Skull Session: Will Howard Gets a Homecoming Win, Brandon Inniss Steps Up in State College and Jayden Fielding Delivers in Two Clutch Moments at PSU

By Chase Brown on November 5, 2024 at 5:00 am
Will Howard
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

Wait, Jake Diebler is goated.

Have a good Tuesday.

 THE POWER OF WILL. Around 150 miles from State College, down Interstate 76 and through the Alleghany Mountains, there’s a small town called Downingtown about one hour west of Philadelphia. (Note: west of Philadelphia, not west Philadelphia, where Will Smith was born and raised.)

Will Howard hails from Downingtown – him, Auntie Anne’s and Victory Brewing. All his life, Howard wanted to be Penn State’s quarterback. He wanted to lead the Nittany Lions out of the locker room and into a white-covered (or stripe-covered!) Beaver Stadium, where Penn State would battle the likes of Ohio State, Michigan and more. 

However, Howard never received an offer from his favorite school. He ended up at Kansas State instead. After four seasons with the Wildcats, Howard transferred to Ohio State. With Nov. 2 circled on his calendar, Howard knew he would have a chance to live out a dream in State College as a quarterback for another team – the team that had been (part of) Penn State’s downfall the past seven seasons.

“Stoked. Stoked. I cannot wait,” Howard said after the Nebraska game. “It will be a homecoming game for me. I grew up a Penn State fan. I wanted to go there my whole life. They didn’t think I was good enough. I guess we’ll see next week if I was.”

Like Babe Ruth, Howard called his shot.

And like Babe Ruth, Howard needed a couple of takes before he triumphed.

With Penn State ahead 3-0 after an opening-drive field goal, Howard tossed a pick-six on Ohio State’s third snap. The error put the Buckeyes in a 10-0 hole inside one of the most hostile environments in college football. It also put Howard at the center of the sport’s social media conversations – and not for good reason.

To his credit, Howard bounced back and led Ohio State on a 74-yard scoring drive, which he capped off with a beautiful 25-yard touchdown pass to Emeka Egbuka. On the next possession, Howard converted a 3rd-and-5 via a 20-yard connection with TreVeyon Henderson before a 2nd-and-9 toss to Brandon Inniss resulted in a 21-yard score. (More on Inniss in a moment.)

Howard seemed poised to extend Ohio State’s lead to 21-10 on the team’s next drive. However, disaster struck near the goal line. After Howard found Jelani Thurman for 19 yards on 4th-and-1, he called his own number, running to the Penn State 2-yard line before fumbling the ball off his knee and through the end zone for a touchback.

After halftime, Howard led the Buckeyes on two field goal drives. On the first, he ran 11 yards for a first down and then connected with Jeremiah Smith for a 14-yard strike that also moved the chains. On the second, Howard found Smith twice (18 yards and 14 yards) and Inniss once for 12 yards to put Ohio State ahead 20-13.

Oh, and not to mention, Howard could have had a 49-yard touchdown pass to Smith on the latter drive had Smith not slowed down on a go route. Smith’s speed decreased as he appeared to lose track of the ball, and he couldn’t corral Howard’s perfect pass over the top. But I digress.

On Ohio State’s final drive, Howard had three crucial runs that helped seal the team’s seven-point win. The final run occurred on 3rd-and-3 with 1:11 left as Howard ran for 7 yards on a quarterback sweep. He ended the sweep with a slide, which seemed poetic given the events at the end of the Oregon game. As Howard bounced up from the ground, he used Drew Allar’s first-down celebration – which is really the Houston Texans’ celebration – and turned to his offensive linemen filled with emotion.

“It was an emotional game for me,” Howard told Jenny Taft of FOX. “It didn’t start great. I did not play my best game, but I have the best team in the country around me. They bailed me out, man. The defense made some unbelievable stops on the goal line and kept us in that ballgame. What a great football game. What a great place to win.”

After an all-time locker room celebration, Howard’s emotion carried over into his press conference.

“We willed that game. We talked about it earlier in the week. We said, ‘We’re gonna have to will ourselves to win this game. There’s no way we’re gonna be able to lose.’ That was the way we played,” Howard said. “Being able to scrape out a win like that, it wasn’t pretty, but they’re a good football team. I believe that. They did some good things; I did some bad things. I believe if you take away the pick and the turnover in the end zone, it’s probably like 28-3 heading into the half. It’s a different game. 

“But we willed ourselves to win that game. I can’t give enough credit to my teammates. They bailed me out. Winning a game like that in my home state, it’s unbelievable.”

A self-aware king.

You love to see it.

 DID YOU FEEL THAT? In the preseason, Ryan Day said he can “feel” Brandon Inniss when he’s on the field. That has become a bit of sorts on the Ohio State beat. Each time Inniss crosses the white line, Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Row turns to Dan Hope and asks, “Did you feel that?” I find that hilarious. However, I also find the head coach’s comment to be true. You really can feel Inniss when he’s out there. That has never been more true than it was on Saturday.

