Penn State tight end Tyler Warren (44) goes over the top, stretching to score his first touchdown of the night Saturday against Washington. Warren had a pair of rushing touchdowns out of the wildcat in the first half.
Barry Reeger | AP photo
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STATE COLLEGE — Twice Penn State shifted its formation before the snap at the goal line. Twice Tyler Warren ended up behind center in the shotgun.
A White Out crowd at Beaver Stadium gave giddy cheers each time the Nittany Lions’ star tight end awaited a snap. Warren rewarded them with two touchdowns against Washington.
After two hauntingly awful goal-line situations last week, Penn State was determined to flip the script Saturday.
The Lions switched things up on offense inside the 10 by having Warren and mobile backup quarterback Beau Pribula each take snaps out of the shotgun.
The result? Touchdowns on all four of Penn State’s first-half drives against Washington in a 35-6 rout that provided some much needed fireworks after a dud against the Buckeyes.
Pribula scored the first and Warren got the next two out of the wildcat formation as No. 6 Penn State managed to erase some of the bad feelings from last week’s loss to Ohio State.
Coach James Franklin and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki were roundly criticized after two first-and-goal spots from the 3-yard line resulted in zero points in a 20-13 loss to the Buckeyes. Ohio State came up with an interception just before halftime and then, late in the fourth, the Lions had Drew Allar hand it off three times to Kaytron Allen for 2 yards.
A fourth-down pass fell incomplete. The Lions never got the ball back in suffering their eighth straight loss to the Buckeyes.
Franklin acknowledged after the game and again on Monday that Warren deserved to touch the ball on one of those plays.
A week later, Warren finished with eight catches for 75 yards, scored touchdowns on two of his three rushes and even threw two passes that fell incomplete. Before the game was over, he broke two more school records, passing Mike Gesicki for most receptions and receiving yards by a tight end in a single season.
Earlier in the week, Warren was named a semifinalist for the Mackey Award as the nation’s top tight end and one of three finalists for the Paul Hornung Award, given to the most versatile player in the country.
“To be in that conversation with as many great tight ends who have played here and that I played with is special to me,” Warren said. “That’s kind of what makes it special, knowing the guys that have been here and how talented Penn State tight ends are.”
Warren wasn’t eager to dwell much on the awards talk after the game, so his coach handled it for him.
“I’ve got a list here of about 35 records that Tyler Warren has broken,” Franklin said. “I’m not going to get into all of them, but he’s a really good football player. I can’t see how this guy doesn’t win the Mackey Award and the Paul Hornung Award. I don’t see how he doesn’t. And they’d be proud of that guy representing their award, because he does everything right both on and off the field.
“He’s done it that way since the day he stepped on campus. So, he’s just a great example of what a Penn State football player is.”
Warren’s presence helped open things up for the offense in the red zone after coming away empty a week ago. Against the Huskies, the Lions scored touchdowns on all five trips inside the 20 before they let the clock run out at the Washington 5-yard line at the end of the game.
Kotelnicki called a keeper for Pribula on the Lions’ first snap inside the 10. Warren delivered a big block and Pribula scored from 8 yards out.
The next two trips featured Warren scoring matching 2-yard touchdowns on direct snaps. On the first one, he got fully horizontal on a dive up the middle, extending the ball over the plane.
Warren, who also scored on a similar dive over the top against Illinois in September, said it’s not something he plans before the snap.
Regardless, it’s extremely difficult for a defense to stop.
How difficult?
“Hard,” linebacker Kobe King said. “Especially if you’re as big as him, about 260, 265, and you can jump? I don’t think a lot of people are going to stop him in the air.
“I don’t know if you can gameplan for something like jumping over the line of scrimmage.”
The other touchdown was more conventional, finding a crease on the left side courtesy of a lead block from running back Nick Singleton.
That made it 21-0 with 3:23 left in the first half. But the Lions (8-1, 5-1 Big Ten) weren’t done.
The defense got a three-and-out and Penn State took over at its own 32 with 1:53 left and two timeouts.
Kotelnicki dialed up an impressive two-minute drill that mixed in some well-timed runs by Allen to set up a first-and-goal from the 8.
After two plays didn’t gain any yards, Allar found senior Julian Fleming over the middle for the score — the first touchdown for the former Southern Columbia star since 2022, when he was playing for Ohio State.
Penn State finished with just 270 total yards against Ohio State with the offense accounting for only three points. By halftime on Saturday, the Lions had 264 yards and 28 points.
The final numbers were a dominant 486-193 edge in total yards for the Lions. It was Washington’s worst game on offense of the season by more than 100 yards and even forced Huskies coach Jedd Fisch to make a quarterback change from Will Rogers to the more mobile Demond Williams at halftime.
“We had 70 yards of offense, 50 yards of passing,” Fisch said. “It was 28-0, and we weren’t really getting anything done other than the first drive. I thought that it was an opportunity to give Demond a chance to play a full half of football that he hasn’t had the chance to do.”
Williams managed to lead the Huskies (5-5, 3-4) into three goal-to-go situations, but they came away with just six points as Penn State’s defense turned in one of its best showings of the season.
Abdul Carter had two more sacks, giving him four in November and eight for the season to rise up to second place in the Big Ten. Jaylen Reed came up with his third interception to set up a second quarter touchdown, and if Rogers hadn’t thrown the ball when he did, Carter was coming from behind for a potential strip sack.
The Lions defense played well enough to win against Ohio State. But when the offense sputtered at the goal line in the fourth quarter, the unit did not respond well, allowing the Buckeyes to run out the final five-plus minutes, almost entirely on the ground.
The defense seemed to take it personally this week. Washington ran for just 74 yards with 43 of them coming on a fourth-quarter run by Williams against all backups on defense.
“I just sensed the urgency after something we didn’t expect, which was a loss last week,” King said. “We’ve learned from that. We’ve grown from that. We got better. Guys took that on the chin.’