personnel plan has been as the season has unfolded, with the staff continuing to tweak both roles and scheme to find a combination that holds up better week to week. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Gets An Early Heavyweight Test Cael Sanderson Needed
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For Sanderson, the appeal goes beyond the marquee matchups. The exhibition offers a useful first look at how Penn State stacks up in a live setting, especially at heavyweight, where Mirasola is slated to meet Wisconsins Braxton Amos. It is the sort of early test that can help clarify lineup decisions before the grind of the season really begins. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State's Quarterback Search Just Got More Pressing For Matt Campbell
Penn States quarterback pursuit in the 2027 class just got a little more complicated during the Week 8 bye, when Matt Campbell and his staff tried to make a late push for Braylen Warren. The four-star quarterback has been on Missouris board for a while, and the Tigers have been his commitment since December 2025, leaving Penn State to keep searching for a long-term answer under center.
The urgency is easy to see from Penn States side. The Nittany Lions still do not have a committed quarterback in the 2027 class after Will Wood decommitted, and Warren would have represented a major addition with the kind of production that made him such a sought-after prospect. Instead, Penn State is back in the market, and the next move in that search will matter plenty for a program still trying to lock down its future at the most important position on the field. [Read more 🡒]