Ohio State’s No. 4 receiver behind Emeka Egbuka, Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, Inniss hasn’t seen the field much this season outside of punt returns and a handful of kick returns. Yet, with the Buckeyes down 10-7, Day, Chip Kelly and Brian Hartline made Inniss the No. 1 option on what would become a 21-yard touchdown to put them ahead 14-10.

I should mention that Inniss took the field with Bryson Rodgers and Jayden Ballard one snap earlier. Ohio State handed the ball off to TreVeyon Henderson when the trio first entered the game. Expecting another run on the second snap – or even a quick screen pass to Henderson out of the backfield – Penn State ran man-to-man coverage. Inniss made a quick 3-yard out and ran the remaining 18 yards for the score.

In other words, Kelly cooked Penn State with his scheme and Inniss cooked Penn State with his legs.

“We knew whenever we needed to go in the game, whatever play needed to be made, we were gonna make it,” Inniss said. “We do practice situations like that. It was a long drive. Guys are tired. We just go in and handle the job.”

In addition to his game-changing touchdown, Inniss also picked up 12 yards and a first down on a fourth-quarter catch, leaving his box-score contributions at two receptions for 33 yards and one score.

Not bad for someone who recorded three snaps on offense!

 GOT ME FEELIN' NICEY. I mentioned Howard and Inniss above. I also mentioned Day, Kelly, Justin Frye, the offensive line, Jim Knowles, Davison Igbinosun and some other Buckeyes in the Monday Skull Session. Now, it’s time to talk about The Other Guys. No, not Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg – the other players who helped Ohio State secure its top-five win over Penn State.

I have to start with the running backs. While Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson’s combined 149 yards on 24 is excellent, that’s not what I want to address here. Instead, it’s the blocking. My goodness, the blocking. Judkins and Henderson have been violent in pass protection this season, but the star running backs put their bodies on the line to block for Will Howard on several occasions on Saturday.

GOT ME FEELIN' NICEY.

Next, Jayden Fielding. He had four field goal attempts before Saturday. His most recent attempt had been a 42-yard attempt against Nebraska that sliced harder than a baseball player’s drive off the tee box on hole No. 1. But in front of a record-breaking crowd at Beaver Stadium, Fielding was nails, drilling kicks from 46 and 39 in the second half.

GOT ME FEELIN' NICEY.

Next, Kayden McDonald. With Tyleik Williams on the sidelines, McDonald entered the game as Penn State marched toward the goal line. When the Nittany Lions reached the 3-yard line, McDonald became a brick wall on first and second down. He was still a brick walkk on 3rd-and-goal. Watch this rep as McDonald shoved Penn State center Nick Dawkins so far back that he slammed into the pulling guard, Olaivavega Ioane, and blew up the run.

GOT ME FEELIN' NICEY.

Next, Jelani Thurman. I almost passed out on that 4th-and-1 catch. He bobbled it, then bobbled it, then bobbled it again before hauling it in. While Howard’s fumble would make the catch inconsequential, the clutch catch should do wonders for Thurman, who has the potential to be a consistent contributor for the Ohio State offense in the future.

GOT ME FEELIN' NICEY.

WOO.

 BIG GAME JAMES. Oh, Big Game James. I haven’t even talked about Big Game James!

I am an optimist about a lot of things — and that includes Ohio State football, even if the Skull Sessions hadn’t reflected that in the past few weeks! — but I am never optimistic about what James Franklin can accomplish on a football field.

After Saturday, the perspectives were all the same: Another loss to a top-five team, and even worse, another loss to Ohio State. I have a friend, John, who continues to live in torture as a Penn State fan. He said to me Sunday, “It was how it has been. When we are good, we are not great. When we are great, we are not elite.”

Oof.

Under Franklin, Penn State has lost 11 consecutive games to AP top-five opponents and eight consecutive games to Ohio State. On Saturday, the Nittany Lions’ offense failed to surpass 300 yards of offense and converted 3-of-11 third downs. Their defense, on the other hand, allowed 358 yards of offense, including 176 on the ground (!), and allowed the Buckeyes to convert 6-of-12 third downs.

“We didn’t get it done,” Franklin said.

While John expected no different, the same could not be said for all Penn State fans. As Franklin walked off the field, he had a tense exchange with a person dressed like Colin Farrell in The Gentlemen. Meanwhile, other fans chanted, “Fire Franklin!” as he entered the tunnel.

“I understand the frustration,” Franklin said. “Guys in the locker room as just as frustrated, if not more.”

Later, he took a dose of copium.

“There’s nobody that’s looking in the mirror harder than I am. I will say this, and I’ve said it before, 99 percent of the programs across college football would die to do what we’ve been able to do in our time here. And that’s we, that’s all of us. But I also understand when you’re in a place like Penn State, there are really, really high expectations. When you’re at a place like Ohio State, there’s high expectations. I totally get it. We’ve looked at all these things really hard and we’ll continue to look at these things really hard.”

Sure, Jan.

 SONG OF THE DAY. “Promises” - Eric Clapton.

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